Do you think the country music genre is a conservative medium?

I always thought this was an interesting subject to discuss. I come from a very conservative family who loved country music. And I know a lot of families who love country music who are also very conservative and almost always christian.

It's always been my belief that country music is generally used to promote conservative beliefs. But then there are exceptions like the Dixie Chicks and such.

What do you guys think?

I don't know the history behind it.

Antebellum" more commonly refers to pre-Civil War America, especially the pre-Civil War culture in the slave holding southern states.

I know that's a common trend among the people I know who listen to country.

In fact, one of my good friends brother is a huge country fan and his house is filled with confederate flags.

I really really want to ask the driver why he or she doesn't skip the vague imagery and simply drag the corpse of a slave behind the truck.

God forbid, the driver of that vehicle may even been somewhat "simple-minded", which I've been advised is slander. LOL.

But then the intelligent design nuts would have been offended, can't please everybody...

The whole "boot in your ass. It's the American way" was supposedly satire making fun of Americans.

Some of the shit he says in his songs is so ridiculous that it would be more insane if he were serious.

He started with all this "it's satire" shit after he took some flack for some of the hateful misogynistic shit he said. It the old woe is me I'm a misunderstood victim card that these asshats like playing.

Albeit a hawkish one

He's one of those guys who would never admit to voting Bush, but he's a die-hard fundie southern baptist and doesn't hesitate to support GOP policies.

of him. Partially because of the whole feud with the Dixie Chix and partly because of the lyrics about "boot in their ass" he is perceived as being this kneejerk rightwing reactionary. The interview made it pretty clear that he isn't. He even said he didn't think we should have gone into Iraq. However, he is a massive supporter of the troops and did agree with Afghanistan. The whole thing with the Dixie Chix started because they critiqued his lyrics and he made the point that they mostly didn't even write their own lyrics and then it got into the whole "fat" thing and it just got silly and funny.

There are a fair # of Country music Democrats. Brad Paisley is also one iirc. Regardless, country music as a whole clearly tilts towards the right probably to about the same extent that rock music tilts to the left. There is still a broad diversity in both.

also known as "someone who needs to shut the hell up about politics before they embarrass themselves even further".

People who have a microphone by virtue of some unrelated talent, that makes them think they are some sort of political sage

Since then, however, he's gone full teabagger/Palin fan.

phony, plastic version of country music seems to go hand in hand with the Conservative movement, yes. It plays to all that self-pitying, self-aggrandizing, "I'm a real American and you're not" bullshit.

He keeps a country radio station on all night. I can't stand the new country music and there are no stations that really play the older stuff. I guess that might be an artifact of the Clear Channel ownership. Boy, if there is ever a market to be filled right now, it would be for classic country.

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:rofl: I haven't listened to enough country music in my entire lifetime (with a few exceptions like Johnny Cash) to form a coherent opinion about Country Music.

Country genre doesn't have to be conservative, but it really does tend to be, in terms of lyrics and attitude. Behind the times. Give me yesterday's news. Same goes with the fashion associated with country singers. They're still wearing bootleg jeans.

But then you have someone like Johnny Cash who was sort of country, sort of rock, but he really doesn't seem conservative...obviously...he's too cool! Cool people are never conservative, and conservative people are never cool. Fact.

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He wasn't that easily pigeonholed. Anybody could pick and choose aspects of his beliefs/sayings etc. to support either theory, but if you look at him as a whole, he is not that easily classifiable

Johnny Cash is not my most favoritest musician, but he is definitely cool!

I love the not-easily-classifiable.

that message pulled a lot of people together back then.

But yes, country music seems the most likely to have a Republican tone.

The lyrics are mostly nonsense though.

college was a huge country music fan - in his world, Hank Williams LIVED and was the closest thing to Almighty God. And I tried. I really did. Never did like country music to begin with, but for his sake I decided to try. JESUS, MARY, & JOSEPH, I tried, and it was sheer torture! Utterly NAUSEATING. My teeth would just instinctively find their way to grating mode as soon as one of those songs got started. My face would melt into an automatic grimace without my even thinking about it. It'd just happen. Start up with any soupy pedal steel and I wanna go shoot myself! One night there was a party at the house a bunch of us shared, and he kept putting stuff on the stereo with all these cryin'-in-their-beer-and-singin'-through-their-noses songs and it just kept mooing on and on like a pasture full of drunken cows and got worse and worse and twangier and twangier and hay-seedier and hay-seedier until finally he got to this album of Nashville session musicians called "Area Code 615". Evidently a collaboration of some of the most primo session musicians in the business but it didn't matter HOW expert or HOW accomplished or HOW respected they were, industry-wide. I swear that record literally made me run screaming into the night. I actually had to physically LEAVE.

I can't stomach country music. Just can't do it. I'd rather listen to sarah palin talking with the Kardashian sisters all night - and those are the absolute all-time worst and most annoying speaking voices known to humankind.

A friend told me a random woman approached him in a parking lot and was raving about the Christian rap album her boyfriend got for her.

What does "Christian rap" sound like? I'm not sure I want to know.

I mean, the vast majority of it is fucking terrible. But some of it is fairly descent. I think it gets better as the Christian message becomes more diluted though.

I think we've established that you musical taste is suspect at best.

I own like 1 or 2 country albums. The vast majority of my music is rock and the sub genres.

But the rap group Grits is a fairly decent christian based band.

i am kidding... kind of.

My shit is legit.

sometimes I do keep it on. Occasionally. Usually, the "catchy" part is there. The lyrics are always stupid. ALWAYS.

I think that's the main reason why I sometimes listen to Christian rock. I like to sometimes hear something that's catchy, but yet I get to laugh at the lyrics.

Sorry. I'm an agnostic, leaning toward atheist.

That favorite band confession just blew your shit up.

I love Steve Taylor (apart from the horrific 80s production). He did a song about militant anti-abortionists called "I Blew Up the Clinic Real Good" that got him banned from Christian radio back around 1988 or so. Since then he's kind of skirted the edges, making music that is Christian but isn't mindless praise music.
When U2 first came out they were considered a Christian band and through Joshua Tree at least wore their faith almost as prominently as their left-wing activism. Folk singer Bruce Cockburn is another left-wing Christian singer who wrote one of my favorite protest songs from the 80s, "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" and also one of the most beautiful meditations on faith I've heard, "All the Diamonds in the World."

On the surface it was the usual boy band pop love song thing until you realized WHO they were singing these songs to; containing as they did so many of the cliches and phrases used in more mainstream fare.

I found it mildly disturbing to say the least.

I'm serious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmRhCBeVnmc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ5Az8pHeZs

:beer:

...one part Blut und Boden

Yep, country music defines the conservative experience.

country music is as diversified as our nation.

besides who listens to that shit? Okay wait I do like the Dixie Chicks because I am in love with Natalie Maines I can't help it.

Sometimes I just like flipping the radio over to the country music channel to listen for a bit. Something about the music (not the lyrics).

Johnny Cash was a very strong Democrat and Tim McGraw has mentioned at one time an interest in running for office as a Dem. I happen to love music of all kinds...so there is a lot of country music that I like, as well as rock and jazz and classical, reggae,etc. I am a Howard Dean Democratic. There are likely more Dems involved in country music, but I would say that even country artists probably play into that stereotype.

Garth Brooks did a pro LGBT rights song in the early 90s, Loretta Lynn was singing feminist anthems in the 60s and about taking birth control in the 70s, Steve Earle's been a tireless campaigner against capital punishment since the late 80s. Kris Kristoffersen, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Nanci Griffith...

Very, very few musicians in other genres, particularly rock, jazz, blues, and reggae, are conservative. Rock lyrics have helped define liberal/progressive ideology, thought, and expression since the 60's.

Country is the conservatives genre. Sure, there's Willy Nelson, a flaming liberal, the Dixie Chicks, Steve Earle, and some others that don't talk real loud about being liberals because the bulk of their listeners are conservative. And probably a lot of the real old timers like Hank Williams and Kitty Wells were working folk grassroots Democrats. But nowadays it seems much of country music is like a watered down Fox News broadcast with basically the same listeners as Fox News.

Country music used to be very populist; pro-working class, pro-labor, in touch with the problems that working people face and the everyday things that make up working-class life. Now? It's just a bunch of flag-waving and Jesus masturbating. Some modern country stars have spoken out about it (sometimes very vaguely, because country radio can be VICIOUS to those it sees as "traitors"), but their voices are pretty much lost in the "Ooooh, what's Toby McGraw Swift going to release next?!" cacophony.

Most people today don't really know whether or not they like country music, because they've never actually HEARD it. What you hear today is vaguely twangy pop-gospel.

I can't stand to listen to 99% of it.

contemporary country is basically pop music with a pedal steel and a southern accent anyway...

Unless you're just talking about the crap that passes for c/w these days.

Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, and the late, great Johnny Cash would disagree.

Johnny Paycheck too.

I don't think country music is inherently conservative any more than "country" people are inherently conservative... but the music may reflect the trend for more and more rural people to be socially conservative even when it works against their economic interests whereas before, when the labor movement was stronger, more farmers identified with Democrats and the urban working class so you saw some country singers like Lynn who were Democrats.

Anyway, seems like we got the folkies (Dylan, Baez, Tracy Chapman, the Guthries, Seeger, etc.) and the Republicans mostly got country (Garth Brooks, Toby Keith). I wouldn't trade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z04r_tlWdRs

:)

Also liberal.

And this makes me think of "Born in the USA!!!" by Bruce Springsteen. We all know where Bruce Springsteen stands.

I know you know that. Toby Keith for instance is not a liberal, but he's a Democrat. People keep conflating the two in this thread.

is not a liberal or a democrat, no matter how they identify themselves.

Toby Keith also "told CMT that he would likely vote for the Republican ticket, partially because of his admiration for Sarah Palin." (from Wikipedia)

Sorry... but this is someone who fundamentally doesn't understand politics.

He did an LGBT song in the early 90s, which got him in trouble with the country establishment. He played it at the Lincoln Memorial concert before Obama's innauguration.

As a musician and composer for 30 years running I can tell you exactly why, it's easier for lower intelligence people to relate to country music. That IS NOT meant as a slander to people's musical interests, it's just a fact. Country music is very simplistically composed and therefore very simple-minded people find it more attractive. Obviously that IS NOT always the case however it IS frequently the case. With that said, there are always exceptions, such as the fact that I love the voice of Patsy Cline, the message of the Dixie Chicks and frequently listen to cross-genres of music that involve some level of country music in it.

Now start spewing the hate people, start purposely misinterpreting what I said and let the vile stench of condemnation flow from within!

There's nothing wrong with simple.

Told ya there would be some vile accusations as a result of my honesty. Carry on!

LOL

"very simple-minded people find it more attractive"

Here's an idea, go after the original poster who brought it up, send some of your vileness in that direction.

:)

The country singer--I think his name is John Rich--got really offended. lol

It is wrong to stereotype the fans or the stars of country music. There are many bright people who listen to country music.

BTW, John Rich is a major Repubbie. He first supported Thompson, then McCain for President. He sang a song he wrote for McCain at the close of their convention.

There is something wrong with being easily deluded, however.

The roots of country music contain a lot of anti-establishment sentiment especially in regard to the class struggle.

Healthy patriotism, traditionalism, and religiousness get mixed in and corrupted by fake patriotism, oppressive traditionalism and xenophobic religiousness (especially since Vietnam) and it takes on a "conservative" tint, but it isn't exclusively or necessarily conservative.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and rival miners' unions appropriated both the term redneck and its literal manifestation, the red bandana, in order to build multiracial unions of white, black, and immigrant miners in the strike-ridden coalfields of northern and central Appalachia between 1912 and 1936. The origin of redneck to mean "a union man" or "a striker" remain uncertain, but according to linguist David W. Maurer, the former definition of the word probably dates at least to the 1910s, if not earlier. The use of redneck to designate "a union member" was especially popular during the 1920s and 1930s in the coal-producing regions of southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and western Pennsylvania, where the word came to be specifically applied to a miner who belonged to a union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck

that gave credit to the people, not their owners.

I learned the meaning of redneck in a documentary about miners, maybe five years ago. All those years in school and nada, nadita about labor in this country.

The origin of the term "redneck" dates back to the 16th century, in Scotland. The Scottish Presbyterians signed the "Covenant", binding themselves to uphold Presbyterian Christianity as the sole religion of Scotland; many of them signed in blood, and many wore red scarves as a visible sign of their allegiance to the Covenant, which led to them being called "rednecks".

Redneck simply refers to poor farmers who have sunburn on their necks.
From the Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins (Writers Reference), the definitive last word on word origins.

RhythmandBlue got it right on DU in 2007.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2064954#2065135

The Scottish Covenanters are recorded as being called "red necks" in the 17th century. The "sunburn on the neck" folk etymology dates to the 20th century. The American south was populated by lowland and Ulster Scots Presbyterians. The first recorded use of "redneck" in America (nb: "recorded" doesn't mean it wasn't in use earlier) is from 1830, where it's given as "a term used of Presbyterians".

So no, sorry.

It doesn't refer to the Scotch-Irish. The Scotch-Irish populated the Appalachians, and were called hillbillies, not rednecks. So yes, you are wrong.

Southern coal miners WERE involved in a class conflict, fighting for their rights. You can trace that back to Scotland, you can say that the people who tied the red scarfs around their necks were following an old Scottish tradition, but fight they did, for the rights of common working people. What you can't ignore is that the fight for the rights of common working people for recognition as people is a deep and old part of the country and bluegrass music traditions.

I used to hear the older stuff all the time because my late stepfather always had it on. While not my taste because I'm more into power chord rock, it really was populistic in an honest way, and often humorous, and quite varied in its styles and sound.

The new stuff is faux populistic and all sounds so much the same, and as another poster noted above, has too much of an "I'm a real American and you're not" feel to it.

country music as such is descended from Anglo-Celtic folk music brought to America by English and Scots-Irish/border Scots immigrants in the 17th and 18th centuries. These are the same people who populated much of the South, especially the mountain South (West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia). Their descendants are the same people who are likely to be culturally and socially conservative and evangelical Christian. I think that if the country music genre as such is conservative it only reflects the people who make and listen to country music.

showing that Country music isn't necessarily Conservative.

Ever since it cracked the crossover threshold the industry has embraced Formula™ production. Every once in a while a true poet, picker or twanger emerges but as a whole, the entire genre has succumbed to the factory mindset.

I don't much care for C&W. It was how I was conditioned. I grew up in the 60s and 70s in a West Texas town where "kickers" were considered social outcasts. I realize that sounds preposterous to some but you might not realize how tiresome the "cowboy" stereotype is to a Texan. While I appreciate country greats such as Jim Reeves, Marty Robbins or Patsy Cline, I also mocked the funny outfits, big hair and soap opera lyrics. The country renegades of the 70's were refreshing but then the 80's came along bringing that Amy Grant crap and whatever hope there was for country, IHMO, went all to hell.

As for the political aspects of country. I don't think the music is necessarily conservative. I just think a lot of conservatives listen to it.

I've always preferred lyrics to tunes. I always thought the lyrics with country songs were stupid.

that RW corporate agenda.

I think most "liberal" country artists are forced to exist outside the mainstream. I think "rock" artists like Steve Earle, Ryan Adams, Jason Isbell, and even Mike Ness are doing music more in the vein of Hank Williams and Merle Haggard than the crap heard on "country radio" nowadays.

And furthermore, I think Gilded Palace of Sin and Exile on Main Street were the greatest "Country Music" albums ever.

nt

:puke: on the boot scooter fuckwits.

What happens to the Dixie Chicks' music if the political views of the majority of country artists are conservative?

Nothing.

But I love western music! Bob Wills, Jimmie Rodgers, Spade Cooley, Hank Williams Sr. etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbzc77Tz6PA

But Hank Williams Jr? Must I listen to his "music".....No!! Kill me now!!!

youtube "country boy can survive" and "mister lincoln"

You are probably more likely to find conservatives/Republicans among country performers and a lot of their songs seem to emphasize a more cultural conservative mindset, mostly because they grew up in the South which, as we all know, is more conservative/Republican than, say, someplace like California. As with anything else there are some notable exceptions (i.e. Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Dixie Chicks), of course.

:rofl:

I know. Never mind. LOL, I have had a few beverages. :toast:

That wouldn't explain its popularity outside the US.

I don't regard the Cheesy Dicks as country anyway.