Country: When Did It All Go Wrong?

Mr. Lonesome:

Gents, new approach to breach a subject today: a trivia question.

This artist had a staggering 40 number one hits. FORTY ß for emphasis. Here’s a hint. This artist also had a physical disability. Guess the artist, and we can then discuss the crumbling genre.

And by crumbling, I merely mean “not what it once was” – it doesn’t have any bearing on its current commercial success.

Mr. Mean:

Ray Charles?

Mr. Lonesome:

It is not Ray Charles.

Let’s see if Mr On’ry can amaze us.

Mr. Mean:

Ronnie Milsap?

Wait, it has to be Stevie Wonder dude.

Mr. Lonesome:

You got it – with Ronnie Milsap! I’m sure On’ry would have gotten that if he were <ahem> around at the moment.

So, I mention him because we haven’t really talked much about country music. I know all three of us have a particular affection for the olden days of country. And though Mr Milsap leaned toward country-pop, I’d like to say that the person that ruined country music, by making it virtually indiscernible from pop is none of the than Mutt Lange.

Discuss.

Mr. Mean:

I think Garth Brooks ruined it before Mutt Lange. Country had gone into pop territory in the past (“9-to-5”, “Rhinestone Cowboy”, “Elvira”) but Garth opened it up to a whole new audience. From that point on, the linedancing and stupid arena tours started to happen. Shania Twain was horrendous, no doubt, and it was because of the songwriting and Lange’s slick pop leanings. But the genre has survived, just out of the mainstream. Old 97s, Whiskeytown, Uncle Tupelo, and tons of other “alt-country” acts have kept the flames burning. That said, in the middle of Garth/Shania mania, we had Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash bringing the stripped down feel back into the mix. 

Mr. Lonesome:

Ok, fair enough on the Garth Brooks. I sort of forgot about him, to be honest! SO let’s blame him and Lange together J

It’s funny you mention the alt-country, because that genre has done extremely well with the underground scene (or like you said, out of the mainstream). It’s amazing to see how many album sales country music still has, particularly because it’s morphed into that country-pop machine. For me, I get nostalgic for the older country acts of my youth, like Don Williams, the Mandrell Sisters, Alabama, etc. of the 80s, but who all still had their roots in the 70s and influences from decades even earlier. I guess I didn’t mind when they had their forays into pop back then, like Eddie Rabbit or Restless Heart, for example, and the songs you mentioned. But to me, it seems like songs like “Rhinestone Cowboy” and “9-5” seem more like novelty nowadays. Of course, someone like Kenny Rogers had some pretty serious hooks with a good deal of his music.

I guess I wish country would have stayed in the territory of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty, and the like.

Do you think there is a way we can blame Star Search and Sawyer Brown somehow??

Waylon Jennings: This is GOOD country.

Mr. On'ry:

Guys, sorry I'm tardy to the party.  But let me tell you where you are wrong.  First and foremost I love old country music probably even more so than either of you guys.  But you two talk as if country never tried to reach mainstream status before.  Patsy Cline, Faron Young, Ray Price, The Browns, Jim Reeves, Marty Robbins, Conway Twitty...all of them I love but all of them had some mainstream success going all the way back to the 1950's.  Hell there were purists back then who hated the mainstream success of artists like The Browns and Patsy Cline and would go put on their Bob Wills or Jimmie Rodgers or Bill Munroe or Buck Owens or The Louvin Brothers albums because they were "real" country music.  How quickly you two forget that artists like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings took control of their music and went "outlaw" in the 70's because they were tired of the glossy, polished Nashville sound that was being applied in the production process to their songs - a process that was designed simply to sell more records to a wider audience and take the "twang" out of country music.  Damn, man, as early as the mid-1970's guys like John Denver were winning awards as "Best Country Artist of the Year".   What?!? 

Country as a genre used to always have an identity crisis when one of it's own reached mainstream success...until the 1980's when mainstream America fully embraced country music, not only as a musical genre but as a fad.  I love the film Urban Cowboy.  One of my all time favorites but that movie (1982) did more to expedite the downfall of the genre than anything.  Go back and look at the soundtrack - Jimmy Buffet, Anne Murray, Joe Walsh, Bob Seger, Dan Fogleberg - none of these acts were "country".  They were pop/rock acts that this machine decided to throw into the mix to sell more vinyl and cassette tapes (and it worked!).  Plus the country artists that did appear - Kenny Rogers, Johnny Lee, Mickey Gilley, etc. were not only accessible already to a mainstream audience but were handed songs (or recorded their own) that were light and fluffy and slick on production.   That movie sold "country" as something more than a musical style and that hurt the genre more than anything.  Plus look at the list of artists you guys named from our childhood  - Ronnie Milsap, the Mandrell Sisters, Dolly Parton, The Oak Ridge Boys, the aforementioned Kenny Rogers, Alabama - all of these artists had HUGE mainstream success long before that @$$hole Garth Brooks ever picked up a guitar.  So did Glen Campbell, Lynn Anderson, Charlie Rich and yes, even my beloved Waylon & Willie.   So don't blame Mutt Lange or Garth Brooks.  Blame the country music machine in general for getting a taste of mainstream acceptance and going for the jugular. 

The difference from say the 70's to now though, and this is why I detest mainstream country music today, is that when an artist like, say, Willie Nelson wrote/recorded a song that crossed over ("On The Road Again" or "Stardust" for example) they weren't always writing/recording these songs with an eye on the pop charts.  Now it's the exact opposite.  Mainstream country music has NO soul.  All it's about is how quickly they can crossover to the pop charts and how many albums they can ship to the local Wal-Marts so that people who only listen to FM radio as a musical source can find their albums.  It's a giant, horrid machine that just churns out bubble gum pop rock, throws cowboy hats on it and calls it "country".  It's disgusting.  But the roots of this evil go much further back than I think you two are willing to admit to.  Hell our beloved Alabama, with their pop sensibility and slick production, (and tens of millions of album sales)  was just as guilty for helping to aid in the destruction of country music as anybody else was.   But Mr. Mean was right - Neko Case, Old 97's, Shooter Jennings, Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, Lucinda Williams, Phosphorescent, Holly Go-Lightly & The Brokeoffs, Drive By Truckers, Rachel Brooke, etc., etc. have all to a certain extent kept the true country fire burning (although now it's "alt country" which makes me laugh).  

Think about that.  At one point if you wrote gritty, down-home, backwoods music you were the accepted norm within the genre and celebrated.  Now if you attempted to write music in that style, the style of the true forefathers of the genre, you'd be shunned by the country hit machine and relegated to playing dive bars for gas money until you could build up your own following one fan at a time.  It sickens me to no end.  I want to take an 'artist' like Carrie Underwood cut her head off and leave it on a stake outside of whatever crappy record label is selling her to America as a "country".   Plus I'd be standing next to her grizzled, rotting face while the crows pecked out her eyes, smiling and giving them the finger in my Johnny Cash t-shirt.  And when they came to take me away and they asked me why I did it I'd tell them because the Country Gods were angry and wanted blood! 

Not that I'm bitter or anything...

Carrie Underpants: This is BAD country.

Mr. Mean:

I’ll give you that. But Urban Cowboy came out in 1980. So there.

For the record, Johnny Lee rules.

Mr. Lonesome:

It’s funny, I actually brought this topic up  to stir the pot a little bit, because we hadn’t barely touched on country yet, and I know Mr On’ry is a die-hard purist.

But Mr On’ry bring up an extraordinary point, and something I was thinking about yesterday when writing about the bands I loved (and saw in concert many times) in the 80s: they were very accessible. I know the acts I liked were radio friendly, because I heard them – wait for it – on the radio! In the Phoenix area, KNIX was the country station, and it was, at the time, one of the country juggernauts in the States. And every time I was in my dad’s truck, it was on. And I was more than ok with that.

Mutt Lange is easy to blame. And I’m ok with that too.

I think what I was trying to get at is though 80s (and 70s to the extent Mr On’ry mentioned) country music did thrive commercially, nowadays it seems to exist only to be commercial. Things were stirring decades ago, but I find there to have been a very certain crack in the earth that happened around the time Mutt Lange brought his particular “gifts” to Shania Twain records. Remember this is the guy that produces the “Thriller of Rock Album” with Def Leppard. So why not try and do the same in yet another genre?

Call me strange or misguided or whatnot, but to my ears, and my sensibilities, I could handle county-pop prior to a certain time-period. And the is Pre-Mutt.

Mr. Mean:

Well, in the 60s, Glen Campbell’s Galveston charted. In the 70s, you had Rose Garden, Harper Valley PTA, etc. Country always crossed over, just not as widespread as the 90s/00s.

Mr. Lonesome:

Right. I think that’s an important note: every decade had crossovers. The 80s had more than previously. But nowadays, it’s the direct inverse, as in if you don’t chart, then you are the anomaly.

Mr. On'ry:

You guys realize that you are just repeating what I stated before right?  I will still contend that country music had already started down a very dark path long before Mutt Lange got his mitts on Shania Twain.  They might have been the final nail in the coffin but the writing was already on the wall as far as I’m concerned.  

*So tell us, where and when do you think country went wrong (or do you think it never did)?