Middle America's soul

[Mr.Conley]

If you want to understand America, turn that dial to a country-music station

IN 1943 Roy Acuff, a country superstar, invited the governor of Tennessee to a party. The governor snubbed him, complaining that he and his awful musicians were making Tennessee “the hillbilly capital of the United States”.

No modern American politician would dare be so sniffy about country music. On the contrary, many embrace it. Mark Warner campaigned for the governorship of Virginia in 2001 with a lively bluegrass song: “Get ready to shout it from the coal mines to the stills/ Here comes Mark Warner, the hero of the hills.” He won—quite an achievement for a Democrat in a conservative state, especially when you consider that he was “a Connecticut Yankee who had moved to northern Virginia and made a zillion in the telecommunications industry”, as conceded by his campaign manager, Dave “Mudcat” Saunders.

Mr Saunders reckons that “if you want to get a message down into the soul of a God-fearing, native-to-the-earth, rural-thinking person, one of the surest ways is through traditional country music.” He may be right. And there are an awful lot of God-fearing, rural-thinking folk in America. Some 45m Americans tune in to country-music radio stations each week. In the heartland, no other genre comes close.

But for some Americans, still, there is something risible about country. “I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means ‘put down’,” quipped Bob Newhart, a comedian. When George Bush senior wrote an article about how much he liked country music for Country America magazine, the Washington Post reprinted it under the snooty headline: “George and the Oval Office Do-Si-Do: Heck, a President Ain't Nothin' but Just Folks”.

Outside America, the sneering is unrestrained. When Garth Brooks, who has sold more than 115m albums, appeared on British television in 1994, one interviewer chortled: “I thought you'd come in here and twiddle your pistol around.” Another shrugged: “He's selling more records than anyone in the world, but none of us have ever heard of him.”

Continued at http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8345548

 

[liberalogic]

It's funny though-- I'm from New Jersey and I've rarely seen people get into country music...and the people who I grew up around were not rich by any stretch of the imagination.

So why does the middle class in the southern portion stick with country and my friends always listened to rap (which I don't really like)?

 

[Mr.Conley]

Urbanization, purchasing power, cultural differences, industrial vs. agricultural economies, education level, divorce rates, weather, population levels, history, non-suckiness, could be any number of factors.

Personally I hate country music. I avoid that stuff like a 14th century serf avoided plague-bearers. That said, I thought the article gave an interesting perspective.

 

[liberalogic]

Urbanization, purchasing power, cultural differences, industrial vs. agricultural economies, education level, divorce rates, weather, population levels, history, non-suckiness, could be any number of factors.

Personally I hate country music. I avoid that stuff like a 14th century serf avoided plague-bearers. That said, I thought the article gave an interesting perspective.

I avoid it more than a girl with syphilis...especially considering Nirvana is my favorite band (you couldn't have a more drastic genre to contrast country with).

Great article though.

 

[Merlin]

If you want to understand America, turn that dial to a country-music station


Continued at http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8345548

Yes, an interesting article. Country is the only music some people, like myself, can understand the words to. Most of it now days is just screaming into a microphone and if you could understand the words, they wouldn't have any meaning anyway. But there isn't any country music any more. It turned into rock & Roll a few years ago. I have CDs now if I want to listen to real Country. In my opinion, when they let the beatles off the airplane in the 60s, that started the downhill slide of the United States because kids were vurnable to trash like that. Then it eventually went downhill again with rap. We're at the bottom now so there is no way to go but up from here.