Country Music

This week in class we briefly talked about country music. Country music may all sound the same to people who don’t particularly like it, but if you take the time to listen to it, you would realize that is not the case. Although they mainly all sing about the same thing, they all say it from their point of view and in different ways. For example, we listened to “Girl in a Country Song” by Maddie and Tae. The song talks about all the ways guys have viewed or stereotyped girls, which is something different than most country artist. Every artist is different and sings about their own personal experiences. In a way it is a lot like pop music. They both have a wide variety of artist that sing about mainly the same things but in their own ways. Country artist however express themselves without the explicit context and is not sexualized as pop music. That is also why some country artist are also considered pop artist, because they are similar and depending what the song is about and how upbeat it is makes it pop or not. Some country-pop artists are Carrie Underwood, Sam Hunt, Dolly Parton, (who we also discussed in class this week) Florida Georgia Line, Johnny Cash (also someone we talked about) and many more. In class we discussed how country artist try to stay out of politics and sing about “country” things instead. However, from listening to country a lot when I was younger and still now today, I can say that a few artist and songs are definitely not just country and discuss things going on in the world. For example after 9/11, a majority of songs that came out about the attacks were by country artists. Although they may not sing about politics, there messages tend to say more than what some pop songs or other political artists have. I feel like country is the genre of music where you can listen to some songs and find a way to relate them either to your life or something you know about. My mother always loved Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood, both of which are very amazing and talented artists. There are a few songs that come to mind when I think of what they have written that are relatable for many people. I think country artists tend to stick to the country image, but there is some who strain away from that and do their own type of country. It sounds the same but has more of a message. Maybe even all artists do it just with a song or two. Country music is the kind of music you can turn on in the background and sing along to and enjoy. Even if you don’t particularly like country music, if you listen to it enough, (by choice or not) you will end up humming or singing along without even realizing it. It’s like pop music in that way, even if you hate the song playing you may find yourself humming along because of how catchy it is.