"Country Ain't Country No More"

Is country music dead? Well, maybe that's a little harsh. It's not, but Nashville appears to be doing everything they can to kill it in its truest form. I'm fully beginning to believe that Nashville is where good music goes to die. I know that without a doubt Nashville has an incredible music scene and has some of the best singer-songwriters around. However, by the time the songs work their way up the ladder they're so watered down that what's left is nothing of any real substance. Now, there are exceptions to this, but it doesn't seem like there's many. A great example of Nashville's uncanny ability to water down a great song is the butcher job Tim McGraw did of Ryan Adam's "When the Stars Go Blue." I'm a fan of Tim McGraw's, but I was extremely disappointed in his hatchet job of a great song and I'm still perplexed at how someone could take such a good song and make it unlistenable. That being said, I love the "Set This Circus Down" album. However, anything he's done since then, including "When the Stars Go Blue", has not come close to that quality and is just hard for me to listen to or take seriously.

Each day, I get in my truck and fight the radio. I'm fortunate in that I have 3 country music stations to choose from. However, at any given time, almost all of them fail to play anything inspiring. Country Music has turned more into looks, weight-lifting and cookie cutter songwriting and seriously lacks originality and quality.

I am friends with the guys in The Lost Trailers. I've seen them play underneath beach houses and in beach-side bars. For so many years they absolutely blew me away with their passion and playing. They brought it every time I saw them play and always left me raving and eager to share their music with my friends who hadn't yet heard them. However, now, they have gone to Nashville in search of fortune and in doing so have lost, in my opinion, the very thing that made them great. I recently saw them play and was embarrassed for them. I fully believe that good bands don't have to come out and parade around on the stage acting like a bunch sellouts. If you're good, the music speaks for itself and if you play your music from the heart, the people will pick up on that and feed off of it. That's what The Lost Trailers used to do. That's all changed now that Nashville's gotten a hold of them and unfortunately The Lost Trailers now appear to be just like every other new act coming out of Nashville.

I remember watching Nashville Star a few years back when Blake Shelton got all over Zach Hacker, a contestant, because he a) didn't like the song they asked him to play, and b) he didn't like the clothes they made him wear. Zach complained to the judges that the song just wasn't "him." Blake said to Zach something like, "Zach, you think I picked this shirt out for myself to wear, you think I picked out these pants? Sometimes, Zach, you've gotta do things you don't want to do in order to advance your career and your opportunity." See, to me that goes exactly against what music is all about. Music is suppose to be about self expression, not about trying to look, dress and sound like everyone else. Zach had/has one helluva a voice and had/has real talent. Zach didn't have to fake it but Nashville still felt the need to try and sell him as something he wasn't.

I think about guys like Joe Nichols, Billy Currington, Keith Anderson and all the other "new" artist Nashville is trying to push. Their music sounds about the same, they all look like they spend more time being body builders than musicians and seem to be trying to promote a certain look, sound and feel. I call it the "Nashville Formula" and it reminds me of the exact same look, sound and feel of the Hair Bands of the 80s and early 90s. They too seemed to lack any real talent and/or character. They all looked and sounded exactly the same and as we all learned there was much better music out there.....

So, what I'm guessing is that eventually some sort of country act is going to come along and do to Country Music exactly what Nirvana did to mainstream harder rock music. Nirvana refused to sacrifice who they were and instead decided to keep their individuality opening the world up to a whole new look and sound. They were real, and people immediate related to that. Many of us were already there and had been listening to bands like Nirvana for years. At the time it was considered "Underground Music" but is was better than anything on MTV. We knew it and when it hit there was this "finally" feeling about it for so many of us who had grown tired of all the Hair Band b.s..

Right now, I know for a fact, as many others do, that the best "Country Music" is being played in Texas. There is so much good music coming out of Texas that I find it unbelievable that it hasn't taken America by storm. The music is real, heartfelt, fun and to me it's better than anything that's come out of Nashville in years. Texas music is the reason why one of the first things I do every morning when I get to the office is open up the Radio Free Texas website. Unfortunately, Radio Free Texas is also the reason why I want to rip the radio out of my car every time I get in it. I'm fortunate in that there are people like Daniel Miller out there that have found an avenue to bring great music all the way to guys like me in Charlotte, North Carolina that are hungry for something better. If only Daniel could find away to get his Radio Free Texas on Sirius/XM so that I can have it with me at all times the relationship between me and my car radio would be so much better.

Eventually, the world is going to catch on and Nashville will have to take notice. Guys like Randy Rogers and Pat Green are starting to break through, but still lack the corporate push in favor of formula acts like Keith Urban and Rascal Flatts. I'm still at a loss for how these corporate pushers just haven't gotten it yet. Doesn't it make sense to push the really great music over the really bad music? We celebrate Led Zeppelin over Donny Osmond for a reason. Why does Nashville miss this boat?