Country is odd, but not bad

Country music is an odd conversation topic with many music fans online and in person. I have heard the phrase: “I like all types of music except for country,” many times. Honestly, it makes sense. Most people base country music off only the stuff they’ve heard on the radio or though TikTok. I am here to prove that country music should be given a chance anyways.  

The first thing that I point to when defending country music is that like most genres, country music has a deeper pool of music than the songs they put out on the radio. I personally became a fan of more classic country music like the songs of Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton as I dipped my toes into the genre. Parton’s album “Coat of Many Colors” convinced me to look further in this genre that I once didn’t like.  

Alt-country is an avenue that I went through when looking for good country music as well. The whole point of the genre is that its music is disconnected from country radio, after all. When exploring, I found that the artists and songs I listened to were much more authentic and varied than most contemporary country stars today.  

If you’re interested in this type of country by just reading about it, I suggest you listen to Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s catalogue. His music is more folk-oriented and subdued than other country artists. Also, his country instrumentation is a bonus to the romantic vibe some of his music has.  

There’s a reason that country music radio tends to feature bad, formulaic artists that sound similar. Country music radio often ignores the talents of women, people of color and LGBTQ individuals, and it’sfrankly saddening. 

This even shows in programming around us. WBAM, a country radio station located in Montgomery, has its top 30 songs played on their station from the past week and out of the top 30, only three songs were made by female artists. Out of those three, two of them were made by the same female artist and none were people of color.  

Country music radio does this while full well knowing that there is country music talent in marginalized communities. When relating to music from people of color, this practice could be traced back to the 1920s, when businessman Ralph Peer found commercial success in country-styled music twice.  

Peer marketed the very first “hillbilly” music singles to white audiences and the first rural country blues recordings (called race records at the time) to black audiences. While this did help black artists in rural communities get recorded and show record executives that having music for black audiences could make them money, the tradeoff was that a precedent was set to where country music was a predominately white field with very little variation. 

This can be said similarly for female artists as well. After The Chicks’ 2003 controversy, female artists have consistently been receiving less than 20 percent of country music radio airplay. It was a well-known fact that women didn’t get airplay to the point that radio workers were getting comfortable talking about it. Keith Hill, a radio consultant said “If you want to make ratings in country radio, take females out” when interviewing about female underrepresentation in country music radio. 

I firmly believe country music’s radio is unique in the way that it actively contributes to the unoriginality of artists coming up. People tend to ignore other country music because country music radio as an institution has been great about promoting the same, formulaic junk and pushing it to be unavoidable anywhere you go.  

It’s good to look out for music that you like and try to find as much as possible with any genre, but I believe country has had a bad rep in recent years for online music fans. I will be enjoying “This Kiss” by Faith Hill, thank you very much.