In the last few weeks, I’ve gotten into country music. Before this, it was a genre that I generally avoided. Being from Georgia, I’d heard some, but the way people around me spoke about it was enough to dissuade me from really looking much into it. It was the butt of every joke, something to avoid, ESPECIALLY if you were from the south, because you needed make it absolutely clear you weren’t “hick” or “that kind of southern”
But, this quick dismissal of an entire musical genre is a mistake. It is grossly simplifying to state that all country music is bad, and it reaffirms the fact that people don’t actually seem to know what country music is. Country music, historically, is a blend of folk and blues. Neither of these genres is devalued quite like country music because they are viewed with the nuance country music often isn’t given. We’ve come to associate country music to a certain type of person (which is condescending and problematic). It’s associated with an idea of blue-collar America that we don’t want to align ourselves with (again, so problematic).
Country music is also just a lot of different things. It is a genre of music that is filled with subgenres. Johnny Cash is country. So are Shania Twain, Elvis Presley, and Dolly Parton. Ray Charles himself contributed a great deal to country music. Outside these classic examples, there’s a great deal of variety within contemporary country music. Listen to “Boondocks” by Little Big Town, and then “If My Name was Whiskey” by Carly Pearce and tell me all country music sounds the same (also, just listen to these songs, they’re awesome). There is so much to explore in country music. If you don’t like Luke Bryan, that’s fine. But you shouldn’t proclaim yourself “anti-country” just because you heard “Play it Again” once.
There have been studies shown that a southern accent is, on average, taken less seriously and seen as less intelligent. We have clear biases against what is associated with southern culture, and it’s narrow-minded. Yeah, country music is often about beer and trucks and girls and southern living. But, rock music is often about sex and drugs and partying. Every genre has their tropes, but that doesn’t make the genre worthless.
There’s plenty of country music I don’t like. But there’s so much of it that’s fun, and beautiful, and just fantastic. Some of it has the power to transport you back to the lakes of Georgia, or to the valleys of North Carolina, or the woods of Alabama. The fact that I refused to really listen to it for so many years is really embarrassing, especially considering country’s ties to folk and rock music, two of my favorite genres. It took no longer living in Georgia to want to associate myself with the culture of the south, and that was pretentious and silly of me. I guess what I’m saying is you should give country music a chance. You don’t have to like it, but don’t dismiss it out of hand. And, just because you don’t like one song, that doesn’t mean you don’t like the whole genre.