I generally don’t pay much attention to it, or any other modern music. But when I’ve heard of country music in the last few years always seems really, really strained. Almost comically so. Like an overdone litany of down-home/redneck cliches in the lyrics, and a calculatedly overdone ‘accent’ in the vocal department. Altogether it seems more than a bit farcical and more than a bit phony.
The stuff from the 1950s/60s seems so much more ‘real’ and reflective of genuine life and living. Adult and unpretentious. Even the so-called over-orchestrated material that was long the subject of derision by some country fans.
Life in the 1950s and 60s was more real. That was before cable TV - even 24 hour broadcast TV, reality shows, MTV, the internet, portable personal communicators - all the forces that have so radically changed our society. We don't talk to each other anymore. We text and tweet. We don't discuss and debate. We just regurgitate sound bites. We have no positive role models in media or government. Just entertainers.
And there is no going back.