Sunday, August 20, 2006

The Irrelevance of Mainstream Country Music

So Los Angeles has joined New York and San Francisco as markets without a country music station. I wonder why? Could it be that the music is so bad, so completely vapid and worthless, that people aren't listening anymore? This is so shocking. And I would have thought that production values reminiscent of Journey albums and songs about how much you still love your wife would really resonate with the public.

Seriously, Nashville is run by some of the stupidest people on the planet. There is still a potential market for country music in this country. But not the worthless shit that Nashville puts forward as their stars. Why listen to Faith Hill or Tim McGraw when you could listen to, well, just about any other music on the planet.

That it's Los Angeles says a lot too. LA has always been a country music haven because of the mass migration of southerners to the region beginning in the 1930s and then exploding during and after World War II. Bob Wills moved out there in the 40s to play his legendary concerts on the Santa Monica Pier. Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and Wynn Stewart got their starts in Bakersfield and of course played LA all the time. This is the equivalent of not having a country station in Dallas or Oklahoma City. And if Nashville keeps putting out this shit, they probably won't have stations in those cities either.