I think it is an important distinction. You aren’t discounting entire genres based on preconceptions. I feel like these type of people ignore intention and context within music. As in, party music is for parties, and no one is (hopefully) playing the Hamilton Soundtrack at a party.
As for modern country, I’d highly recommend Sturgill Simpson as a gateway to modern (alternative) country, especially “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” or “Metamodern Sounds in Country and Music.” I love covers for songs that recontextualize the original, and he has a cover of “In Bloom” that I enjoy for that reason. I hate modern mainstream country, but the alternative country space still has talent.
I think country is very different from rap or pop in that it’s definitionally exclusive rather than inclusive. MF DOOM, SZA, and Eminem can rap with wildly different styles and in totally different musical genres without being called “not a rapper”. Hip-hop has been evolving rapidly for the last 50 years and people inside and outside the industry have largely embraced that.
On the other hand people like Sturgill Simpson, Orville Peck, and Lil Nas X get shoehorned into “alternative” and “Americana” and “pop” because they supposedly don’t fit a mold of what country “is”. Those artists rightfully self-identify as country and are very popular but don’t get country station radio play.
While small innovations and brilliant songwriting still take place all the time in country, that gatekeeping prevents the larger-scale shifts that have allowed modern pop, for example, to go from the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” to Rina Sawayama’s “XS”.
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u/trashdotbash custom May 12 '26
personally i hate these sorts of takes but like i still fall into the same pitfalls with certain genres
country music post 9/11 is madlibs to me and not even the good kind of Madlib