This is in reference to one of the things the girl does upon leaving the guy, which also includes changing her hair color. Later on in the song, when she sees the error of her ways and returns to the guy, who apparently spent the whole time sitting on his front porch in his overalls, we get the bookend line: “She changed her tune, it’s all Haggard and Jones.”
This allegory to country music being superior to hip hop is not in the least bit subtle, and while to each their own, I tend to agree, to the point where I’m comfortable saying that hip hop sounds like the contents of a toolkit being run through a washing machine, except with less understandable lyrics.
So, it is of great concern to me that the “hip hop mess” now seems to be infiltrating country music, not to mention the fact that it seems to be being embraced by its listeners. The way I see it, for a country song to be a hit these days it must have:
- Loud guitars that drown out all of the traditional country instruments
- (Not that any traditional country instruments are even being played)
- At least 35 percent of the lyrics rapped
- The words or phrases “girl”, “jeans”, “truck”, “out here”, “dirt road”, “backwoods”, “beer”, and “theoretical particle physics” included at least twice. I’m kidding about one of these
- Lyrics with roughly the same emotional depth as the weather report
- An alternate version of the song that features a hip hop artist such as T-Payne-Dizzle-Dawg-Yo*
Here in the Twin Cities, on my way to work each morning I
always scan through the country stations, just to cringe and survey the damage.
Besides Bob FM – whom I’m giving an enthusiastic shout-out to – these stations
all rotate through about ten songs each day, all of which sound exactly the
same, since they follow the above-stated parameters. An example playlist is as
follows:
- Luke Bryan: “That’s My Kind Of Night” – This song reminds me of “Another One Bites The Dust” at the beginning. It gets worse from there.
- Luke Bryan: “Country Girl (Shake It For Me)” – Just as I recover from “That’s My Kind Of Night.”
- Jake
Owen: “Days of Gold” – See
- Jason Aldean: “1994” – Joe Diffie actually tried to capitalize on this by coming out with his own hip hop country song afterwards. Seriously. It’s called “Girl Ridin’ Shotgun.” He sings with somebody by the name of D-Thrash. Honestly. Look it up. You won’t regret it. Although you might.
- Blake Shelton: “Boys ‘Round Here” – Blake once lamented in “Same Old Song” that everything sounds the same in country music and there’s no originality in it. Huh. Pot meet kettle. At least he went with the original lyrics “chew tobacco, chew tobacco, chew tobacco spit” in this one.
- Lee Brice: “Parking Lot Party” – See Jake Owen.
Needless to say, after trying to slog through to a lineup like this, I soon find myself looking forward to listening to the commercials. (“How do you spell Zerorez again? I need to know!”)
I realize that I’m probably sounding like an old-of-touch, stuck-in-the-past, blathering old man here, and I suppose that I sort of am. But it’s a free country, and I’m allowed to whine and complain all I want! So there!
Luckily, music seems to act like a pendulum, swinging from one extreme back to the other, which means that there will inevitably be short periods of actual good contemporary music being made. So with any luck, it’ll swing back to sound like 90’s country sometime before I die. If not, then I guess I can always listen to the washing machine.
* Not an actual hip hop artist. As far as I know.
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