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Pop country had already destroyed "real" country music either 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or hell, 30 years ago depending on what generation you are. Unless your girlfriend's into some real obscure alt-country honkytonk sort of stuff, whatever she considered real country that might've been playing on the radio in 1995, 2003, or whenever she was younger was considered as 'ruining' country music by the next generation up.
I'm old enough to remember Garth Brooks being seen as the Taylor Swift of his time by country music fans.
That’s fair, I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the discourse surrounding country music and I was just speculating why she might not like Taylor Swift. When she sends me music she likes it’s usually… well, “honkytonk alt-country” probably isn’t the right word, but there are a lot of old hymns, though I think she enjoyed 90s country even if she thinks more classic folk music is better. I think the point for her is music that actually engaged with the problems faced by rural people, not stuff that tries to appeal to an urban (and by this I don’t mean ‘black’) audience or is just degenerate stuff about fucking a truck with a bottle of Coors Lite. On Swift, all she’s actually said is that she doesn’t like her.
Your comment made me curious though, so I asked her. She said she really doesn’t like her music, to the point where she would turn the radio dial if one of her songs came on. She said she’s found a lot of women will ask her if she likes Taylor Swift as an icebreaker, but she has no clue what interests them. So who knows.
She is also the most emotionally and interpersonally-stable person I’ve ever dated, so… I guess people can make of that what they will. But keep in mind this is someone whose favorite directors are Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese. She’s weird. I love her so much.
I'd actually probably agree with her on which sort of country music is better, but unfortunately, the market has spoken on this.
While it's probably just semantics, I'd also wouldn't say the shift is so much to going after an urban audience, but rather a more upscale exurban/suburban audience - instead of the more downscale working class audience (which has drifted to rap/hip-hop no matter their race), modern country music is aimed the type of guy who can buy the fully kitted out Ford F150 to drive to his car dealership job and maybe out to a lake cabin he rented, but never actually hauls anything or the woman who posts on Instagram about Jesus, but also had a fun time at college and so on. But in some ways, it's just the inevitable end of the fall of rock music (as there's lots of big songwriters in Nashville today that used to work in Los Angeles in the 80's) + the southernization of all of rural/exurban America, which made the culture of country music more available, but also flatter.
For all the talk of safety in art, the 'safest' genre as far as being afraid to offend anybody is absolutely modern country music.
It's fine to not like her, but Taylor Swift was not the first of her type, she was just the most successful by a giant margin.
Eh, there's plenty of poor/working class whites who like country music, either pop country or 'red dirt'(or more commonly, a mix thereof), although alty stuff is mostly for the $12/beer at live music venues crowd. Pop country sells better because teenaged girls fantasizing about dating a cowboy will spend more money than construction workers feeding their work radio.
Like, John Baumann and Uncle Lucius have 0% appeal outside of the 'excuse me, I work for a living' crowd. Really successful artists can usually crossover their appeal somehow, because plumbers and builders and the like will not spend money on music they don't have to.
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