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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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