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"I don't like country music at all".

I've been going through a bunch of old country for the last little while. It's pretty idiosyncratic stuff: I can see how people might not like it.

Some of it I love, though.
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
How much opera have you heard?

Most people have heard thirty second bits of a fat woman singing Wagner, and think that that's opera. It is, but there's a lot more.

I realize that you have an encyclopedic knowledge of types of music that I'll probably never even get exposed to; knowing what you know about music, can you not accept that there might be examples of unfamiliar genres, that you might enjoy?
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See, Johnny, you're employing the very argument that I'm adamant is bogus. If somebody dislikes a genre, it has to be a failure on their part - a failure to investigate, a failure to understand.

I've heard lots of opera, seen live opera. I don't like it.

You're almost ruling out the possibility of individual tastes..
 
danny la rouge said:
And so to guide the thread back on course, that's the problem when people say they don't like country. I strongly suspect they haven't heard the right stuff. And that when they do, they are so tainted by Billy Ray Cyrus they don't give it a chance.
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jesus, danny :D

maybe they JUST DON'T LIKE IT
 
I think a lot of people who say they dont like country probably just havent heard the right kind. There are many different styles of country.

Ok, serious question. Are there any of you folk here who dislike country but do like, for example, the Rolling Stones?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dubversion
There's a lot of 'stuff' out there, are we supposed to digest and process it all? Or can we occasionally just take a guess that since we haven't enjoyed what we've experienced so far, we could just leave it there and move on.. ?
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No, but why dismiss something out of hand, when the possibility exists that it may have some redeeming qualities?
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I think with music just like books/authors/genres I agree with dubversion.
For example when every sad fucker I came across was reading Harry Potter and telling me "just try it, you can't say you won't like it without trying it, how do you know?"
Well I always say to them, "why don't you go and read a Barbara Cartland book. She's very popular you know. If so many people like her she must be good."

If you think you don't like blues or country well, hell, thats fine by me. Maybe your taste will change over time, but lets not be all high and mighty saying "Oh but, you haven't heard this, how can you KNOW you don't like it?"
That kind of atitude is just irritating as fuck.

The most effective way of influencing others music appreciation IMO is to slip a chosen record on in a good house/dinner party atmos when everyone's is a bit merry. Thats how I get turned on to music I've previously dismissed.

Oh Yeah,
country fans,
Try Ween "12 Golden Country Greats"
my favourite country LP :D
 
dirtysanta said:
Ok, serious question. Are there any of you folk here who dislike country but do like, for example, the Rolling Stones?
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:D It's the other way round for me: I like country but not the Rolling Stones.
 
danny la rouge said:
:D It's the other way round for me: I like country but not the Rolling Stones.
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The reason used that as an example is because when i met my missus she couldnt understand why i liked country. At a party i played a couple of stones CD's and the tracks Wild Horses and Country Honk were played and she really liked them. I explained that they both culd be considered country. I think for some people their impression of country is shania twian, garth brooks etc etc.
 
dirtysanta said:
The reason used that as an example is because when i met my missus she couldnt understand why i liked country. At a party i played a couple of stones CD's and the tracks Wild Horses and Country Honk were played and she really liked them. I explained that they both culd be considered country. I think for some people their impression of country is shania twian, garth brooks etc etc.
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I know. The Stone did a lot of country in that period. And it is country, not just considered so.

I prefer Gram's version of Wild Horses. Jagger's strangled vocals don't do it for me.
 
dirtysanta said:
Ok, serious question. Are there any of you folk here who dislike country but do like, for example, the Rolling Stones?
Click to expand...

I like a couple of early Rolling Stones tracks but don't like country in general, (see earlier post(pg1) for specifics)
There is no way you can tell me Paint it Black is country :p

I just listened to the first minute of Wild Horses, BORING!!!!
 
danny la rouge said:
Hmmm. I think I know what you mean. I think it's a kind of Americanness that people don't like. Or think they won't like. It's basically white working class Americanness.

But as has been said, trying to separate out country from blues, or from other basically folk forms is futile. And many of those forms profess their Americanness, too.

I was, as a youth, inculcated with this idea that rock 'n' roll was the meeting of rhythm and blues with country. And being the kind of person I am, I had to seek out the roots of rock 'n' roll, follow the separate streams back to their sources. But I found that actually the streams had met many times in the past. Delta blues had learned from country folk, and vice versa, over and over again down the generations. You can hear blues in Hank Williams. You can hear country in Son House. There are old, old mountain songs covered by the Carters in the 30s called this blues or that blues. There were black bluegrass bands and white jug bands in the 20s.

I could make you a CD of old recordings going back to 1918, and you'll hear the interplay between country and blues.

But as for country being purely American: I grew up with traditional Scottish music all around me. People sang and played for any occasion. My Grandad played melodian and hammer dulcimer in a ceilidh dance band around the coal fields. And I can hear that music in country. I feel at home in country; I know what it's about. Proper country, that is, not corporate country. It's about ordinary people, working class people; it's about life.

And like much else that seems particular, and set in one place, if it has integrity and verisimilitude it will transcend that and say something universal. Sorley MacLean's poetry does that. On the face of it, it's in Gaelic, a minority language clinging to the most remote Western edges of Europe; it's about places like Halaig, a remote settlement on a little known Hebridean Island, deserted during the Clearances. But even in translation it is far from parochial; it is international. And when country music works, that is exactly what it does - it is of a place, and has the rhythms and realities of the place right through it, but it speaks a much wider truth.
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Did you catch that very interesting programme (on Channel 4, I think) last year called "The Gospel Truth" which posited a direct link between Southern gospel songs and a type of Scottish psalm-chanting?
It was done by that theologian chappie Robert Beckford.
 
geminisnake said:
There is no way you can tell me Paint it Black is country :p
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No, it isn't. It's their turn of the 60s/70s albums that are country. Particularly Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers. They aren't a country band; they're a band that have done country (as well as r'n'b, disco and very very bad reggae).
 
ViolentPanda said:
Did you catch that very interesting programme (on Channel 4, I think) last year called "The Gospel Truth" which posited a direct link between Southern gospel songs and a type of Scottish psalm-chanting?
It was done by that theologian chappie Robert Beckford.
Click to expand...
Yes, I did. It was fascinating.

I love Gaelic psalm singing. The presenter/congregation to and fro, and the spontaneous pentatonic harmonising. Wonderful stuff. And you can really see the connection with Southern Gospel music.

Whether it's a cause and effect connection, or just a parallel development connection I'm not sure.
 
I can do without country. There are a couple of musicians I respect. But there's too much sharking and too much repetitiveness on the most part.
 
Not read the thread yet but I will. Four I would recommend sorry if they've been produced already:

Howe Gelb - 'Sno Angel Like You
Iron and Wine/Calexico - In the Reins EP
Ryan Adams - 29 (yeah yeah I know he's a twat but this really is a great altCountry record).
Nashville Skyline - His Majestical Bobness of Dylan
 
Dubversion said:
See, Johnny, you're employing the very argument that I'm adamant is bogus. If somebody dislikes a genre, it has to be a failure on their part - a failure to investigate, a failure to understand.

I've heard lots of opera, seen live opera. I don't like it.

You're almost ruling out the possibility of individual tastes..
Click to expand...

No, my argument is this: that broad genres contain so much diversity, that some sub categories can bear little resemblance to others; they can get lumped together for many reasons or features; the music, the musician, the area it comes from, etc.

To me, it's similar to a statement like; 'I don't like Americans', or Parisians, or whatever.
 
dweller said:
I think with music just like books/authors/genres I agree with dubversion.
For example when every sad fucker I came across was reading Harry Potter and telling me "just try it, you can't say you won't like it without trying it, how do you know?"
Click to expand...

But to be the same as dub's statement, the person wouldn't say he didn't like Harry Potter, he'd say he didn't like novels with youth protagonists.
 
geminisnake said:
I like a couple of early Rolling Stones tracks but don't like country in general, (see earlier post(pg1) for specifics)
There is no way you can tell me Paint it Black is country :p

I just listened to the first minute of Wild Horses, BORING!!!!
Click to expand...

How about 'Sweet Virginia'?
 
Yes and no.

I'm unlikely to be found listening to a Merle Haggard record.

I've tried again recently (and failed) to 'get' Sweetheart of the Rodeo and some of the Gram Parsons records, because a mate loves them and wants to share, but it isn't going to happen, it's just not my thing.

And yet... there are loads of artists and genres that I do like which are either heavily influenced by, have blurred lines of distinction with or are outright country. Especially a lot of the Rockabilly I've been listening to again in the last couple of years, you can hear links between rock n' roll and c&w. Johnny Cash is a favourite artist and it's the early stuff I love best, rather than say the American recordings. Country (like so much else) is a broad term for a lot of pretty different things.

I would say that I'm not specifically a country fan, but I don't like to say outright that I dislike a genre... if it's good, it's good.
 
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