Country music on the CMT video channel is gawdawful. It is much worse than Hip-Hop, Rap, and Soul (nearly all of which are intolerable). At least those other genres provide pockets of creativity and real expression...even if what is created and expressed is shallow and numbskull. Another contrast: Nashville (or whatever it is) makes the old Tin Pan Alley seem like a bastion of radical artistic inspiration.
Country music on CMT is devoid of anything genuine. It is lifeless. And the more revved-up it gets -- incorporating pop and rock -- the more lifeless it becomes. Sure, I could just ignore it, but I like ranting about it. I like knowing that it represents everything I detest.
Let's set aside what is being sung about (gawd...cliches as thick as Washington lobbyists). Although the lyrical asininity is worthy of scorn and ridicule, it is not the worst aspect. What is so deplorable has to do with how it is being said -- the musical structure. It is formulaic, cynically crafted, machine-like in its soullessness.
Country music used to be listenable -- Hank Williams, George Jones, Lefty Frizzell...Loretta, Merle, Buck, and Johnny. What the hell happened? I do believe this country is undergoing a cultural collapse into final banality.
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