The Hardline's "Fun With Country Music" is a Brilliant Skewer of Bro-Country Lyrics
By Amy McCarthy
Published Thu., Sep. 4 2014 at 7:34 AM
For music writers, it seems like there has never been a lower-hanging fruit than the ascension of bro-country into the mainstream. Acts like Florida Georgia Line are getting near-equal airtime on pop and country radio while selling millions of records. What's worse, they're also influencing a class of up-and-comers that are poised to sell millions more of the most mediocre records that country music has seen in a long time. Bro-country's popularity may have made country as a whole a ripe target for criticism, but most of us are just plain gobsmacked by how popular these blatantly shitty records are.
Which is how Corby Davidson, co-host of KTCK-AM 1310 The Ticket's The Hardline, got the idea to make fun of country music's serious wrong turn. After reporting about the massive success of Florida Georgia Line's first hit in a regular entertainment news segment, a listener sent Davidson a link to "My Kind of Night" by Luke Bryan. "I got this email from this guy, and he told me that if I thought Florida Georgia Line was bad, I was going to love this guy."
That fateful email spawned an occasional series of segments on Thursday afternoons called Fun With Country Music. If you're not a dedicated P1 who's listening to The Hardline during your afternoon drive, Davidson plays a country song for his co-host Mike Rhyner and producer Danny Balis, and the three proceed to rip it to shreds. Even though these guys spend most of their time lamenting the current state of the Dallas Cowboys and talking baseball statistics, they've carved out an interesting niche as unlikely music critics.
Despite being largely sports-focused, these guys are really not wholly unqualified to speak about what is or isn't good music. In fact, there are some pretty serious music chops in this bunch. Balis is a common fixture in the local music scene, playing bass in bands like Fort Worth's Calhoun and the King Bucks, and Rhyner plays frequent gigs across the city in a Tom Petty cover band called Petty Theft. While not a serious musician himself, Davidson is often derided as a music snob, and generally offers pretty trenchant commentary on country music, even if it's typically punctuated with goofball drops.
Still, The Hardliners consider themselves to be a bunch of "modern country morons." "We just found this Florida Georgia Line or Luke Bryan song and started making fun of it, and it turned into something," Davidson says. And by "something," he means an almost fool-proof formula for identifying a true bro-country song.
After a few segments, the Hardliners came up with a list of seven elements (or "benchposts," as Rhyner has called them) that are essential to make a perfect bro-country song. "It's like the Nashville label executives tell Luke Bryan and these other guys that they have to have these things in their songs or they won't sell a lot of records," Davidson says.
His list, which has undergone a little tweaking since the segment began, is accurate down to the song. "You have to have a truck, girl, beer and/or liquor, farm equipment, mud/dust, rural setting like a river, jeans, boots, guns, critters," Davidson explains. "If you run out of things to talk about, just mention the troops," Balis adds.
To listen to any of the songs that they've covered in this segment is to realize that they're totally right. A few weeks ago, "Fun With Country Music" featured "You Can Tell A Man By His Truck" by J.J. Lawhorn, and won both Balis and Davidson's vote for the worst song on the segment so far. "This kid looks to be about 18 years old, and he's just doing Bubb Rubbing great right out of the chute," Davidson says. Rhyner chimes in to add that it's almost like a contest to see who can get in the most cliches in the shortest time. "You just stack cliches on top of each other and then hit the chorus."
It's an argument that's pretty hard to dispute. In the first 15 seconds of "You Can Tell A Man By His Truck," J.J. Lawhorn manages to hit nearly all seven of the show's identified markers. Once you line up the rest of the tracks the segment has covered, a clear pattern emerges. This segment may have started as a joke, but it's making a pretty solid argument that Nashville producers have turned the genre into the butt of a joke.
"I know for a fact that 'Honky Tonk Badonkadonk' was a joke," Balis says. "A friend of mine plays in a band with the guy who wrote the song with Dallas Davidson, and they were just sitting around getting Bubb Rubb up and decided to make a bunch of stuff up. They're doing bits because that's what the audience wants."
Not surprisingly, the country audience takes a lot of blame from Balis and his cohorts for supporting music that sounds nothing like country's roots. Especially millennials. "I don't know anyone over 30 who is listening to any of this crap seriously," Davidson says, even though Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton and most of the genre's biggest hitmakers are pushing 40.
On its face, it seems like The Hardline isn't really making much of a new argument. People have been saying for years that the new version of country music, especially "bro-country," isn't authentic, but for whatever reason this argument somehow feels fresh coming from music fans who aren't particularly close to country music.
For these guys, the criticism isn't so much that bro-country isn't country as it is that the music just really sucks. "It's Nickelback with a Bubb Rubb' pedal steel or fiddle or whatever, and there are no elements of country music whatsoever," Davidson snaps. It's the lowest common denominator as far as the writing goes, and it's just cheap. It sounds like stuff to me."
Fortunately for Davidson and the future of this segment, The Hardline's fans seem to agree. The audience for bro-country and The Hardline may have some serious overlap, especially in that coveted "men aged 25 to 54" demographic, but the response from the show's fans on Twitter has been overwhelmingly positive. So much so that most of the segment's submissions have come from listeners.
Even though their studio practically shares a wall with KSCS-FM, known to most of us as 99.5 The Wolf, none of The Hardline's hosts really listen to country music. "I love old country, but this doesn't have anything to do with that," Rhyner says. "It's all gotten lumped together under the heading of country, and I guess it all depends on your own point of view, but country is one particular thing and this is not it." It's true that most of the segments focus on comparing bro-country with the classics, but Davidson has hope that there's a revolution in country music's future.
"When you think back to the '80s, that sleaze metal that was so big had really changed what rock and roll was for about seven years," Davidson says. "You had your outliers like R.E.M. and U2 or whatever, but it was just in this really shitty place." Then, along came grunge music and once again, rock music was never again the same. In these guys' view, country music could use a big dose of the same.
"We're waiting to see country music's Nirvana," Davidson says. "Someone like Nirvana or Pearl Jam is going to come along and inspire this revolt that takes country music back to basics." For an audience that has never been particularly receptive to change, this kind of shift could be the only way to change country music's course, which has inarguably gone off track in the past few years.
Unfortunately for country fans, we may very well be years away from any meaningful change, but there is some consolation in the fact that there will be a wealth of material for future installments of Fun With Country Music. Even if you don't give a stuff about sports, tune in this afternoon for a new installment for hilarious and sharp criticism that you won't hear anywhere else, especially not country radio.
Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 3708 City: Dallas...I miss SoCal
Posted: Sep 04, 2014 1:02 pm Post subject:
haha. It really is horrible. I've been calling them the Nickleback of country music for at least the last year.
I grew up loving country music, but when I turn on a country station and I hear blatant autotune and singing about "12's in the back of the truck" and a "chrome piece in the console" and listening to drake I just can't take it.
"I know for a fact that 'Honky Tonk Badonkadonk' was a joke," Balis says. "A friend of mine plays in a band with the guy who wrote the song with Dallas Davidson, and they were just sitting around getting Bubb Rubb up and decided to make a bunch of stuff up. They're doing bits because that's what the audience wants."
My friends and I were having a laugh a few years back guessing how the Toby Keith song "Red Solo Cup" was born. I'd imagined a similar situation with some songwriters sitting around razzing each other "you think you're such a badass songwriter? Here- betcha can't write a song about this cup!"
Zach Brown Band is the only one in the last 5 years that has had anything worth putting on my pod. _________________
Rhawn wrote:
You should have a less retarded friend read over your posts before you hit "Submit"
The part about just stacking cliché upon cliché until you hit the chorus really stuck out to me. There is no substance whatsoever... just typical pop garbage. _________________
HA!! I wish you could hear the guys do this segment live. Its hilarious, when they go verse by verse breaking it down and stopping at every cliche, the stupid is just so glaring.
Have you guys read any of the articles on the writing monopoly in Nashville? The short version is that if you are an up and coming artist, you have to go to one of two writing thinktanks in Nashville and buy one of their crappy tunes and record it. They in turn are in bed with the labels and radio conglomerates to get it artifically escalated as a hit. _________________ TONA
Have you guys read any of the articles on the writing monopoly in Nashville? The short version is that if you are an up and coming artist, you have to go to one of two writing thinktanks in Nashville and buy one of their crappy tunes and record it. They in turn are in bed with the labels and radio conglomerates to get it artifically escalated as a hit.
Rigged, just like nearly everything else in this country...and the world. _________________ If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
What is this "Country Music" thing you're talking about?
I've never bought a piece of it and not once tuned in to a minute. That said, use to head to a friend's place a few times a week to smoke cigars & he'd have his XM set to something called "Outlaw Radio" that apparently was kind of Country... It wasn't terrible....
Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 3630 City: Kansas City, MO
Posted: Sep 05, 2014 7:52 am Post subject:
I have listened to country music since only about the early 90's and I got my wife into it later on when we met. Back then, you knew an artist when you heard their voice or saw them in a video. They each had a distinctive sound or look that set them apart from one another.
These days I turn on the local country station and it is full of bro's I can't pick out of a lineup. The only "new" guys I can pick out are either Jason Aldean or Dierks Bentley. Otherwise there are probably 8 of them I can't tell apart. And, BTW, both F-G L and Big N Rich are infinitely F'ING AWFUL. F-G L should be kissing Nelly's balls every single day for taking a horrible song and making it into a pop summertime hit that people gobbled up before they fade into Bolivian (and hopefully soon).
The other night my wife was watching the CMAs or VMAs or whatever the F they are called and they had Brantley Gilbert on there singing some awful chit. I was cracking on him for looking like he made a right turn at Albuquerque and found himself ready to play a rock show and when he got on stage someone told him it was a country audience. I started calling him Limp Bizkit and my wife got pissed and said, "I LIKE him!" I said, "Fine, he might be good and all but this guy has no concept of what country music is. Someone has handed him this stuff and told him to play it and act country while he's doing it. Mute the TV right now and just look at him and tell me that is a country music artist."
She reluctantly agreed and we watched the rest of his performance on mute and you'd have thought that bastard was most definitely playing Limp Bizkit's music. Someone needs to show up and kick all of these fvcktards in the nuts and turn country music back in the direction it was several years ago.
I don't mind it getting closer to the pop/rock line to sound more modern or appealing to more people or whatever you want to call it. But you can't cross into the pop/rock line constantly. Certain artists can get away with it from time to time (and they are usually attractive females or Taylor Swift), but then they get back into their lane and put out more country sounding material.
Kenny Chesney is one of my favorite artists but I fear that he is going to follow this trend and if you said he has already I wouldn't argue with you. I thought his crossover was going to be more toward the Jimmy Buffett type of pop/rock but I fear that he always wanted to be a rock star and had to do country instead to make it when he was coming up. He's had enough success now to where he can go into EFF YOU mode and do whatever he wants and he's got a foray into rock that he's waiting to lay on all of us.
Kenny, remember Chris Gaines? Ya, let's not repeat that career-killer please.........mmmmkay? _________________
Wakebrad wrote:
I honestly think it has to do with internet penetration...
Have you guys read any of the articles on the writing monopoly in Nashville? The short version is that if you are an up and coming artist, you have to go to one of two writing thinktanks in Nashville and buy one of their crappy tunes and record it. They in turn are in bed with the labels and radio conglomerates to get it artifically escalated as a hit.
Why can't someone break the mold? So many ways to deliver music these days. Macklemore is probably the most recent to do this, granted not country and had the support of independent/college radio which is a big boost.
Is there a demand for this in country? _________________
Quote:
You don't meet many old vegans. It's mostly young priviliged kids trying to figure out where they stand in the world.
Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 3708 City: Dallas...I miss SoCal
Posted: Sep 05, 2014 9:50 am Post subject:
The sad thing is that most of country now is just pop. If you want good country you have to listen to Texas country, but even then some of it is starting to get idiotic.
As a friendly plug I have some friends from high school who are starting to make some waves around the TX music scene with a unique sound that really only has a place in real country music...meaning that it isn't bro'd out. Check out Prophets and Outlaws, it's a pretty original blues/soul/country hybrid.
I grew up in Texas/Oklahoma so country music has always been big where I was living but was never really my thing.
These days my friends out there seem to gravitate towards Red Dirt style alt country, which is pretty good (Cross Canadian Ragweed, Reckless Kelly, Randy Rogers band, the Damn Quails, Turnpike Troubadours, Wade Bowen). Doesn't get any radio play nationally, but these groups are pretty big among people back home.
I really like the Turnpike Troubadours who were a local band where I went to college playing in a dive bar 3 days a week who are getting a bit bigger these days.
Yup, the frontman started another group called Cody Canada and the Departed which isn't too bad either.
Weird thing is, I grew up in the same town (Yukon, OK, also Garth Brooks' home town) that Ragweed are from and had never heard of them until I moved to San Antonio.
It's not a country music thing, it's a music thing. Two of the biggest songs out right now are from a girl with an utter disdain for treble and another poor, poor girl that can't pronounce "chandelier" to save her life.
Lowest common denominator. _________________ "I'm scared if I stop drinking all at once, the cumulative hangover will literally kill me."
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