The song’s lyrics include the lines: “Cuss out a cop, spit in his face / Stomp on the flag and light it up / Yeah, you think you’re tough / Well, try that in a small town / See how far you make it down the road / Around here, we take care of our own.”
Later, Aldean alludes to a conspiracy theory that the US government intends to round up its citizens: “Got a gun that my granddad gave me / They say one day they’re gonna round up / Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck.”
Thanks for the excerpt! It definitely enticed me to read. It’s a very long read that I have to save for later but the first half was awesome. This is what I expect from journalism.
The title is TERRIBLE like they tried to pick the most click bait title possible. It is from a single quote from a source that really doesn’t give much more context. What it really is about is the current technology and government surveillance and how journalists struggle to protect their sources with this technology and it always changing. It’s really fascinating and well written. And it’s not just America or China or whatever but also talks to journalists from other countries or talks in general what other countries have. (Like I said I couldn’t finish it today in one sitting. But I got decently far so grain of salt because this is all based on what I read so far)
Despite it reading like she was always the obvious top pick you just know some people are going to turn around and say Biden’s only doing it because of the historical significance of her being the first woman to hold the spot.
“rolled over?” What does that mean? And what recourse does anyone have? No defense of Netflix, nor crit of sharing users, but they (we! Lol) knew we were cheating. Seriously wtf.
There are a lot of types of country and a lot of different singers. Radio USA certainly doesn’t represent all of it.
It’s like saying you have to be a punk or a lower-class African American to enjoy rap. Rap is surprisingly varied, done by basically all nations and ethnicities, and more-often-than-you’d-think political or otherwise intelligent. Linkin Park (and the spin-off project Fort Minor) is my favorite band, for example; and most of their rap is about politics, introspection, dealing with mental illness, or putting down bad relationships— and the latter can be angry, melancholy, resolved-and-hopeful, forgiving, and anything in between. But I digress.
A genre is just a genre, and any genre can be smart, skillful, and all-around good.
Here, have a trophy for winning at internet arguments
With that kind of charisma, you must have a ton of friends
I was born in the suburbs of Chicago and I don’t listen to country (except Neil Diamond, which I argue is partially country even though others disagree)— not that it should even matter. But I say it just to help drive my point home about your stupidity
Check my profile and see how stupid I am, I dare you
If your goal was to look cool to random strangers on the internet, you failed
When a person is saying “all people who like country music are inbred”, they are drawing upon the stigmas of the deep south. Duh.
At the risk of sounding kind of lame, the fact is that you don’t know anything about me or my situation. Yeah, there are ways for me to make money. But online freelancing is really competitive, and all local businesses are too stingy to hire a proofreader/editor unless they have journalism experience. How about you go find a way to make $4000 in a single month in a small town in the US when you have cerebral palsy and sensory integration disorder? Go outside, touch some grass, and consider not insulting and alienating every random person you see on the internet.
Also, good job cherry-picking the most vulnerable thing I said even though it has nothing to do with “whether or not I’m inbred (a.k.a. ‘dumb’)”. Says a lot about what your goals are
yes I suppose that’s true, there are a lot of generalizations used when it comes to art - in all of its many forms and flavors. country music just has these specific connotations associated with it - crooning about broken trucks, sad laments for the girl that got away (because she was your sister), limited acoustical and rhythmic harmony, etc
Yee, the most common versions of things aren’t the only versions of those things.
There’s something called the “animation age ghetto”. It’s a phenomenon where most people assume that animated movies and shows are for kids only; and it has held back the medium a whole lot. Animation is just a method of getting the art out there, and it can have a lot of variation and be very sophisticated. Most of all, it can be about whatever— or for whomever— you want.
You're thinking primarily country pop, and I agree with your assessment - most of it's crap. That being said, if the only country you know is what you've been exposed to on the radio, you're missing out on some amazing musicianship. Since I dig sharing music that breaks (or makes) a mold, here's some country pieces that you might dig:
Glad you liked! You should check out more bluegrass if you like what Cleveland was playing. If you dig the style on the Highwayman, check out more Johnny Cash - he built an amazing legacy of work, and wasn't afraid of genre jumping - here's him doing a cover of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt.
@Arotrios Going to piggyback here and also recommend an artist called Jelly Roll. Started as a rapper, but has branched into a country/rock sound recently. Vocally very strong, and is open about his issues and how he goes about trying to fix his life up for the better.
I like his older sound better, but he is still a respectable artist even with the more mainline sound. It has however gotten him radio play, for better or worse.
Nah there’s definitely more variety to country music than that, but you have to dig for it (try Woody Guthrie for instance). Much like pop music, you have to go past whats popular to find the good stuff
This is sturgeon’s law. 90% of everything is crap. There’s tons of garbage pop, rock, industrial, etc etc. This is true in books, movies, and other forms of entertainment too
Hell yeah I know about Sturgeon’s Law! And its corollaries!
I believe that taste is subjective, but quality is objective. That’s because I believe that quality is about how effective a work of art is at doing what it set out to do, to its intended audience. And if an aspect of a work of art distracts from that goal or brings the work down, it is of objectively lower quality. However, I want to be clear that I mean that about the audience statistically— individuals of course may be more or less affected or unaffected by individual choices in art.
Let me give an example for that last part. Most people don’t see anything wrong with many of the choices in Ace Attorney; but I find that series to be ugly, tasteless, and insulting (not to mention extremely autism-unfriendly). The extremely ugly faces for many characters, the bug-eye reactions, the intuition-unfriendly dumbness, the pedophilia, the low-brow, the sexism, the constant harsh flashing and shaking… I believe that if Ace Attorney didn’t make those choices, nobody who currently likes the series would like it less (okay, well, maybe some people in Japan would like it less if you took away their staples of sexism and glorious stupidity; but we can compromise)— instead you’d have a larger appreciative audience if those weren’t issues. So basically, you can make aspects of a work of art better without said aspects (or others) being worse or substantially less-liked.
Aside: As an autistic person, I really can’t shut off my observation, comparison, or thorough thinking— it’s always going. And one of the effects of that is that high standards come naturally to me. So because I’m always passionate and scrutinizing, I get more angry or more disappointed when things are bad— but also way more excited than most people when things are good. I feel like a lot of people don’t understand me, thinking that I just hate everything; but those people are focusing on when I’m negative and ignoring how giddy I get at other times.
But I digress. There’s a lot of crap out there; but that makes us who notice all the bad… just that much more appreciative of the things that are genuinely good.
yes thank you, I’m so sick of hearing “rap is crap” from people who’ve only heard a few gangsta rap songs on the radio in the 1990s and assumed that was it. That was all rap had to offer
One of my favourite Fleetwood Mac songs is “That’s Alright” which is undoubtedly a country song, but you’d never catch me listening to anything else you’d call country. Not even close. However, that proves that there are definitely some country songs out there I’d enjoy.
I used to hate hip-hop and R&B until I dug past the mounds of mainstream trash and found underground artists I really love. These genres are very broad terms with hundreds of sub-genres.
I found a little R&B I like. Some of R. Kelly, Musiq, and especially Jagged Edge. But I need to find more R&B I like. I love hip-hop too— in concept. I’m struggling to find good artists beyond just a song here and there that I like. Also, I absolutely hate modern mainstream hip-hop. I especially hate autotune.
Hey, cash and Nelson and Parton and the chicks are country. This is just dumbass country. It’s sorta like how folk could be pa with a banjo or it could be a communist strumming a guitar that says “this machine kills fascists” and singing about how we need to be as brave as the Soviets to free England and France.
That's Modern Country: Artists with manicures and private jets singing about trucks and farm work. Listened to by office workers with trucks that never leave paved roads.
Lol that’s a great way of putting it. Everything about it is phony. And most artists that could cross-over have been quick to do so and sever their ties to modern country.
I am country enough, and I know exactly what you guys are talking about. But I also want to point out rough, dry hands are weaker & the smarter blue collars try to soften their hands a little. I was working on a combine, and a bolt broke & I ripped the fuck out of my palm. 😂 My dad said, it wouldn’t have hurt nearly as bad if you lotioned your hands. Supple is strong! Advice that goes back millenia, Aesop’s Fable The Oak Tree and the Reed. Similarly…the smartest guys that really care about their trucks keep them clean. Clean trucks last so much longer, and better; dirt & salt & even bird shit can lead to corrosion.
I know plenty of country folk with a rust bucket truck & they’re happy. If it runs, whatever. Or they run vehicles around in the woods after dark & I see them posting like HAHA I broke down or got stuck!! What a CRAZY, fun adventure I’m on! No thanks, I don’t like expensive repairs or wasted time. Or horrific accidents, or premature death.
It’s the most cynical art form ever. The average pop country song is just a product; it has zero artistic value. And, it typically reflects a fake culture that has been confected from tropes.
This is the most disingenuous nonsense. How in the world could that quote be ok in any context??? There’s a reason black history and women’s studies are courses. Both groups of people are generally left out of history books. Hell, they’re trying to erase the fact that Rosa Park was a POC from the history books.
His song literally celebrates violence and the kind of mob mentality that leads to tremendous injustice. Oh, and his music video was filmed on the site of a lynching while it threatens black protesters today. Community? Really?
These people are stupid. If you want a gun you will get a gun regardless of law, the same way it’s been forever. Laws are just a false sense of security in America.
Whataboutism at its finest. Par for the course for Muricans who believe they are king of the hill in everything but just can't admit that also includes gun deaths, Black maternal mortality rates, homelessness and healthcare expenditures.
When we’re discussing an American singer talking about American issues, and reactions by other Americans pointing out American history? Yes. Because it’s not relevant to the discussion at hand. It’s whataboutism and counterproductive. Again, we’re specifically talking about America here. Stay on topic.
Your whataboutism doesn’t even work here. The USA was born in native American genocide, an international slave trade, and rampant settler colonial capitalism. At least the next time when you’re doing racist dogwhistles on lemmy pick a country that the US 24-hour news cycle wants you to derail about like Russia and China you absolute tool. Blaming the global south was so Cold War ago.
Considering that’s what they mean when they say “make America great again”… they would pay themselves on the back with that take of yours. They’d make such nice slave-owning assholes, see
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