Comments on: Keith Urban Invited to Become Opry Member; JD Crowe Announces Retirement; New Alan Jackson Album Drops June 5

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:27:59 +0000

As a pig in…!

By: nm

nm — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:07:32 +0000

So we’re both happy.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:57:52 +0000

I prefer to think that I reserve mine for more worthy candidates.

By: nm

nm — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:20:05 +0000

Oh, that’s because my sense of awe and wonder is greater than yours.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:03:23 +0000

All I’m saying is that, since neither sound nor content have ever been sufficient explainers as to why some things are generally perceived as country and others aren’t – by people who care about it and by people who don’t – I can see why someone might be bemused by a particular instance that illustrated that, but not why they’d be mystified.

By: nm

nm — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:06:14 +0000

I may be missing something, but I don’t understand from the sound or content why he is on country radio and they get played on college stations.

Because he started out in country and they didn’t.

Yes, that’s right. That’s what mystifies me: given Urban’s music the absolute certainty that he couldn’t get played on a college rock station, or that artists who are played on those stations and sound just like him couldn’t get country airplay, makes no sense. Jon, you know that you and I agree to a great extent about the social construction of genre. Explaining the social construction of genre to me isn’t going to stop my reacting to Urban’s classification with bemusement.

By: Barry Mazor

Barry Mazor — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:59:06 +0000

So Jon, do you believe there is any reason whatsoever, then, that anybody should CARE about this “country music” construct–besides the definition that’s then left, which is that it is whatever music is marketed to an ongoing audience for it–whatever it is?

I’ve known people who love a sort of song content, and who take to some sounds (change though they may), and will hang with those, but are people supposed to in any way CARE about a pure market segment, or being a Targeted Demographic–Country Music-Identified People? Or to talk about it?

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:51:15 +0000

I may be missing something, but I don’t understand from the sound or content why he is on country radio and they get played on college stations.

Because he started out in country and they didn’t. The mistake lies in thinking that genre is purely a sound or content construct. After, oh, nearly 100 years of evidence to the contrary, it’s hard for me to understand why people continue to believe it.

By: SunsetPark

SunsetPark — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:24:01 +0000

“Considering the Hag’s recent uniformed and basically dopey political comments in the interview over at AOL’s The Boot, it sounds like a twit is about to tweet. Just pathetic…”

“Rick, could you possibly possibly possibly just can that stuff. I believe that the endless (and largely irrelevant) political snark and volunteered negativity drives people from this site, which we’re trying hard to establish. or at least, leans them toward not posting to it..”

Put me in this category – Rick’s focus on politics makes me visit this site less and keeps me from posting. I have better ways to spend my time. A focus on the music rather than politics would be appreciated. There are other sites for that discussion.

By: nm

nm — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:59:38 +0000

Jon, I don’t expect Keith Urban to sound like his predecessors. What mystifies me about the way he is categorized, though, is that to my ears it’s hard to pick out what separates him from the (other) college/indie-rock acts who were around when he was starting out. That’s not a condemnation; I like a lot of that music. I just don’t hear anything in his work that distinguishes it (to my ears) in a way that says “Urban is a country act and these others are rock acts.” I may be missing something, but I don’t understand from the sound or content why he is on country radio and they get played on college stations. Thus I am mystified at the way his career has gone — not by its success, but by its venue.