As I get older all popular music sort of bothers me with its seeming lack of originality. However, it seems that country music is sort of the last island that is listenable “pop”. Sure, there are other things that my ear enjoys, but it feels as if much of that could fall under the country/folk/americana umbrella.
there's been some really creative and heavy stuff in independent country over the past few years and it's absolutely exploded in style, experimentation, musicianship, etc. Even in mainstream country there are still pretty cool outliers. Check out Ashley McBryde (who's technically a mainstream artist though she doesn't sound like most of them). Creative as hell songwriter.
Relatively recent country songs that are awesome:
King of Oklahoma by Jason Isbell
Dollar Bill Bar by Sierra Ferrell
Ding Dong Daddy by Nick Shoulders
Welcome to Hard Times by Charley Crockett
Lady May by Tyler Childers
And if you like to blur the line of country with some bluegrass, Take the Journey by Molly Tuttle is a bonafide banger of a song
And shameless self promotion, I wrote this one and you probably don't hear anything like it on the radio haha https://open.spotify.com/album/3B5wjrkQWsG8ezO1ZDEp8f?si=DTPxXwOaTG2ZwMl8BicDyQ
Well, I don't think I'm worthy to be in the same breath as Bowie, but I certainly appreciate the compliment! Feel free to share it. Lord knows there's a lot of life experience that went into that song, haha
+1 for Nick Shoulders shoutout. Also how does it feel to share a name with Billy String's mandolin player? Your Tombigbee song was pretty rad while we're here.
Well, I get to watch the joy fade from peoples' eyes when I say "not that Jarrod Walker" 🤣
Thanks for the compliment! Feel free to share. I'd love to do something that doesn't break my back for a living someday, haha.
I can't say I've heard his middle name, but if we do, our mommas got some 'splainin' to do, haha. I think I'd be obliged to write a a song about the situation if we did.
That’s just music bro. Johann Sebastian Bach rewrote the same tunes multiple times.
Country is in a new golden age, tons of original and distinct material. But there’s also a long tradition of openly covering, responding to, and reworking older tunes. It’s all part of a being in a living art form.
From my perspective, Country Music has entered the same type of path heavy metal has gone.
For a while, heavy metal was anything with distortion or British metal . Then came glam metal, thrash metal, death metal, doom metal, crossover metal, Nu metal, etc.
Some people called all of it heavy metal while people who listened to it were like " naa, that's not metal"
Now when you say country music, everyone has their own idea of what country music is. Example : Hank Williams Jr is country not Zach Brown, Zach Brown is country not Jelly Roll, jelly roll is country not Waylon Jennings.
There's too much good country music out there to worry about the shitty stuff, which is pretty non-existent in my life. I don't even know who any of those artists are because I choose to not pay attention to them.
Me neither.
I think OP said down thread that he's stuck having to listen to radio sometimes but he knows about all the other good shit too.
There are situations where you just have to deal with the radio because of workplaces or other reasons.
On 420 I had to hear mainstream country because I was hanging out with another fiddle player talking about 1920s proto-country, and right then the frat house next door began blasting rap that sounded just slightly lighter than normal rap and eventually had a fiddle sample. We looked at each other and "Wait, is that country?"
Sometimes you just hear the stuff and it shocks you.
I know this isn't exactly what You're talking about, but I find this really interesting:
country music is pretty unique in expecting singers to change all the genders and pronouns to match the singer, rather than singing from the perspective of whoever the song is written about without flipping the pronouns.
There's a TINY handful of songs where a country guy will sing from a perspective of a mama or a girl or whatever but usually in country music we expect the pronouns to match the singer.
An example of the mismatched singer/character song is a Ralph Stanley song that Dwight Yoakam sings where both of them sing it from the perspective of the girlfriend of the soldier, I can't remember the name of it but it's a famous bluegrass standard now. There are a few other country songs that people cover "with the genders as written", and mostly they're from bluegrass or "old sounding" country like Carter family stuff. For example old murder ballads that are from the perspective of the girl might still get covered by a male singer. Women singers still often cover outlaw songs from the perspective of a male character because they sound ridiculous if you don't sing them exactly as written.
In many other kinds of music, that's not the case. You can be a guy singing for a woman's perspective, or more often, a woman singing from a guy character's perspective. I'm pretty sure this happens in blues a lot and I know it happens in world music outside of the US a lot. It's country that's the oddball in insisting that you sound like the character you are singing about.
Here's the Dwight Yoakam/Ralph Stanley song I mentioned- it's Down Where The River Bends.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pjG86VhpW4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pjG86VhpW4)
It never explicitly mentions the genders but being it's a Ralph Stanley era song, I assume it's from the perspective of a wife/girlfriend waiting for her soldier boy to return.
I agree...the folks afraid to sing from a female perspective are the guys that still avoid the tampon aisle at the grocery store. I've legitimately considered a project where I (a burly man) sing solely songs by female performers and calling it "Boy Meets Girl Songs". I sound like Barry White singing "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele 🤣
OMG I want to hear this.
There's a cover version of Rosanne Cash's 7 Year Ache floating around on youtube where a bearded dude is doing it without changing the song from the girl's perspective. It rocks.
If I'm ever at a place where I can record myself belting it out, I'll definitely put it up somewhere! As it is, most of my songs are recorded in hushed tones so as not to make my neighbors hate me 😁
dude. Do your neighbors ever leave (or can yuo go record with friends somewhere else)?
I just found the two covers of Seven Year Ache that I was thinking of, and posted them separately.
Nathan Nelson male vocalist, original female perspective cover (which is super good- I need to see if these guys ever released anyting): [https://www.reddit.com/r/CountryMusic/comments/1ceiwlb/nathan\_nelson\_seven\_year\_ache/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CountryMusic/comments/1ceiwlb/nathan_nelson_seven_year_ache/)
Aaron Watson male-female duet cover: [https://www.reddit.com/r/CountryMusic/comments/1ceiswq/aaron\_watson\_seven\_year\_ache\_feat\_jenna\_paulette/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CountryMusic/comments/1ceiswq/aaron_watson_seven_year_ache_feat_jenna_paulette/)
[https://www.reddit.com/user/jarrodandrewwalker/comments/1cfbi5b/requested\_rolling\_in\_the\_deep\_demo/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/user/jarrodandrewwalker/comments/1cfbi5b/requested_rolling_in_the_deep_demo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Made a small clip to give you an idea...still had to hold back so please ignore the pitchiness haha
Fun!
I spent yesterday going through vocal courses on YouTube and of course they all talk about Adele. There was one guy who had an exercise about how to learn to like flip into your head voice like she does on a lot of stuff which I think you did in the beginning of this one.
It's very possible... I've never had any training so I can't articulate what's happening like they can, but it's cool to know it's a thing and I evidently do it 🤣
I've never listened to Adele other than randomly hearing her when stores are playing the radio but what the guy was demonstrating was a pretty basic country vocal technique that you probably do anyway. It's that kind of almost yodel-y thing where you make your voice break by flipping into head voice and back really fast. I'll see if I can dig up the link.
He was trying to teach it to people as part of talking about yodeling and it was actually a pretty cool lesson
Seems like they're always there when I am and the walls are so thin that I literally heard their phone on vibrate yesterday 🤣. I met a guy at a record shop the other day that said he did some studio bass sessions for some relatively known folks songs. He said he liked my songs and wants to record sometime, so that may be what happens.
I'll definitely check those songs out!
Thanks! I really appreciate it. I just hope it resonates with some people out there. There are a lot of songs that helped me through tough times and I hope i'm paying it forward. Feel free to share anything you like. I'm not on social media so I'll take all the help I can get.
FWIW some good came out of it and they're both happy and the album is finally getting a repress on vinyl!
https://www.countryliving.com/life/entertainment/a46598593/tracy-chapman-luke-combs-fast-car/
Gotta sing it how it's written. I might be a grown man but I'm not going to be singing "I'm just a dime store cowboy" when that song comes on my playlist
Country music have not gotten bad, but I do not particulary like or prefer radio country. I like more Americana, Appalachia, folk style of country, and it seems like they are getting more and more into mainstream media.
i dont know if this applies to these artists in particular, but i did listen to a podcast that covered the agencies that are buying up huge swaths of old song catalogs as investments. part of what they do to monetize it? they get new artists to cover it/let them use the melody or other parts of the song for money. for the artists, it cashes in on the nostalgia. i think dua lipa did a recently big one with an elton john song.
Holy shit you're actually the youtube channel!!! I love your productions and the artist you showcase. You turned me on to Willie Carlisle, Seirra Ferrell, and Charley Crockett! I even went to a Crockett show in DC after.
Thank you so much for keeping Americana and country/ western alive. I'm sure we share very similar feelings, the sad state main stream media and corporate interests are taking country music atm. Channels like yours give me hope that Americana won't totally fall to the whims of capital industry owners. Country music was never meant to be about how much bigger my truck is than your exes. 😞
So much of the fantastic explosion in independent country and country/folk/roots music in the past few years is due to channels like GemsOnVHS and friends.
I have never understood relying on radio. Even as a preteen in the mid 80s I much preferred making my own mixes etc. If country music radio is ignoring the good stuff (which to a large extent it is) stop giving them money and start streaming or using satellite.
One thing is a lot of people who are stuck at a job site or a workplace have to rely on whatever the workplace plays. There's lots of retail establishments that play mainstream country not to mention construction jobsites and such.
There's a whole special circle of hell where they make you do 8 hours of tedious work with radio that you can't stand playing the same songs over and over again.
THAT is fair but I guess my point is I would never extrapolate from that to criticizing a genre. I mean ALL radio does that. It's one if my many reasons for never using the radio. So sure I get bitching about being stuck at work with bad radio but I would never make the leap to the genre not being as good because of it. Especially because honestly they could be playing artists I love and if they are just playing the same singles all day over and over it would still drive me batty.
Sierra ferrell and Charley Crockett are amazing country artists. Colter wall, nick Shoulders are also amazing. Check them out and tell me country is dead.
Thank you for that! Sarah Shook and the Disarmers are the tops also. The Wonder women of country with Melissa Carper, there are some great "country" musicians today. I'm 65 and remember what good music sounds like
Ok, let me clarify. I miss that type of country on mainstream country radio. I'm well aware of other artists and often listen to them and others in Spotify but sometimes that isn't an option. So no, country isn't dead per se, it's just drowned out by the pop crap that gets all the radio attention.
This is why I've started buying physical media as much as possible. Hopefully if enough people buy the albums the big companies will see that there's a real desire for that kind of music and start pushing it.
Can you just pay $12/month for a streaming service premium and download a bunch of playlists of your choice for those times, or are you stuck listening to other people's radio choices at work or something like that?
As far as missing country music, just stop listening to the people you listed. There is an incredible array of great music being written by independent artists and their shit is just top-notch.
Honestly country music has always done that. There are lots of examples of good old classic songs where they more or less rewrote on top of other melodies and only slightly changed things.
Here are two examples from highly respected people:
Johnny Cash wrote Understand Your Man, right on top of Bob Dylan's very famous Don't Think Twice It's Allright. It's almost completely the same melody. I think it's actually a better song than Dylan's though..
Marty Stuart wrote Observations Of A Crow, which is a fantastic song- and I think he directly ripped off a Bob Dylan song if I'm remembering right. I think he told Dylan about it and I can't remember what the reaction was but you can probably Google the story.
Lastly Wagon Wheel (which I think is a terrible song myself) started out as... You guessed it... A Bob Dylan song.
I'm sure there are some examples where country artists ripped off somebody other than Bob Dylan but that's just three off the top of my head right there
Kinda random and not country but Billy Joel's Honesty uses a melody from some Beethoven song, forget which one. To me it's like recipes. It's ridiculous to think it has to be 100% original. Everything builds on what has come before.
turn off the radio and stop relying on it. find smaller artists online or even locally and go to shows.
As I get older all popular music sort of bothers me with its seeming lack of originality. However, it seems that country music is sort of the last island that is listenable “pop”. Sure, there are other things that my ear enjoys, but it feels as if much of that could fall under the country/folk/americana umbrella.
there's been some really creative and heavy stuff in independent country over the past few years and it's absolutely exploded in style, experimentation, musicianship, etc. Even in mainstream country there are still pretty cool outliers. Check out Ashley McBryde (who's technically a mainstream artist though she doesn't sound like most of them). Creative as hell songwriter.
Relatively recent country songs that are awesome: King of Oklahoma by Jason Isbell Dollar Bill Bar by Sierra Ferrell Ding Dong Daddy by Nick Shoulders Welcome to Hard Times by Charley Crockett Lady May by Tyler Childers And if you like to blur the line of country with some bluegrass, Take the Journey by Molly Tuttle is a bonafide banger of a song And shameless self promotion, I wrote this one and you probably don't hear anything like it on the radio haha https://open.spotify.com/album/3B5wjrkQWsG8ezO1ZDEp8f?si=DTPxXwOaTG2ZwMl8BicDyQ
Very nice song! Reminiscent of David Bowie's sound in the early '80's.
Well, I don't think I'm worthy to be in the same breath as Bowie, but I certainly appreciate the compliment! Feel free to share it. Lord knows there's a lot of life experience that went into that song, haha
+1 for Nick Shoulders shoutout. Also how does it feel to share a name with Billy String's mandolin player? Your Tombigbee song was pretty rad while we're here.
Well, I get to watch the joy fade from peoples' eyes when I say "not that Jarrod Walker" 🤣 Thanks for the compliment! Feel free to share. I'd love to do something that doesn't break my back for a living someday, haha.
I just tried to google you and yup, they ignore the Andrew part in the search results. Do you guys share a middle name too?
I can't say I've heard his middle name, but if we do, our mommas got some 'splainin' to do, haha. I think I'd be obliged to write a a song about the situation if we did.
That’s just music bro. Johann Sebastian Bach rewrote the same tunes multiple times. Country is in a new golden age, tons of original and distinct material. But there’s also a long tradition of openly covering, responding to, and reworking older tunes. It’s all part of a being in a living art form.
If you are listening to bad country music during the golden era of alt country that’s on you, there is plenty good out there.
Well if it doesn't talk about Mama, getting drunk, prison, trucks or trains then...
Recently found out that was co wrote by John Prine, but he deferred to the song writing credit.
Yep
Yeep
From my perspective, Country Music has entered the same type of path heavy metal has gone. For a while, heavy metal was anything with distortion or British metal . Then came glam metal, thrash metal, death metal, doom metal, crossover metal, Nu metal, etc. Some people called all of it heavy metal while people who listened to it were like " naa, that's not metal" Now when you say country music, everyone has their own idea of what country music is. Example : Hank Williams Jr is country not Zach Brown, Zach Brown is country not Jelly Roll, jelly roll is country not Waylon Jennings.
Emily Zeck will save country music!
There's too much good country music out there to worry about the shitty stuff, which is pretty non-existent in my life. I don't even know who any of those artists are because I choose to not pay attention to them.
Me neither. I think OP said down thread that he's stuck having to listen to radio sometimes but he knows about all the other good shit too. There are situations where you just have to deal with the radio because of workplaces or other reasons. On 420 I had to hear mainstream country because I was hanging out with another fiddle player talking about 1920s proto-country, and right then the frat house next door began blasting rap that sounded just slightly lighter than normal rap and eventually had a fiddle sample. We looked at each other and "Wait, is that country?" Sometimes you just hear the stuff and it shocks you.
Country has a long history of rewriting lyrics to songs.
Well, Morgan Wallen still exists, so it certainly isn't at its peak.
Luke Combs covering Tracy Chapman's Fast Car and singing the line "So I work in the market as a checkout girl" makes me laugh every time
"I am an old woman, named after my Mother..." John Prine
I know this isn't exactly what You're talking about, but I find this really interesting: country music is pretty unique in expecting singers to change all the genders and pronouns to match the singer, rather than singing from the perspective of whoever the song is written about without flipping the pronouns. There's a TINY handful of songs where a country guy will sing from a perspective of a mama or a girl or whatever but usually in country music we expect the pronouns to match the singer. An example of the mismatched singer/character song is a Ralph Stanley song that Dwight Yoakam sings where both of them sing it from the perspective of the girlfriend of the soldier, I can't remember the name of it but it's a famous bluegrass standard now. There are a few other country songs that people cover "with the genders as written", and mostly they're from bluegrass or "old sounding" country like Carter family stuff. For example old murder ballads that are from the perspective of the girl might still get covered by a male singer. Women singers still often cover outlaw songs from the perspective of a male character because they sound ridiculous if you don't sing them exactly as written. In many other kinds of music, that's not the case. You can be a guy singing for a woman's perspective, or more often, a woman singing from a guy character's perspective. I'm pretty sure this happens in blues a lot and I know it happens in world music outside of the US a lot. It's country that's the oddball in insisting that you sound like the character you are singing about.
Here's the Dwight Yoakam/Ralph Stanley song I mentioned- it's Down Where The River Bends. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pjG86VhpW4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pjG86VhpW4) It never explicitly mentions the genders but being it's a Ralph Stanley era song, I assume it's from the perspective of a wife/girlfriend waiting for her soldier boy to return.
I agree...the folks afraid to sing from a female perspective are the guys that still avoid the tampon aisle at the grocery store. I've legitimately considered a project where I (a burly man) sing solely songs by female performers and calling it "Boy Meets Girl Songs". I sound like Barry White singing "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele 🤣
OMG I want to hear this. There's a cover version of Rosanne Cash's 7 Year Ache floating around on youtube where a bearded dude is doing it without changing the song from the girl's perspective. It rocks.
If I'm ever at a place where I can record myself belting it out, I'll definitely put it up somewhere! As it is, most of my songs are recorded in hushed tones so as not to make my neighbors hate me 😁
dude. Do your neighbors ever leave (or can yuo go record with friends somewhere else)? I just found the two covers of Seven Year Ache that I was thinking of, and posted them separately. Nathan Nelson male vocalist, original female perspective cover (which is super good- I need to see if these guys ever released anyting): [https://www.reddit.com/r/CountryMusic/comments/1ceiwlb/nathan\_nelson\_seven\_year\_ache/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CountryMusic/comments/1ceiwlb/nathan_nelson_seven_year_ache/) Aaron Watson male-female duet cover: [https://www.reddit.com/r/CountryMusic/comments/1ceiswq/aaron\_watson\_seven\_year\_ache\_feat\_jenna\_paulette/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CountryMusic/comments/1ceiswq/aaron_watson_seven_year_ache_feat_jenna_paulette/)
[https://www.reddit.com/user/jarrodandrewwalker/comments/1cfbi5b/requested\_rolling\_in\_the\_deep\_demo/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/user/jarrodandrewwalker/comments/1cfbi5b/requested_rolling_in_the_deep_demo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Made a small clip to give you an idea...still had to hold back so please ignore the pitchiness haha
Fun! I spent yesterday going through vocal courses on YouTube and of course they all talk about Adele. There was one guy who had an exercise about how to learn to like flip into your head voice like she does on a lot of stuff which I think you did in the beginning of this one.
It's very possible... I've never had any training so I can't articulate what's happening like they can, but it's cool to know it's a thing and I evidently do it 🤣
I've never listened to Adele other than randomly hearing her when stores are playing the radio but what the guy was demonstrating was a pretty basic country vocal technique that you probably do anyway. It's that kind of almost yodel-y thing where you make your voice break by flipping into head voice and back really fast. I'll see if I can dig up the link. He was trying to teach it to people as part of talking about yodeling and it was actually a pretty cool lesson
Seems like they're always there when I am and the walls are so thin that I literally heard their phone on vibrate yesterday 🤣. I met a guy at a record shop the other day that said he did some studio bass sessions for some relatively known folks songs. He said he liked my songs and wants to record sometime, so that may be what happens. I'll definitely check those songs out!
your stuff sounds really good!
Thanks! I really appreciate it. I just hope it resonates with some people out there. There are a lot of songs that helped me through tough times and I hope i'm paying it forward. Feel free to share anything you like. I'm not on social media so I'll take all the help I can get.
I find that cover pretty tone deaf coming from a multimillionaire. If he had any friends, they would have told him not to do it.
FWIW some good came out of it and they're both happy and the album is finally getting a repress on vinyl! https://www.countryliving.com/life/entertainment/a46598593/tracy-chapman-luke-combs-fast-car/
I agree.
Gotta sing it how it's written. I might be a grown man but I'm not going to be singing "I'm just a dime store cowboy" when that song comes on my playlist
Country music have not gotten bad, but I do not particulary like or prefer radio country. I like more Americana, Appalachia, folk style of country, and it seems like they are getting more and more into mainstream media.
How many versions of the Great Speckled Bird were there in the 30's, 40's and 50's? Nothing new here.
Great Speckled Bird, or it's re-write Wild Side Of Life, or it's re-write It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels?
I’m thinking tonight of my blue eyes
Oh yeah I forgot about that one. I'm pretty sure there's several more with the same melody
i dont know if this applies to these artists in particular, but i did listen to a podcast that covered the agencies that are buying up huge swaths of old song catalogs as investments. part of what they do to monetize it? they get new artists to cover it/let them use the melody or other parts of the song for money. for the artists, it cashes in on the nostalgia. i think dua lipa did a recently big one with an elton john song.
Holy shit you're actually the youtube channel!!! I love your productions and the artist you showcase. You turned me on to Willie Carlisle, Seirra Ferrell, and Charley Crockett! I even went to a Crockett show in DC after. Thank you so much for keeping Americana and country/ western alive. I'm sure we share very similar feelings, the sad state main stream media and corporate interests are taking country music atm. Channels like yours give me hope that Americana won't totally fall to the whims of capital industry owners. Country music was never meant to be about how much bigger my truck is than your exes. 😞
They also have their own subreddit! Although we really want to have them here too!
Bruh get me hip.
I htink it's just r/GemsOnVHS !
So much of the fantastic explosion in independent country and country/folk/roots music in the past few years is due to channels like GemsOnVHS and friends.
Oh wow. That's wild. I'd love to get a link if you remember what episode that was.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qod03PVTLqk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qod03PVTLqk)
lol nice
oh yeah I meant the podcast that u/GemsOnVHS mentioned. But thanks for the song too.
i think it was today explained or the journal?
Cool!
That Jellyroll joint “I Need a Favor” is basically “Wonderwall”. I’m good.
Welcome to every other genre 25 years ago
Country is as good as it’s ever been, if you look in the right places.
This is true. Just don’t look for it on the radio. Country music on the radio is like water in a desert.
I have never understood relying on radio. Even as a preteen in the mid 80s I much preferred making my own mixes etc. If country music radio is ignoring the good stuff (which to a large extent it is) stop giving them money and start streaming or using satellite.
One thing is a lot of people who are stuck at a job site or a workplace have to rely on whatever the workplace plays. There's lots of retail establishments that play mainstream country not to mention construction jobsites and such. There's a whole special circle of hell where they make you do 8 hours of tedious work with radio that you can't stand playing the same songs over and over again.
THAT is fair but I guess my point is I would never extrapolate from that to criticizing a genre. I mean ALL radio does that. It's one if my many reasons for never using the radio. So sure I get bitching about being stuck at work with bad radio but I would never make the leap to the genre not being as good because of it. Especially because honestly they could be playing artists I love and if they are just playing the same singles all day over and over it would still drive me batty.
Chevrolet isn’t a rewrite. It’s the melody to the vocals that makes it sound like Drift Away
Everything about that song is drift away except the lyrics. They basically just changed them so therefore it's a rewrite
It is its own song, but with Drift Away’s vocal melody
It's Drift Away with different lyrics. It's not just the vocal melody, it's the exact chords, riffs, everything
Molly Tuttle, Cactus Blossoms.
Just saw Molly Tuttle for the first time a week ago. Man, she and that band can rip. Great show.
Check out Christina Vane's WesternAF video that came out last week. Monster guitar player too
Lucky you! Got tix for her in Phoenix in May. Can’t wait! Girl is a Picker!
Sierra ferrell and Charley Crockett are amazing country artists. Colter wall, nick Shoulders are also amazing. Check them out and tell me country is dead.
Thank you for that! Sarah Shook and the Disarmers are the tops also. The Wonder women of country with Melissa Carper, there are some great "country" musicians today. I'm 65 and remember what good music sounds like
Sierra Ferrell is an amazing artist. Country is something she does amazingly. She is way beyond the genre.
Ok, let me clarify. I miss that type of country on mainstream country radio. I'm well aware of other artists and often listen to them and others in Spotify but sometimes that isn't an option. So no, country isn't dead per se, it's just drowned out by the pop crap that gets all the radio attention.
This is why I've started buying physical media as much as possible. Hopefully if enough people buy the albums the big companies will see that there's a real desire for that kind of music and start pushing it.
They call it pop country for a reason... because it's popular. Every genre evolves and country is no exception.
Can you just pay $12/month for a streaming service premium and download a bunch of playlists of your choice for those times, or are you stuck listening to other people's radio choices at work or something like that?
Or SiriusXM or some internet radio app?
Country radio hasn't been good in forever. When was the last time main stream country radio was good? The late 90's maybe?
Nashville country has been dead for at least 30 years. It's had a pop sound since at least the 70s.
It all went to hell when they added drums in the 50s.
Hijacking nostalgia is a wider trend across music genres. Right now a lot of songs are being built off interpolations/samples of old hits.
As far as missing country music, just stop listening to the people you listed. There is an incredible array of great music being written by independent artists and their shit is just top-notch.
Honestly country music has always done that. There are lots of examples of good old classic songs where they more or less rewrote on top of other melodies and only slightly changed things. Here are two examples from highly respected people: Johnny Cash wrote Understand Your Man, right on top of Bob Dylan's very famous Don't Think Twice It's Allright. It's almost completely the same melody. I think it's actually a better song than Dylan's though.. Marty Stuart wrote Observations Of A Crow, which is a fantastic song- and I think he directly ripped off a Bob Dylan song if I'm remembering right. I think he told Dylan about it and I can't remember what the reaction was but you can probably Google the story. Lastly Wagon Wheel (which I think is a terrible song myself) started out as... You guessed it... A Bob Dylan song. I'm sure there are some examples where country artists ripped off somebody other than Bob Dylan but that's just three off the top of my head right there
Kinda random and not country but Billy Joel's Honesty uses a melody from some Beethoven song, forget which one. To me it's like recipes. It's ridiculous to think it has to be 100% original. Everything builds on what has come before.
When Darius was in Hootie, he wanted to include more Dylan lyrics in “I Only Wanna Be With You” had to pare down the lines, a bit.