Try That in a Small Town features lyrics threatening violence against protesters and has been removed from Country Music Television, but Aldean says it is a celebration of community
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.
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.
Idk I’ve lived here for nearly 30 years and it’s absolutely news to me that promoting violence is unamerican. Especially in a small town. Motherfuckers in small towns will brag about couch guns while daring the president to come to town. Small town motherfuckers will use gallows as a decoration. These people’s issues with blm protests in a small town isn’t violence it’s black people.
Also they never minded when the ones being rounded up were the gays or the Japanese or native Americans or Latines. But sure you fucking hicks need to be afraid. Fuck off and arm a synagogue instead.
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.
Jason Aldean is also the one who sang that “transgender people is not a real ontological category” — which, if you know biology and you know history, is an exact quote from the Nazis, who built the genocide of millions out of the notion of “Entarte” — usually translated to English as “Degenerate” but which literally translates as “without ontological category”.
He openly called for genocide of transgender people. Conservatives ate it up.
He and his record label and fans are all a part of a violent extremist hate group.
I’ve read the lyrics and listened to the song. What are you on about? Is it not enough to merely recognize the song (and the video’s setting and content!?) as racist? Are the dog whistles so lowkey that you have to make shit up?
I’m guessing Jason Aldean has never pronounced the word “ontological” or “entarte”, let alone sang it. Just how smart are you saying this guy is?
It looks like it was some doucher from the Daily Wire during a speech at CPAC, but it was in response to Aldean’s comment of literally “eradicating transgenderism.”
Idk, close enough. If it walks like a nazi and talks like a nazi, then it’s probably a nazi.
you can’t say that! something something the left always accuses me of being a Nazi for disagreeing with them, all I want to do is lynch N******, T*********, and F***!
did I forget anything of the new standard fascist playbook?
Just curious, do you feel triggered by Aldean being called out because you like bigotry, or do you just have really shitty taste in music and the delusion that your favorite cuntry star must be a good person?
What in the world on you on about? Never heard his name until this shit came up. The only country I listen to is much older stuff, I have no awareness of modern country, at all.
We’re talking about an in-your-face racist song, and now suddenly it’s about trans folks?! The trans community is trod upon quite well enough with finding digs on them where it doesn’t exist.
You’re hell bent on insisting that I am. Been here 1 solid day. Have a look at my comment history. Come back and tell me I’m a racist, conservative, jack-booted thug.
They’re right, though. If you search for “Aldean ontological” the only result you’ll get with both words is this very thread. I don’t see anything fascist about correcting a factual error.
My point was that some people, somehow, don’t find the despicable nature of the song/video to be BROAD enough. They gotta get their little group in on the offense.
“I’m a liberal gun owner (<-true) and I feel targeted! I’m a victim too!”
It was Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire that said “transgender people is not a real ontological category.” While I could see Aldean agreeing with that, I can’t seem to find it in any of his songs.
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.”
A “celebration of community” would have lyrics about helping each other, attending local events and supporting local businesses. It would reference knowing people’s names, watching families grow up together, pitching in to help neighbours and being able to relax & feel content.
It shouldn’t contain combative themes, othering, divisive language and threats of violence.
Something about this comment flipped a switch for me. This is how these people bond. They find common ground in fearing the same out-groups. To them, that is exactly what “community” is, sharing a common enemy.
Country music used to have themes like that, or simply be fun. “Down on the Farm” is catchy, fun, most can relate.
Reba sang… Fuck it, I’m done. There were some greats that sang about our common experiences, with a rural twist. Hell, even Garth is getting his ass beat for being inclusive.
If you leave mainstream, radio country even just a little, it becomes apparent that progressive gays are taking over country and Americana. If there are people and places in your life that need country music, bring S.G. Goodman, Melissa Carper, Orville Peck, Iris Marlowe, and none of these people have what I would call a niche sound. (I don’t expect to convert anyone to the cult of Little Mazarn, but that’s maybe my favorite country act.) And some of them are blowing up! They’re making country music for me these days, and I fucking love it. It’s all I listen to lately. Folk, country, and Americana are for everyone.
Anyone talking honestly about southern community is going to come off real anarchist/communist/leftist/whatever. A large part of rural life is mutual aid, a staple of leftist movements. Rural people vote conservative because they’re told to hate someone else though, and that’s it. Ideologically they are more leftist, though often with conservative social values regarding family and faith.
So I’m pretty far left (for an American), but I think there is a nuance that I’ve had explained at me by some non-mouth-frothing Republican types I’ve worked with.
For them, there is a difference between choosing to be part of community, helping other people, and sharing what they have, and being forced to do those things (via taxes). It always struck me as… exclusionary. It means that they can help their literal neighbor and ignore the people on the other side of town (or the other side of the country).
So it may feel like it’s leftist/communist/etc, but it’s just an extension of “fuck you, I got mine” to “fuck everyone else, me and mine got ours, and only on my terms.”
That is a really interesting take that I hadn’t fully considered until reading your comment, so thank you! I think this is very accurate for a lot of rural community members, especially those with hard R leanings. I think when we start from the other end of the spectrum it’s easy to say oh they must be compelled by emotional responses to issues like abortion/gun rights, when really it could be they want more autonomy.
Buuuutttttt… they also don’t want others to have the same autonomy regarding birth control and healthcare so we’re still at an impasse, and you’re right it’s totally a case of fuck you I got mine (extended cut).
Non-frothing conservative checking in, there is indeed a nuance not unlike what you said. However. I think some of that comes from past experiences, precedence. We know charity & people-driven initiatives are powerful! Can be effective. Government-driven (/taxpayer funded) initiatives? Incompetent. Often wasteful.
Like all the billions to Ukraine, Google says it’s “over 75 billion” and I thought I’ve heard $90B in the past. How much has actually hit the front lines, been ACCOUNTED FOR and USEFUL? I’ve heard $30B. 😔 That is (/was) our money, and we’ve got plenty of problems at home.
We do care about helping people, in a sensible & straightforward manner. A hand up, not a hand out, to bring about actual positive change. There is accountability. People help people. Governments help themselves, to your bank account & fruits of your labor.
Some might say this is…exclusionary. Biden said he’d go, idk, maybe he just forgot. Hard as that may be to believe. Even worse are the people who openly say, “East Palestine is conservative, they probably voted for Trump, they don’t deserve aid/let them die/etc”. Truly despicable talk, un-American & partisan.
Idk man, I don’t claim to know everything. But look, I brought some receipts. Just some things for you all to think about. Please know, the government is not your friend.
I don’t think anyone thinks the government is our friend. I don’t know why that matters though. A company isn’t my friend either. When the options for things getting done are between a company (who’s motivation is supposed to be profit) and the government (who’s motivation is supposed to be good), I’ll take the government.
Joe Biden is a neo-liberal conservative old school politician. I don’t like him, and I don’t know anyone who does. He has been fairly effective for getting some good done though. I wish he’d speak out more and push for doing more good, but he’s done better than I expected from him (which is basically nothing, except not causing more damage like the last guy), because he’s got some progressive support behind him pushing for more leftist things.
We don’t need the government to be our friend. We need it to do what’s needed for the most good per dollar. I don’t think that should just be internal either, because humans are humans no matter where they live. I don’t really value “American”. I don’t think being born on this piece of dirt makes you any more important than someone born on some other piece of dirt.
Also, the military spending in Ukraine is mostly not money, it’s value. It’s the value of weapons that were already built and built for the purpose of fighting Russia and China at the same time potentially. Them being used to fight Russia is literally the most effective thing they could do, and what they were designed for. Russia being weaker means we need to have less stockpiled. If they weren’t sent over, they’d just be sitting in storage somewhere not being used. We aren’t sending cash for the most part.
Seriously. I’ve seen to many people that avoid nice areas because of stupid shit like this. Country music is dog shit but people hear you live in Georgia and assume you’re a good ol boy
He’s getting downvoted for misconstruing the intent of the original remark and jumping straight to the assumption of persecution, as are you. Assuming everyone is against you and whining about downvotes is possibly the most reddit thing ever.
Down voted because you don’t have solid reading comprehension skills here and not because you you’re pointing out that non-racists exist in the south.
And getting upset and then whining about being the victim because you didn’t read the comment correctly, yeah, you’re definitely bringing some Reddit 2.0 vibes here with that.
The post I responded to mentioned a city in Georgia and a long line of racist in the family but some people in bad families do use their brains occasionally and make better decisions, but y’all keep down voting lol
Ooooh I have not heard this one before, I like it. I’ve used cowbro in the past but generally just go for bro-country. Gonna throw supermarket cowboy into the mix.
Look at that pampered baby face of his. He probably has a fussy skin care regimen and spends more time in a spa every week than most people do in a year. But he needs to pander to the testosterone-obsessed truckbro pissbaby demographic to make his money.
Why do I suspect his ass is the first to flee when shit gets real? Doubt he can live up to his own lyrics, evidence has shown most of these people can’t.
At the end of the day, the root cause of bigotry is cowardice. Maybe stupidity and indoctrination got them where they are, but for 100% of them, it’s cowardice that’s keeping them there.
Pandering came out in 2016, apparently, so that’s more like seven years. But also, we all know they’re going to forget about being mad at Bud Light, move on to the next stupid culture war BS and start buying their Bud Light again within the year.
Are you suggesting that when John Fogerty wrote that song in 1969 he wasn’t opposed to spoiled rich folk? That’s one perspective, but he said the exact opposite…
You’d hear about the son of this senator or that congressman who was given a deferment from the military or a choice position in the military. They seemed privileged and whether they liked it or not, these people were symbolic in the sense that they weren’t being touched by what their parents were doing. They weren’t being affected like the rest of us.
In point of fact, when Fogerty found out that Trump was using his song, he issued a cease and desist order.
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.
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