In Country Music, Nice Guys Finish First (for Now)

The proper description of Kip Moore is of the person who recorded "Somethin' About A Truck" which made all other truck songs superfluous.

Thank goodness some guys have decided people do not deserve to be treated as objects. The real issue here is not that some men make songs which treat women as objects, and people listen to those songs, it's that women begin to see those views as accepted and acceptable. A song which needed to be included in this article is "God Made Girls", by RaeLynn. The reasons God made girls, according to the song, included someone needing to give guys a reason to wash their trucks and someone needing to take guys to church. Clearly, she hasn't realized that her sole purpose is not to help men.

Brad Paisley has been doing the "country gentleman" thing successfully for some time, as have many others (Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Ronnie Dunn, etc etc). This is nothing new, it just that recent years have had greater proliferation of the drinking/party boy songs. Things even out over time.

Is there any music made with less "pure feeling" -- to use the phrase the writer uses to describe the feeling-less "Die a Happy Man" -- than the boring songs touted in this article?

Johnny Cash is rolling over in his grave.

Agree with almost everything written here, Jon, but I argue that Kip Moore was never a "former bro." His debut single "Something Bout A Truck" does lean into the country bro category, but there are plenty of other tracks on all three of his albums. On "Up All Night" (from 2012) there's "Hey Pretty Girl" and "Faith When I Fall" among others; "Wild Ones" has "Running For You" and "Comeback Kid," which are both heartbreaking; and the recently dropped "SLOWHEART" has "Guitar Man" in addition to "More Girls Like You." More than the tracks themselves is his backstory. The man has fought throughout most of his career to be everything that bro country is not, and even when he has failed miserably he has not given in. Encouraging anyone who hasn't yet delved into Moore's discography to do so.

I hate to say it, but I don't really care. Country music, of whatever style or flavor, is so 20th century.

A pretty accurate gloss of country music's more recent fault lines, but surely Keith Urban--reborn nice guy, unabashedly romantic, great musician--warrants a mention for what he created and encouraged in pop country. Too Aussie fer ya?

Is Johnny Cash country? Are 'Ring of Fire' and 'Big River' country songs? Big River is one of the best songs ever recorded. Is it country? i've always wondered. Is it Western? Southern folk? Kings of Leon are not country, but songs like "Use Somebody" and "Sex on Fire" seem country-inflected to this Bostonian.

I realize he doesn't technically qualify as country like these men do, though they're closer to pop than country, but Jason Isbell's "Cover Me Up," and "If We Were Vampires" are two of the best country-infused love songs of the last decade. Easily.

“I’m a Friday night, you’re a Sunday afternoon/I’m a reckless rock ’n’ roll, and you’re a last slow dance to a midnight tune/Deep in your heart, I know you know I ain’t right for you.” A gentleman knows when he’s out of his league, and recedes without resentment. I don't think that's about leagues. Just incompatibility. He drinks more than she does. I doubt either reads Proust. Leagues are mostly about income, looks, height. and maybe education. They aren't really about incompatible lifestyles, unless the implication is a class difference. Plenty of people drink beahz and watch NFL on Sunday afternoon. Therefore, they might not be incompatible. I am trying to give these lyrics more attention than they deserve. My time would be probably more rewardingly spent on lyrics by Ric Ocasek or Stephen Malkmus.

All you have to do is look at the photo and you realize this article is not going to be about country music. There is no way this group is any less horrible than the "bro-country" group they evolved from. There is plenty of great music out there but you have to avoid the radio to hear it. Great artists like (in no particular order) Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton, Chris Knight, Turnpike Troubadours, Reckless Kelly, Tyler Childers, the Drive By-Truckers,... If you have to listen to what is on the radio, there is Eric Church. But there is not a single person in the group of pretty-boy robots featured in this article that anyone should ever pay more than a passing interest in.

Folks, forget every name mentioned in this article and look up Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton, and Sturgill Simpson if authentic Americana / rural / country is what you seek. You'll never look back.

My father was a "hillbilly" DJ in the 40s. I grew up on Bob Wills and Merle Travis, Jim Reeves and Roy Acuff. As far as I'm concerned the over-produced garbage that's called country music today has nothing to do with country. I will make allowance for George Strait, Ray Benson and Willie. We live in a very rural area where the nearest town of 10,000 or more is an hour away. My grandson plays guitar (and six other instruments) and the one style he can't stand is today's country music: classical, jazz, pop, reggae, rockabilly, hard rock, r&b, metal, even hip hop, but not country. Perhaps this new trend is a turnaround. I hope so, because country has been lost for decades. "Duh, I got mud on ma boots & the John Deere is parked outside yur double-wide. Let's go drinkin' & dancin' at the honky tonk in Brooklyn, Baaabeee."

C&W lost me with "Urban Cowboy" and the ensuing hat acts way back when. Alt.country is something else again, attitude plus delivery, and where I go when I want to hear what real country used to sound like played and sung by current artists as well as the dead and soon to be. It's streaming as I write this...