S is for Sellout

            S is for Sellout. This is going to be a rant. Just a wee bit.

            I was baffled for the longest time about why everyone suddenly hated/disliked/mocked Nickelback. Then Mama B explained it to me. Everyone thinks Nickelback sold out. All of a sudden, their albums were purely stereotyped/commercialized sex, drugs, rock n roll. All party and no real substance.

            I’ve said before that Nickelback was a gateway band for me when I was just beginning to explore my own tastes in music. As such, I still enjoy their music and I’m not likely to jump on the hate bandwagon. There’s a certain amount of loyalty I feel towards them. But I don’t feel that loyalty for modern country music.

            Before Nickelback, before Evanescence, before the musical revolution that was middle school for me, I grew up on country music. The stuff from the late 90’s, early 2000’s.  In my current job, Mama B generously left me access to her Sirius XM account and one of my favorite stations is Prime Country, 80’s and 90’s. It’s what I grew up on, it’s what I adore, and 90% of current country cannot hold a candle to it.

            Yes. I, Carolina Kel, am calling out country music, and pointing the sellout finger at them.

            Pick-up trucks, girls in short shorts, bonfires, and beer. Sure, that’s all great but after 1,001 songs about it, it’s a theme that has been beat to death. Not to mention, it seems like every redraft of that theme I hear, it’s trying that much harder to be rock and roll. It’s trying to be hip and it feels insincere.

            Music has to evolve. I understand and respect that. There are actually some country songs I really like, but what I love is a country song that is actually about something, or that tells a story. To me, I think that’s the fundamentals of country music, what it needs to be at its core and what most of it has lost.

            I have band loyalty to Nickelback. I have lifelong loyalty to country, but that gives me the right to complain about current stuff that sucks. I have no loyalty to Florida Georgia Line. They actually annoy me, for the most part. And if I hear “Hey girl” in a country song one more time, I swear…

I do not own this picture.