Call it that if you want, but this sort of thing really grinds my gears (h/t C.M. Wilcox)...
"When you say the word 'country' now, it's changed a lot," Urban says. "Now maybe you think of the Dixie Chicks, even Taylor Swift, but for a long while it was Dolly Parton and John Denver. When I look back at the music I grew up on, in the late '70s, early '80s, it was always contemporary, and that was Ronnie Milsap, Merle Haggard, Glen Campbell. And I don't think there was a cowboy hat in sight.
Like I said at Country California, it would seem Keith Urban thinks the gripes about country music's periodic pop leanings started about 1999 or so. And I honestly don't really get why he lumps Merle Haggard in with Ronnie Milsap and Glen Campbell. Sure, Hag had his more contemporary moments, but they didn't go nearly that far. And guess what? A lot of folks would say Ronnie Milsap and Glen Campbell weren't all that country either. There were folks that had problems with the Ronnie Milsaps and Glen Campbells of the day even as they acknowledged those artists' talent. I remember way back in the bad old days of the late '90s, with dial-up Internet and 28.8k modems I was haunting the music message boards on America Online and there was this one person I remember who'd go into near-apoplectic fits whenever Ronnie Milsap was mentioned because of his trademark pop-adult contemporary sound. I saw exactly where she was coming from, too, because I didn't like that sound either. If it came down to that or the newer folks like George Strait and Alan Jackson, I honestly would take the latter as closer to Real Country Music. Dolly Parton and John Denver? I guess Urban thinks "9 to 5" was a real shining moment in country music history. And how about Charlie Rich burning the envelope when John Denver was named CMA Entertainer of the Year back in 1975? (Not that he had any room to protest Denver's country cred or lack thereof, but the point still stands.) Really now, it strikes me that these Hot New Country artists have some piss-poor arguments to attempt to justify what they do. First it was "everybody listens to a bunch of different kinds of music," and then, "these pop-country artists bring people to country who wouldn't otherwise listen," and now this? What next?
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