The One Year Country Music Appreciation Guide is something of a passion project for me…or entirely a passion project for me, let's be honest. Like, this isn't going to become my career, and I damn sure don't intend it to be.
But for me, country music is a much-maligned genre of music. Now, I'm of the opinion that no genre of music is "bad" in it's entirety, but boy do people not like to extend that particular courtesy to country music. To most, it's beer and pickup trucks and blue jeans and hound dogs, nothing more than that.
And holy crap, d I ever get it. In fact, that's part of why I'm here, writing the godforsaken blog in the first place: I don't particualarly care for mainstream country radio either. It's stadium country and boyfriend country and sanitized, inoffensive, milquetoast, pop country. I say that as someone who has zero problem with pop country, too. Always been down for that crossover, from Shania Twain all the way up to Taylor Swift.
But none of those are the spirit of country music. They're the result of capitalism and a conservative audience that the record labels re terrified to piss off. Country music, like much of rural culture in the United States, is decidedly less quaint and peaceful than media might have us trying to believe.
Country music sprouts from the convergence point between rural Americana, historically Black music (Because White People™ absolutely love to take Black music and then pretend they invented it. Don't worry, that's going to come up throughout this project.), and some damn good musical chops (Country artists are among some of the best singers in the industry. I will die on this hill.).
When country is right, when it's real and not sanitized and allowed to be what it is at it's best, it's raw and visceral. It's protest music. It's moonshine runners screaming "ACAB" out the window as they speed through the woods away from the cops. It's hard living and harder drugs. It's political, deeply, deeply political.
And that's the country music I want to help people appreciate. Because it's out there. It's absolutely everywhere if you just know where to look. And that is something I can actually bring to people. I listen to country a lot, because I like the way it sounds. I like the emotions it brings. I…tolerate the culture, and try to elevate the parts of it that aren't garbage (We'll also touch on the misogyny and homophobia present in country music circles, don't you worry. It does have a more-conservative-than-average audience. I'm not here to pretend it doesn't.).
So The One Year Country Music Appreciation Guide. I want to bring my knowledge to bear on this. I want to let people enjoy this genre of music I love in the way that I love it, with the music that I love. So every Saturday in 2022, I'll be posting an aspect of country music—an artist, a category, a theme, a niche, et cetera—that I appreciate. Te caveat, of course, is that this is my taste in music. I have very eclectic tastes, but I'm not here to promise you that it's going to be objectively "good" music. You might not like what I recommend in these 52 artists. It's very likely that, if you don't like country music coming into this, you're not going to like country music at the end of it.
But my hope is that, at the end of 52 weeks, maybe you'll have a new appreciation for country. Maybe you'll find a new artist to listen to. And shit, maybe you will like country by the end. I don't know, but I hope. Because country is a musical punching bag, and I love an underdog.
If you find this blog after 2022, It should still get the job done. No need to feel like you had to be live or you missed the boat. All the blog posts will stay up, and it's never too late to try and grown an appreciation for a new genre of music.
Enjoy yourself. Listen to some tunes. And thanks for taking this trip with me.
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