Country music sales slide in 2003.

[TNDemo]

I wonder if it is because so many people are like me. I have never been a country fan but occasionally a song or group would come along and I would make an exception and buy the CD. After country became the pro war genre I decided on principle that I would purchase nothing considered country whatsoever because I did not want to support that industry. Also note in this article that of the year's top albums that Dixie Chicks are #2 and Toby Keith is #4.

http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/04/01/45042792.shtml?Element_ID=45042792

Poor country music sales dragged down the record business in 2003, an about-face from the previous year, when a country showing helped make up for shortfalls in other genres.

Country record sales were down about 10% last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan, while music sales overall declined only 0.8%. In 2002, country posted a 12.3% gain, while sales in all genres declined 8.7%.

[Kamika]

1. country is probably dying

I don't know much about country.. but isn't there a lack of new stars? I mean isn't there just a bunch of old guys dying off one by one?

Also I bet country is dying, youngsters now don't like country as much as their parents might have, now when you have internet and can get any kind of music.

Ok and before you flame me into country hell and stuff these are all my opinions

[leftofthedial]

13. actually, "old" stars don't have record deals

it's pretty much all young, new "stars"

[okieinpain]

2. damn those dixie chicks

[NightTrain]

3. Could it be that a lot of today's country music just blows?

And I'm not talking only about the pro-war stuff!

[JitterbugPerfume]

4. country music

sux

[hippiechick]

5. We've all got enough to be depressed about...

since 2000 ... we don't need to listen to someone else singing about the barn burning down or the truck being repossessed for us ~ we're LIVING it !!!

:hippie:

[elperromagico]

6. Very little country music is "country."

Country music is people like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Sr., Merle Haggard... all old-timers.

A lot of "modern country," like that Shania Twain horseshit, is just pop music with fiddles and steel guitars. No wonder it's failing.

[mac56]

9. Amen to that.

Since Kenny Rogers came along and "Barry Manilow-ized" country music in the 80s, real country has become a dying breed. But it ain't dead yet. Alt country has kept it alive, along with mainstreamers like The Mavericks, Dwight Yoakum, Dixie Chicks, Radney Foster, Rodney Crowell, Ricky Scaggs, and a few more.

[RebelOne]

7. Yeah, it's gotta because of the Dixie Chicks. (grin)

[elperromagico]

8. Of course.

And music downloads killed the music industry in 2002.

[Intelsucks]

10. Modern country music is nothing but pop with a steel guitar anymore.

IMHO, of course.

[Deja Q]

11. It's kazaa, all those music thieves!!!

:eyes:

That's what the RIAA will say... (sigh...)

[mlawson]

12. If it's reached the LOW that top 40 'rock' has,

the sales should fall to zero. Look at the non-rap 'hit' singles on Billboard this week. "Here Without You" by Three Doors Down is number EIGHT!! We would have laughed that thing off the radio back in the day! We would have called it a 'nothing-burger'.

Also in the top 50 are gems by Linkin Park, Staind, Matchbox 20, et al. :puke:

The music has finally died. Thank ____ for my record collection.

[101 Proof]

14. It's because country music sucks.

That's why. :)

[leftofthedial]

15. country music is going the way of rural America

We have become an urban nation. It is debatable whether there is a mainstream country music market anymore. Virtually no one lives on a farm and those of us whose parents or grandparents lived on farms are getting older. America's rural population and their immediate descendants have alsways been the heart of the Country music market.

Country also has suffered from the same corporate-media, programmed mentality that is killing other popular music today.

Country had a big boom in the 90's appealing to a suburban audience, but in so doing, it pretty much became the lame slightly twangy pop-rock music you hear now.

Most of the country themes lampooned in this thread are very scarce commodities in contemporary Country music. Barns don't burn down, dogs don't get killed and trucks don't break down in today's country songs. Instead, the powers that be have constrained the music to a very few, very narrow themes mostly intended to not anger anyone. Love, nostalgia, and patriotism are about it. Despite a wealth of phenomenally talented songwriters in Nashville, it has also consciously become very dumbed down. There are a plethora of very clever, well-crafted songs that don't say anything.

There is some amazing music being made in Nashville, but it is almost all independent, "alternative" Americana.

Mainstream Country has struggled to find a way to make itself relevant to contemporary culture. It has historically ridden a cyclical pattern of traditionalism, followed by increasing pop influence, followed by "neo-traditionalism," and then another wave of neo-traditionalism, etc.

The problem today is, the corporate media has no real roots in the traditional form and precious little background in music at all. The "O Brother" soundtrack's success seemed to herald a new wave of traditional influence, but so far it just seems to have spawned a wave of the same old pop dreck played on acoustic country instruments instead of amplified ones.

Look for something outside of Nashville (the alt country, neotwang movements) to "save" Nashville from itself, just as Texas "outlaw" country saved it in the 70's when it had gone Mantovani. Alt Country has been threatening for twenty years now, but no one can break big. If someone from Alt Country or another roots niche does break big, Nashville will copy it. Until then, the industry people are all too afraid to take a chance on anything except another new flavor of the month.

I think they are painting the deck chairs on the Titanic. Personally, I believe the death of the major labels may take Country out altogether as a genre as we have known it. In its place we will have a huge variety of excellent independent music that calls to the same traditional American musical roots--those roots that are now starting to show embarassingly as the conventional Country music industry's bleached blonde grows out.

[LoZoccolo]

16. I tend to like alternative country better.

Bands like Rexway and the Bottle Rockets and what not. There's a whole magazine dedicated to it:

http://www.nodepression.net

It actually tends to sound more "real" too, you know, like country without synthesizers and stuff. Some of it sounds more like 70s southern rock too.

Some Bottle Rockets lyrics...on conservative talk radio:

Angry fat man on the radio
Wants to keep his taxes way down low
Says there oughta be a law
Angriest man you ever saw

On the Confederate flag:

Maybe bein' a rebel ain't know big deal
But if someone owned your ass, how would ya feel
I'm a different kind, but I'm a rebel too
Like to do my own thing, how 'bout you
You can whistle dixie all day long
If the tables turned wouldn't ya hate that song