I kinda like these guys ...

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Yeah...ummm... I like that Ke$ha song. 

I don't think the issue is what constitutes "country" or if Sheryl Crow is a good songwriter. Pop songs are meant to be disposable but the good ones have longevity by sneaking in some kind of greater artistic relevance.  I have no feeling one way or the other about Sheryl Crow's music, though I generally change the station whenever it comes on; I'd rather hear something else but I don't hate it. I like the synth lines in the Ke$ha song and the melody, but find the lyrics inane and pointless.

And as for "real" country, very few successful country artists every truly lived the lives they sing about. My family used to look down on our cousins, the Carter Family, because rather than work and farm, they "played" music. They were regarded as too lazy to make an honest living off the land.  Ironically, it is the music they played which will probably be the last vestige of the small rural family farms to survive modern culture. It is with no small contempt that I sneer at the modern faux country culture with its poser suburbanites who have never had to get up before dawn to feed or fence, never plowed a field or picked a crop, and think that outfitting themselves from head to toe in Realtree camo and oversized belt buckles makes up for that. Hell yes I'm an elitist, paid for with years of blood, sweat, and tears, so I can appreciate that Hootie does a nice Kenny Rogers, but his songs don't speak to my sensibilities and experience.

[Dave W]

Yeah...ummm... I like that Ke$ha song. 

I don't think the issue is what constitutes "country" or if Sheryl Crow is a good songwriter. Pop songs are meant to be disposable but the good ones have longevity by sneaking in some kind of greater artistic relevance.  I have no feeling one way or the other about Sheryl Crow's music, though I generally change the station whenever it comes on; I'd rather hear something else but I don't hate it. I like the synth lines in the Ke$ha song and the melody, but find the lyrics inane and pointless.

And as for "real" country, very few successful country artists every truly lived the lives they sing about. My family used to look down on our cousins, the Carter Family, because rather than work and farm, they "played" music. They were regarded as too lazy to make an honest living off the land.  Ironically, it is the music they played which will probably be the last vestige of the small rural family farms to survive modern culture. It is with no small contempt that I sneer at the modern faux country culture with its poser suburbanites who have never had to get up before dawn to feed or fence, never plowed a field or picked a crop, and think that outfitting themselves from head to toe in Realtree camo and oversized belt buckles makes up for that. Hell yes I'm an elitist, paid for with years of blood, sweat, and tears, so I can appreciate that Hootie does a nice Kenny Rogers, but his songs don't speak to my sensibilities and experience.

I had never heard of Kesha until I happened to be watching the Today show one Friday morning and she was the featured artist for that week's Toyota Concert Series. A two block long horde of teenage (and probably preteen) girls went bonkers for her. They knew every word. Obviously she speaks to them. We're not supposed to understand.

Back in the late 70s when Kesha's mom was married to Hugh Moffatt, they co-wrote Old Flames Can't Hold a Candle To You. Kesha does a credible version of it. Not as good as Joe Sun's original or Dolly Parton's 1980 cover, but the girl can sing if she wants to.

As for what's real country, I doubt that most singers in any genre sing about their real life experiences, and the ones that claim to usually bore me. As for country music, very little of it was ever farm music. Hell, it wasn't even called country music until the late 40s when an industry association decided that calling it hillbilly music didn't fit. Anyway, even from the beginning most country singers were from small towns and bigger cities, not farms. But they were mostly working class folk not too far removed from rural life. They weren't stockbrokers.

[Highlander]

... I used to listen to the Ramones or Pistols on the way into work because it relaxed me in rush hour traffic. 

(sputters coffee all over his keyboard, again...)

[uwe]

The Ramones soothe me too. They play a lot of major chords, have tuneful hooks - kind of like amped up Beach Boys. I never saw the Bruddahs as an aggressive band, hi energy, yes. And when I hear something like "Beat on the brat, beat on the brat, beat on the brat with a baseball bat, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah-a" it's about as violent to me as roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote or the spy vs. spy cartoons in the old MAD magazines. The Ramones are cartoonish in a brilliant way.

Oh my, now I all of the sudden miss Don Martin. That guy was a genius.