A fact, to which most of you who know me can attest, is that I like country music in pretty much all of its stripes. I can throw down at an alt.country show, am somewhat of a regular at The Firehouse for Red Dirt Music, and have some Nashville types that don’t make me puke. Last night, and I wished this had been a nightmare, I watched two shows on cable: Open Country and The Edge of Country. What I expected were shows that were the television equivalent of X Country (my favorite XM station back when I had XM). What I got on the first show was a series of videos that at best were Southern Alternative (yes I am coining a new genre in this post). The only thing country about them was a little bit, maybe, if you listened, of twang in the singers voice. Not a single fiddle, steel guitar, or any of the rhythms that comprise anything known as country. The videos were all artsy and bad and the lack of cowboy hats just added to the whole mess. It was not a country music show by any stretch. It was some sort of strange-almost-Southern-Alternative. It didn’t even qualify for alt.country. It made me mindful of Hank III’s “Dick in Dixie”
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