What country music would you recommend to someone who wants to listen to some country that isn’t bro/truck country? I know not all country music is Like That but unfortunately at the moment that’s most of my experience with the genre and I want to broaden my horizons. Maybe some good gothic country or bluegrass suggestions?
(I am, of course, already familiar with Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton. Beyond that feel free to suggest even extremely obvious choices)
Ween has 12 Golden Country Greats.
This album doesn’t have 12 songs, but legend has it that the “12” refers to the session musicians recruited from Nashville to provide the excellent music.
However Ween being Ween, this album is likely to be very offensive, lyrically-speaking, to a lot of folks’ sensibilities in 2023 — just a heads up for folks not listening on headphones!
The line “Big booty bitch start suckin” from the song Piss Up a Rope was crafted by true poets.
It’s also the most country song on the album lol
I think the most offensive song on this album is Mister Richard Smoker; which as far as I can tell, is about a gay pedophile meth addict.
Boodeliboppo!
Ignoring the element of satire, I think that by today’s standards, Japanese Cowboy would be considered by most audiences to be racist, Piss Up a Rope to be sexist, and Mr. Richard Smoker to be homophobic.
From my experiences growing up in the rural south, I interpreted Mr. Richard Smoker as riffing on the obviously wrong-headed fear about gay men being “drug addled, cross-dressing dick smokers who want to ‘convert’ my teenage boy”.
Not to say that 12 Golden Country Greats isn’t an excellent album with an all-star ensemble of players and clever satirical takes on country music, just that it’s not something I’d recommend to people without a heads up lmao