When this guy can't get on the radio, somethings wrong.

Sweet Jesus, thats badass!

I have heard What Are You Listening To on the Chicago country station a number of times. It should be way more though. He is amazing.

No argument from me. I hear all of the industry saying the right things - "this bro country is terrible" - yet no one changes it. I'm afraid the real reason things don't change is that - on the whole - the song doesn't matter anymore. Or - the best song doesn't always win. When there was less theft of music, everyone was making enough money that integrity still had a place. Now that there's substantially less money, the labels HAVE to have the artist write their own songs to have a viable product (the labels usual also have publishing and or a 360 deal). Songwriting be damned. It's totally diluting and devolving the genre.

Maybe it says more about our culture, though. What did Vince Gill say - a fart app is the same price as the music that I've put my heart and soul into. And btw - a single in 1962 was 99 cents. Same price 50 years later.

He definitely is talented, but I've said it once, and I'll say it again.. You think he's great.. but does the general populace?  I'm not criticizing here, I just intend to make you think about the perspective of it.  Chances are that since you are a musician, you have a much better appreciation for good artists than the general public..  But that still doesn't change the fact that "good" and "respected" are NOT the same as marketable.  Hell, even "popular" is not the same.  These companies are about money and they have their formulas they are going to stick to.  They know what will sell and what won't.  It'll take a drastic change in buying by the public to change the marketing.

The music industry stopped being about music and started being about money long ago.  Now that there is no money in music anymore, they will wring out every last drop by doing the same thing as the movie industry is doing now, by attempting to copy every single thing that has made money in the past regardless of talent.  As long as it's marketable, it'll be pushed by the industry.  Attributes like being "good" or "respected" don't make money and won't factor into their equations.

It sucks, but that's the way of the industry.  Even then, you can't totally blame the industry, they are simply serving the population with what they want to buy.  What they want is simple and catchy tunes that don't take thought.

Verse
Chorus
hook
verse 
chorus
hook
bridge
chorus

Rinse, repeat.

That's Al Anderson, multi-decade lead guitarist for NRBQ, on the guitar. He's gone country. 

Well, I still try to be a fan of modern popular country but they are making it tougher and tougher every day. With opening lines like "In my truck flying down a dirt road", I puke a little in my mouth and change the station or put in a Rainbow or Deep Purple disc. It seems the only saving grace is female country artists have a tougher time crossing over into the bro-country mentality....thankfully.

$#1tballs, that was AL on Guitar?!? I haven't seen him in over ten years. He's gone country (no surprise here). I am officially in iTunes download purchase mode now as well as a tour watch. You made my morning Cowboycoalminer!!!!!

I dunno.  I've never heard it before.  I figured it was a local colloquialism or something, meaning roughly the same thing.

Folks, Madison Avenue is who controls the airwaves. That's the problem. It all switched from record sales dictating airplay to focus groups. The result of this change is nothing that isn't in the review mirror, actually says something or isn't distorted as hell gets any airplay.

"Big music" is just a messenger carrying an ugly ugly message. Radio, especially in the U.S., has become utterly useless because of this. Hopefully some of us can find an end run around this mess. If people were buying more records than ever it would be one thing but they aren't.