If you haven't been here to listen to my foundational opinions on music in the past, well, here it is. Don't let anyone make you feel bad for liking what you like (unless it's like "I like so and so because they hate [insert group). You can like lyrics, or tempo or emotion or whatever, and all of it hits all of us differently. Our taste in music comes from our background and our own individual tastes, and just because I don't like something doesn't mean either of us are better than the other. To assert otherwise makes you a dick.
With that said, I don't like country music. It doesn't sound right to my ear, and reminds me of my teenage job where I worked in a local hardware store with backwards, racist coworkers. The lyrics are a little too saccharine, and the instrumentation just isn't my favorite.
Ever since "southern rock" was christened, though, there has been crossover, so I am not entirely unfamiliar with the most famous country stars. There are two different types of those stars. There are the country stars that make pop songs or made a couple of pop songs, like Taylor Swift, Chris Stapleton or Maren Morris, but then there are people who have made their own music that just became popular, like Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen or Carrie Underwood.
In some cases, I am impressed. I think Stapleton, for example, has a unique voice that he has used well in his cross over work. I respect Combs' choice of songs to remake, and he has a soft spot with me for how beloved he is in his home town of Boone, North Carolina. People wouldn't stop talking about him when I visited last year.
There is one artist who has popped up on the pop stations a couple of times, who embodies everything that country music can be when it is beautiful. Whenever Kacey Musgraves has emerged from the country station and found a spot in the mainstream, I'm always struck by her ability to make a beautiful song.
Her voice lends itself to the plaintive, empathetic and hurt reflected in the songs that she makes. I'm not even here to tell you that Rainbow or I Remember Everything (if you can get past Zach Bryan) are the perfect songs or anything, but that for the message - which is very different - in both of the songs, Musgrave's vocalizations are perfectly suited.
I can appreciate people when they master their art, even if it isn't a medium I typically enjoy. Lyrics don't grab me as much as vocalization does, and Kacey Musgraves has proven to have that skill mastered.
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