“That Ain’t Country” Is The Complaint That Never Ends
It is so ironic that this is out in today’s news ether. JUST THE OTHER DAY we took a call from someone yelling at us for playing one of the biggest selling/downloaded songs of the last two years. “Every time you play Walker Hayes’ ‘AA,’ I turn to another station because, THAT AIN’T COUNTRY.” *SIGH* “Ma’am, have you listened to the lyrics of that song? It doesn’t get more country than trying to keep your daughters from being strippers, sons from becoming convicts, and avoiding alcoholism.” Those three words, “That ain’t country,” drive us crazy. I need to ask our friends who work on our sister, pop radio station if they get complaints that “Dua Lipa ain’t Diana Ross!” For some reason there is a very small yet very vocal minority of people who cannot accept that music evolves. Case in point, I distinctly remember what Garth Brooks recently recounted to Kix Brooks. I will never forget complaint calls that “Garth Brooks ain’t country.” Just fast forward to the 13 minutes mark in the video below if you don’t believe me. Garth Brooks recently sat down with Kix Brooks and talked about “the old days.”
“When we started, we were the bad guys,” says Garth “We were the guys that weren’t country, and now we’re viewed as the most traditional guys out there.” Kix agrees pointing to when he was making hits with Brooks & Dunn in the 90s. “People used tell me and Ronnie all the time, ‘wish we could get back… you guys were real country’ and I’m like ‘WHAT!’ said Kix. “We got our ass handed to us when we young, man.” Garth responds. Do you think there is room within country music to have both traditional and contemporary country representation? I’ll answer that Garth. For most of us, YES! For a very loud, very small group of people, HELL NO!
