Country Music Love

Growing up in the bay area, California... you don't get too much exposure to country music. But once I started listening to it, I grew to LOVE it.

I've heard people say, "I love all types of music; classical to rock, and everything in between... except country." Country was like a dorky, embarrassing thing to like. But the more I hear it, the more I love and appreciate it... and here's why:

HEART... Country music has heart. It focuses more on the lyrics than the beat. When I listen to country music, it brings out emotion. It makes you say, "I know what that guy was feeling." Now, I'm not an expert on music -- just a fan. A fan of music, a fan of singing, a fan of emotion, and a fan of life. Country music is deep, it's real, it's honest, and it is good... it's intentions are good. It restores my faith that people are good.

I first started listening to the crossover music that they play on the radio. Ie. Shania Twain, Dixie Chicks, Carrie Underwood, etc. I bought their albums and loved em'. Then I started watching the country music videos on CMT because they were the only channel that really played music videos. MTV, VH1, and BET had stopped playing music videos (y'all know what I'm talking about). And from those country music videos I loved how the videos actually related to the songs, and how the songs actually related to people. I used to love listening to the 80s -90s jams I grew up on because it used to capture that... but then lately that style just disappeared. I got tired of listening to the current popular music, that I would just listen to old school jams all the time................ Then today's country music brought that authenticity back :)

Before country music, the types of music I listened to were Slow jams, 80's-90's, R&B, Pop, and Rap. And I noticed how I gravitated to two elements... lyrics and catchiness. Country music has both... and here's the thing... I love to think. I like to dig...deep; explore ideas. And there would be times where I would think too much and it would just make things complicated or turn negative. I learned I needed to simplify.. not by dumbing-down or thinking less.. but changing the direction, and changing the manner. Country music does that for me. It's SIMPLE yet DEEP... and it is GOOD. When I say GOOD, I mean positive.. appreciative..... It has substance.

There are so many songs I would like to reference to, but I will only pick one. Now, I don't know a ton of country songs; I still consider myself a new fan, so there may be greater songs out there to reference to. But this song to me shows the greatness, humility, simplicity, compassion, and integrity of what is great about life. And that song is "Chicken Fried" by Zac Brown Band. It goes deep, but is still overall a FUN song. My favorite line "There's no dollar sign on a piece of mind, this I've come to know."

And country music can do that... they can take something deep and turn it into something fun. At the same time, they can take something fun and turn it into something deep....Okay, I said I was only going to reference one song, but I lied ;P ...I just thought of a few good little examples, we'll stick to 3 this time:

- Make a drunken booty-call sound romantic: Lady Antebellum - "Need You Now"

- Make a fun and sentimental song about something simple like water: Brad Paisley - "Water"

- Make a song about something sad, like breaking-up, sound fun and happy: Jerrod Niemann - "Lover, Lover"

Of course, other genres can do the same thing, but maybe every once in a while... All these songs mentioned above, came out within the past two years! I'm thinking, if all this great music is coming out now, what more of all those years before. Imagine all of the other topics that were touched on.

I could go in depth and compare country to other types of music, but I won't. I like to keep the "haterade" down and just appreciate... and country music seems to do that for me, without being too righteous or deep that could make people feel alienated or think an opposing view is lesser. The great thing about, not just country, but music in general is that it can be fun, silly, stupid, deep, romantic, sad, and whatever it may be. What ties it all together is that people have fun with it, and can relate to it. And if it makes a difference in your life and the way you think, even better!

What do I want people to get out of this blog?... Maybe start an interest in country music. (Come-on, give it a chance ;)).... But more-so to get people thinking. Think about life and the things you value. The greatest things in life aren't things. Be thankful for the people in your life, the relationships you've had, and the experiences you've made. That's what makes memories. Everything else is replaceable. Remember what's important. That's what country music does for me ;)


Til' next time.

I'm back babydolls!

Wow, it's been over 2 years since my last blog post!... And I've only posted twice! lol...I think at the time I started it, I was really just experimenting with having my own site, putting adds up, and seeing how the whole thing works....then I got side tracked... and well, you know... life happens.

But now, I am back... opinionated and have this weird urge to blog! The popularity of the facebook updates, made me want to start this back up... because I would do the status updates and realize: "I have so much more to say"....so I'll say it here :)

I have written a couple of blogs in the past, that I shared with family and friends. I'll try to dig those out... I kept a journal recently and thought I wrote some pretty darn good thoughts... but what sucks is that my computer broke, and I never backed up my journal file :( But I'll try to dig those out from memory.

I'm not sure what I'm going to write about next, and not sure where I'm going to take this... but that's what's fun about a blog-- it's random, and can go anywhere! ;)

Til' next time!

(I just realized, I sounded like Levar Burton's "I'll see you next time!" -Gotta love Reading Rainbow <3)