Ha! Good point. Sorry, when I think of anyone having any opinion on country and the topic coming up in conversation my mind went straight to the US, but of cour

Ha! Good point. Sorry, when I think of anyone having any opinion on country and the topic coming up in conversation my mind went straight to the US, but of course it's huge all over the place so that was dumb. I do agree that knee-jerk dislike of country may be rooted in ignorance—but as far as social influence, I'd class that as being good at determining which bad music people like (I like plenty, and it's mostly for those reasons) or dislike, and the country on the radio in the US is, for the most part, firmly of the "you'll only like it if it's part of your scene" sort, so people with a blanket "I don't like country" opinion have very likely only been exposed to the equivalent of its Tenacious D or, at best, Styx (to expose some of my own sub-par likes). It's not their fault they assumed the genre was putting its best foot forward. And hey, Elton John made Tumbleweed Connection, so there's that. :-)