4 ms·

Hip hop isn’t all top 20 pop hits. I’d hope country fans also wouldn’t want their genre being judged solely by what’s being churned on the radio.

quacked 4y ago
Perhaps not, but it's extremely telling that most popular hip-hop songs almost all contain explicit claims that the artist committed many violent felonies, loves committing them, and will commit them again, whereas people have to dig in country music for examples of the artist claiming that they themselves actually killed or hurt someone, and when they find those examples they're always obviously playing a character. My main point is that the equivocation of Folsom Prison Blues with violent popular hip-hop today is ridiculous. If someone wants to compare it to Dance With the Devil or or The Story of OJ or Just to Get a Rep, that's fine, but that's not the context that people usually bring up FPB in. Violence and criminality in country music very rarely touches the rhapsodic and elevated status it achieves every week in popular hip-hop, and to pretend it does so often and that they're perfectly comparable is disingenuous.
- grapeskin 4y ago
  Literally the only modern country I hear on the radio involves being drunk and cheating on and fighting with your woman. Comparing certified classics of any genre from half a century ago to slop churned out today, ignoring the fact most of it will be forgotten and new classics will rise up, is weird.
  - quacked 4y ago
    Even if it were the case that all modern music is about drinking and cheating (which if is not; according to Billboard, the most recent #1 country song is about some things lasting forever, whereas the recent #1 hip-hop songs has a bridge about 'spinning the block'), getting drunk and cheating on your woman isn't anywhere near as serious as bragging about murdering your enemies and slinging hard drugs. This ridiculous equivalence between popular country and popular hip-hop should end. The two genres are made for entirely different social classes of people for entirely different reasons. The number of popular songs unironically glorifying violence in hip-hop is much, much higher than the number of songs unironically glorifying violence in country. The original commenter was correct.

quacked 4y ago

Perhaps not, but it's extremely telling that most popular hip-hop songs almost all contain explicit claims that the artist committed many violent felonies, loves committing them, and will commit them again, whereas people have to dig in country music for examples of the artist claiming that they themselves actually killed or hurt someone, and when they find those examples they're always obviously playing a character. My main point is that the equivocation of Folsom Prison Blues with violent popular hip-hop today is ridiculous. If someone wants to compare it to Dance With the Devil or or The Story of OJ or Just to Get a Rep, that's fine, but that's not the context that people usually bring up FPB in. Violence and criminality in country music very rarely touches the rhapsodic and elevated status it achieves every week in popular hip-hop, and to pretend it does so often and that they're perfectly comparable is disingenuous.

grapeskin 4y ago
Literally the only modern country I hear on the radio involves being drunk and cheating on and fighting with your woman. Comparing certified classics of any genre from half a century ago to slop churned out today, ignoring the fact most of it will be forgotten and new classics will rise up, is weird.
- quacked 4y ago
  Even if it were the case that all modern music is about drinking and cheating (which if is not; according to Billboard, the most recent #1 country song is about some things lasting forever, whereas the recent #1 hip-hop songs has a bridge about 'spinning the block'), getting drunk and cheating on your woman isn't anywhere near as serious as bragging about murdering your enemies and slinging hard drugs. This ridiculous equivalence between popular country and popular hip-hop should end. The two genres are made for entirely different social classes of people for entirely different reasons. The number of popular songs unironically glorifying violence in hip-hop is much, much higher than the number of songs unironically glorifying violence in country. The original commenter was correct.