Most of what I've wanted to say has been said already. Hank, Johnny, Loretta, Dolly and that whole crew...speaking of Dolly, I was especially drawn to her as a small child. She is such a funny, clever lady.
I haven't really paid much attention to the state of popular country music as of late. The last time I really remember watching a music video on CMT, it was probably Shania Twain singing "Any Man of Mine." I wish she would do more songs in that vein.
I do watch the show Nashville Star with my mom. I probably never would have seen it had it not been for the fact that it plays on the USA network, and that's where I watch my Law & Order CI/SVU, so Nashville Star is hard to miss. I am mostly unimpressed by the people on that show, with the exception of Angela Hacker, who I adore.
http://www.usanetwork.com/series/nas...ela/index.html
Around these parts (I've always wanted to say that) listening to country music used to be accepted and encouraged among the younger kids. But now, the only younger people who do listen to country music are just doing it for laughs, you know, like "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" and all that jazz. I don't even know who sings that. But younger people who proclaim to hate certain genres of music (really only country and rap) always seem to latch onto the worst possible example of each, and proceed to like it in an ironic way. And of course everything else in the genre "sucks," but they can make an exception for "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" because it's "funny."
I will never understand the greatest phenomenon of the 90s, otherwise known as Garth Brooks. The only time that I recall enjoying him was when my brother made himself a mix CD of his favorite gangsta rap songs, but had "Friends in Low Places" as the second-to-last track. I think it was sandwiched between "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" and some Eazy-E song I didn't know.
For some reason I like more female than male country artists. Maybe it's because with men, their singing "country" voices can easily turn into what sounds like farts. Farts probably isn't the right word...it's just this sound that I hear coming out of the mouths of the male country singers on the radio. It's like they try to put too much twang into their voice, and their voice isn't that great to begin with, so now it's coming out all nasally, and anyway, it just has to stop.
And I suppose I agree with the sentiment about drums and electric guitars, for the most part. It's almost like it wouldn't come out sounding so horrible if there wasn't someone going, "Well this sounds okay, but let's make it sound BIGGER!" That's how I imagine it going at least.
And I want to add that really sad country songs are usually 10x sadder than most sad songs from other genres.