In defence of country-pop

I am aware that the music I enjoy is widely considered to be the worst ever produced in human history. Worse than a roomful of children with recorders, cymbals and malice; worse than a poultry abattoir. Every so often, someone will ask me what I listen to, and I’m forced to tell them the truth. ‘These days,’ I’ll say, ‘it’s mostly country.’ Their nose will wrinkle, as if I’ve just let out a stealthy fart in their direction. ‘But old country, right?’ they’ll say, almost pleading. ‘Classic country?’ No, not classic country. I like Johnny Cash fine, I appreciate Merle Haggard and Dolly Parton and Waylon Jennings and all the other respectable stalwarts you’re allowed to enjoy as a vaguely bookish Jew from north London. But the stuff that really hits me right in the chest cavity is the ugly, overproduced industry trash released somewhere between 2000 and 2016, in which there’s no storytelling, no ‘three chords and the truth’, no poignancy, no heartbreak, and in which the primary object of erotic fascination is a truck.

I am not even slightly kidding about the trucks. Probably the most utterly perfect example of the genre is Brad Paisley’s 2003 masterpiece, ‘Mud on the Tires’. He croons, over fiddles and banjo: ‘I’ve got some big news/ The bank finally came through/ And I’m holding the keys to/ A brand new Chevrolet…’ The person he’s singing to is presumably a woman, a wife or girlfriend, and he tries to spin his purchase into a romantic opportunity. With this thing, we can go anywhere; we can go past where the dirt roads end, take a trip out into the back country, just the two of us…

Tell you what we need to do Is grab a sleeping bag or two Build us a little campfire And then with a little luck We might just get stuck Let’s get a little mud on the tires.