These days, folks are often disdainful of "the current state of Country". I believe that is mostly based on hearing a few minutes of radio and going no farther...
In a recent thread I mentioned to TuneMonger that there was a bunch of good Country out there (if you stay away from the radio). He said "Gimme some names" (kinda)
So...here is a small sampling.
Here are 5 damngood songs from one of my favorite records from the last few years... Jameson Rodgers - Bet You're From A Small Town
Missin One - Bet You're From A Small Town - Merle Haggard - One Day - Good Dogs -
If you get done with those and don't want to hear the rest of the album, then we (you) are headed down the wrong path.
Morgan Wallen's Dangerous album would land in my list of top 5 albums of all time. I highly recommend calling the record up, put on the headphones/earbuds, close your eyes and LISTEN. (over and over and over) The productions are astounding. (And So varied). If you learn just one thing (production-wise) from 5 songs, you will be upping your game. And there are 33 songs - that you could learn 5 things each.
From Wikipedia: In March 2022, the album established the all-time record for longest duration in the number one spot (97 weeks) on Billboard's Country Albums chart. In December 2022, the album became the first album ever by a solo artist to spend 100 weeks inside the top-ten of the Billboard 200. As of July 2025, the album has spent 165 weeks inside the top-ten of the Billboard 200, the second most weeks spent in the charts uppermost region in history.
The album was ranked top album of the 21st century by Billboard.
There is a reason for that.
Dangerous
And the follow up is almost as good (36 more songs)
One Thing At A Time
Here is a random listing of some folks I've added to my library (Apple Music) over the last few years. There are "singer-songwriters", 90's Country throwbacks, Hard Rock guys (even Metal), "new" Country ("beats"-kinda-stuff). And. like I said, this is a small, random sampling...
jordan davis https://www.youtube.com/@jordandavisofficial
That's gonna take a while to sort through and digest.
There is some really good, well written and performed songs on the radio these days. It's often skipped or put down as junk, or radio crap, because it doesn't fit neatly into our perception of what we consider to be "good music".
I'll work through the list you provided later
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Wow, amazing amount of work you put into this country compendium, thank you so much for the most detailed reply in the history of the internet! I am retired, so I had time to listen to every song. You're right, I will be listening to the whole albums from Jameson Rodgers and Morgan Wallen (33 songs!). "What I thank when I drank" gave me a good laugh. It's all good stuff. But I will always be a blues guy at heart. I grew up in poor, black neighborhoods of DC, and I guess that had too much influence on me. My interest in country has always been peripheral, and it will likely remain that way. I do think you should be one of these guys with double-record albums full of songs like Mister Wallen, if there's any justice in the world. I'm still hoping for that.
I'm going to go back through these songs again with an ear toward production. You said I could learn some things from them, and god knows I need to do that. Thanks again for taking the time to do this.
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No. Ears and an open mind - one that doesn't immediately lock onto stereotypes and cliches - are all that are required.
I don't know if your intent is to insult me or the artists on the list I've provided or just the entire industry, but you might want to try using a little imagination and originality when doing so.
I highly recommend calling the record up, put on the headphones/earbuds, close your eyes and LISTEN. (over and over and over) The productions are astounding. (And So varied). If you learn just one thing (production-wise) from 5 songs, you will be upping your game. And there are 33 songs - that you could learn 5 things each.
Even though Country isn't exactly my favorite genre , you've listed a lot of REALLY good songs that everyone can learn a lot from. Bookmarked Jameson Rodgers (amazing!), Morgan Wallen, Ryan Hurd, Lily Rose and Lainey Wilson. Great stuff. Thanks, Floyd I didn't know any of them.
No. Ears and an open mind - one that doesn't immediately lock onto stereotypes and cliches - are all that are required.
I don't know if your intent is to insult me or the artists on the list I've provided or just the entire industry, but you might want to try using a little imagination and originality when doing so.
So your response is to insult things I didn't say?
Ok, I'll say it, then. Every one of the things you posted–and I listened to them all—is formulaic crap, IMO. Creaking voice intro over chunks-chunka rhythm guitars or odd fingerpicked arpeggios—just like on country radio. Then the singer reminisces about booze-laden lost adventures or lost loves that just don't ring true. The only thing missing is Mark O'Connor's fiddle sawing away like in the 1990s.
I'm glad it provides employment and sells to somebody but never to me. Why? It's boring as hell, over and over and over and over and...
I stopped playing lead in country bands in the late 1980s after 20 years because I picked up touring gigs playing other types of music. When I started listening in again in the mid 1990s, "Hot Country" was in vogue and I never went back, The Urban Cowboy craze produced some interesting songs but that spark of creativity had disappeared. There's just nothing interesting there anymore that I can hear.
No thanks
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I highly recommend calling the record up, put on the headphones/earbuds, close your eyes and LISTEN. (over and over and over) The productions are astounding. (And So varied). If you learn just one thing (production-wise) from 5 songs, you will be upping your game. And there are 33 songs - that you could learn 5 things each.
Even though Country isn't exactly my favorite genre , you've listed a lot of REALLY good songs that everyone can learn a lot from. Bookmarked Jameson Rodgers (amazing!), Morgan Wallen, Ryan Hurd, Lily Rose and Lainey Wilson. Great stuff. Thanks, Floyd I didn't know any of them.
Ryan Hurd and Lily Rose are favorites. Josh Kerr lands about where they are. too.
And keep in mind the videos that popped up are usually the first cut on an album... not necessarily a favorite/best song (I tried to post the album playlist)... So digging a little will reveal some gems. Go to the artist channel and start poking around. Some of the choices were simply to show the variety available. The 2 Morgan Wallen records are enough to keep ya busy for a while....
Hi Floyd! Thanks for posting this summary - a bit of an education for me. I have to admit I’ve not listened to much country, so anything I say will come with quite a lot of ignorance - naïveté might be a better word.
I listened to a sample of these songs - mainly the ones with YouTube displaying inline - and it made me ask the question ‘What defines the genre country music?’ I think this is the same point you are making in a way. For reference, I don’t know examples of where radio country has gone rubbish because I don’t listen to it, so I am assuming your list you consider to be good country.
To my ears, these are the elements that jump out of a song to make me think it’s country:
The accent or vocal stylings of the singer - a certain twang and emphasis on rhotic pronunciation - the latter not exclusively.
The choice of instrumentation - put in a steel guitar, resonator, double stopped guitar or fiddle and it yells country.
The rhythm - something like train e.g. Lainey Wilson ‘Keep up with Jones’
For the first two points, you could swap out the singer and drop an instrument or two and you’d have indie, rock, folk rock or alternative. To illustrate in reverse, if you put Jameson Rodgers’ vocal on Blur - Tender would it become country?
Without wanting to go on a tangent, I have the same dilemma about rock and pop. What is it that defines these?
I just did a quick check of 3 Australian country artists (not current but very popular) to see if these elements are present, and sure enough! Lee Kernaghan ‘Boys from the bush’ Boys from the bush Troy Casserole-Daly ‘Born to survive’ Born to survive In this live performance, contrast the way he speaks to the way he sings. Kasey Chambers ‘The captain’ The captain
For clarity, the above is genuinely not to be critical of country or of the songs listed or of the issue at hand. I think we are all seeing our favourite genres being diluted.
Thanx Floyd for post this songs. Yes they are very good songs and yes there are a number of them on the Internet. The problem with looking for good country songs, old style country songs, rock songs, jazz songs, etc, is that you have to wade through a lot of, as Notes would say, "not for my ears" songs. I did enjoy each of these.
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Floyd, you and I have talked in a while and I haven't been on here much, but what a great thread! The weird part is even without us touching base in a bit it's crazy how much of what you posted I listen too. PLUS, as a bonus, I got a few new ones to check out from you! Thanks for that!
As far as Mike, dude, it's your kind of response that has me not coming here anymore. You came in and made a comment that wasn't to help, improve or add ANYTHING beneficial to a post that Floyd obviously put some time and effort into. You felt the need to make some snide remark, act like you didn't make it, then insult the spirit of the thread. You're a smart dude. Do better, man.
Anyway...later for now.
Chad (Hope that makes it easier)
TEMPO TANTRUM: What a lead singer has when they can't stay in time.
Floyd, you and I have talked in a while and I haven't been on here much, but what a great thread! The weird part is even without us touching base in a bit it's crazy how much of what you posted I listen too. PLUS, as a bonus, I got a few new ones to check out from you! Thanks for that!
As far as Mike, dude, it's your kind of response that has me not coming here anymore. You came in and made a comment that wasn't to help, improve or add ANYTHING beneficial to a post that Floyd obviously put some time and effort into. You felt the need to make some snide remark, act like you didn't make it, then insult the spirit of the thread. You're a smart dude. Do better, man.
Anyway...later for now.
The OP was looking for someone to disagree and when I made a small joke about the booze and trucker hats, he immediately unloaded with both barrels dumping on me for things I neither said nor implied. The first person who disagreed was going to get that exact blast—if you don't understand that, read it again. Knowing that his response was pre-planned, I then fired back in return.
I could have written a long paragraph on each song explaining my points but I certainly wasn't interested. Just because I found Form and Analysis classes pointless and boring while working towards a music degree doesn't mean I wasn't very good at it—still am.
He wanted the fight, I gave him the opportunity to get whatever nonsense he had bottled up out and he did. I should have been thanked but wasn't. I'm ok with that.
As for you, I suggest rereading what went down and getting over it.
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The OP was looking for someone to disagree and when I made a small joke about the booze and trucker hats, he immediately unloaded with both barrels dumping on me for things I neither said nor implied. The first person who disagreed was going to get that exact blast—if you don't understand that, read it again. Knowing that his response was pre-planned, I then fired back in return.
.... He wanted the fight, I gave him the opportunity to get whatever nonsense he had bottled up out and he did.
None of this is actually true. Wild assumptions based on some preconceived notion.
Your "joke" did not sound like a joke to me. It sounded like an insult. I merely asked who the insult was aimed at.
You could have replied by saying "I did not intend to insult anyone". You chose to do otherwise...
What’s getting lost here is that Floyd started a thread to share music and invite people to listen and learn from it. A bunch of us did exactly that and got value from it.
Disagreeing with a genre or a list is totally fine. Threads get derailed when a quick jab pulls the focus off the songs and turns it into an argument about intent and tone. None of us really knows what Floyd meant or intended except Floyd himself. We can talk about how something landed, but not rewrite what someone else says their intent was.
As far as my part in it, I want to apologize to Mike. I think I made it come across like he is the reason I don’t participate here much anymore, and that isn’t fair. I actually used to love coming here to catch things I would have missed if people like Floyd weren’t making suggestions like this. To me, it’s a shortcut, with commentary, to what’s going on. I really value that. I actually very much value those conversations because of everyone here.
But over time it started to feel like someone always had to jump in with something that was only loosely about the topic and not really in the spirit of it. It would turn into what they think, then their past, and finally “do you know how great I am?! Let me tell you!” moment, and it just got old for me. That part is on me for letting that history bleed into this thread.
When I popped in and saw Floyd’s list, I was honestly excited, and but then it quickly felt like the same pattern again. Mike, that’s not on you at all. That’s on me. I brought too much baggage into this and it wasn’t fair to you or the thread. I was going to send you a PM on this, but since I said what I said publicly, I wanted to apologize publicly too. And for what it’s worth, I actually smirked when you made your first joke. I really don’t like my part in pulling this thread sideways, even for a minute.
Anyway, this was meant to be about what’s out there right now and what people are hearing in it. I’d rather see it get back to talking about the tracks, the production, and what people are picking up from them, because that’s what made Floyd’s post worth the time in the first place. Thanks for posting it Floyd!
Chad (Hope that makes it easier)
TEMPO TANTRUM: What a lead singer has when they can't stay in time.
...Anyway, this was meant to be about what’s out there right now and what people are hearing in it. I’d rather see it get back to talking about the tracks, the production, and what people are picking up from them, because that’s what made Floyd’s post worth the time in the first place. Thanks for posting it Floyd!
I generally always listen to Floyd's contributions. It gives me the opportunity to appraise the song, the structure, the delivery, the lyrical value and much more. I do take note of what goes into each production.
I haven't been able to locate any musical contributions I can compare to in any of these song sharing forums from others who seem to be indifferent to Floyd's presentations. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places or I haven't looked hard enough? Are there any online samples?
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As far as Mike, dude, it's your kind of response that has me not coming here anymore. You came in and made a comment that wasn't to help, improve or add ANYTHING beneficial to a post that Floyd obviously put some time and effort into. You felt the need to make some snide remark, act like you didn't make it, then insult the spirit of the thread.
. . . dumping on me for things I neither said nor implied.
But it IS implied . . . I happen to often wear a "trucker hat", listen to mostly "country" music so yeah . . . It came across as rude. And I agree it's that kind of looking down your nose attitude that keeps me away from this site as well. It was a snide and pointless remark and added nothing to an otherwise enjoyable thread.
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, you've listed a lot of REALLY good songs that everyone can learn a lot from.![[Linked Image - Only viewable when logged in]](https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/images/icons/default/thumbs_up.gif){kind=icon}
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