Dumb As a Truck?

Collin Raye, who had some hits on the country charts during the 1990s, asks whether or not a large portion of the music played on country radio today is...well...dumb.

His answer: Yes, it is, and it's focused on the same limited set of items and scenarios over and over again, in such a way that eventually people will stop listening to it. I think he's onto something. My alarm radio is set to a local country station because it also has a state and local newscast during the morning show, and in between the information is a parade of trucks, spittin', farmin', fightin' and other things that make the same song over and over again and create music that, as I read somewhere, "may be tired, but sure isn't Haggard."

Raye focuses on this music as performed by young male country singers, and calls it "bro country." But the ladies have their own share of guilt, with nearly every female singer or female-led act now supplying their albums with at least one sluts-in-boots track a la 2004's "Redneck Woman" from Gretchen Wilson. And the boots better be paired with a spectacular set of gams shown off in cutoffs.

This ends this test of the Emergency Middle-Aged Rant Against How Things Are Today. We now return you to your regular pop culture, also known as "proof that the ranter is correct."