Blog 3

Country music is not just a genre of music, but at this point it is a lifestyle and a culture.  Country music tends to celebrate what it means to be an average American, from working hard all day to make a living, to drinking beer or whiskey to relax at night, and to heartbreak or finding true love. Most average Americans can relate to this kind of life and appreciating the small things. Personally, I love country music; in fact my favorite song at the moment is H.O.L.Y by Florida Georgia Line, but as much as I love it, I can’t help but have a slight problem with it. I’ve noticed that within the last year or so, many country music stars have gotten divorces mostly because of cheating, yes Blake and Miranda, I’m referencing you. Now, the only people that will know the true story of what happened between Blake and Miranda are Blake and Miranda, but you can’t stop the public from speculating. Purportedly, one of them cheated on the other, or both cheated, or honestly maybe neither of them cheated, but rumors have it that one of them did. Now if you listen to either of their music, you’ll hear songs all about true love and being faithful to your one and only. I would like to take this moment to point out that Blake has been married twice and is now dating Gwen Stefani, while Miranda has only been married once, and that was to Blake for four years. Is country music a total hoax? Does anyone even find true love anymore? Or is it just produced because it will sell. Now I know what you’re probably thinking, there are plenty of heartbreak songs too, I will admit that, but at this point in time, it seems as though so many people are singing about true love and then turning around and getting divorced.

            Let’s take a look at Blake’s music, his last album was released in September of 2014, and he has a new album set to release May 20^th of this year. In between this gap, his marriage with Miranda fell apart, so I’ll be looking forward to seeing what he has to say in this music, but for the sake of this blog, we will focus on the music that has actually been released. Some of my favorite music from Blake was released the year he and Miranda got married, on his album entitled Red River Blue. This album is all about love, just listen to Honeybee and God Gave Me You. He even had a duet with Miranda on this album. It’s not until late 2014 that you start to wonder what’s going on with Blake, as many songs on his most recent album are about heartbreak.

            Now let’s take a look at Miranda’s music. One of the first songs I heard from her was Gunpowder and Lead, from her album entitled Crazy Ex-girlfriend. I mean, that title right there just says it all. Miranda also released an album the year she and Blake got married and while there is no duet on hers, they did co-write a song together. Her song, Safe, really seems to speak to her relationship with Blake though, talking about how they’ll keep each other safe.

            My problem here with this music is why can’t you practice what you preach? They both sing about heartbreak and love, so you’d think they’d want to be faithful if they’ve been wronged in the past. To me, one of the only totally honest about her problems and flaws artists is Taylor Swift, and she isn’t even a country singer anymore. If you’ve been cheated on or hurt and had your heart broken, do you really want to turn around and go do it to someone else? Regardless of what happened between Miranda and Blake, whether one of them cheated or not, you’d think that based on their music and their past relationships, they’d have an idea of what not to do to ruin a relationship.

            Since both parties involved in this relationship fiasco are country music stars, two of the hottest ones right now actually, there is no way to really know what happened because they’ll both produce heartbreak music expressing their feelings but they’ll both probably blame it on the other. Music is a great artistic outlet to express your feelings, but it’s only good when they’re real feelings. I love country music so much because the emotion behind it is so raw, but now I’m starting to question that raw emotion. The actions these singers are showing don’t necessarily match the music. This brings me to the question of are they just selling out? Music is more meaningful when the emotions behind the songs are real and it’s not just made to make money. Money driven anything loses its meaning and originality. In one of our first readings, “Commodities and Culture,” we talked about how manufactured standardized goods do not represent real creativity. Well the same goes for “manufactured” music. Once the sole purpose of somethings existence is to make money, it is no longer unique and creative. I hope that one day, artists can express themselves fully and still be successful instead of selling out just to make that pay check. To me, music is just so much better with real meaning behind it, because sure anyone with some laptop skills can create a fairly decent beat and call it a song, but channeling your inner emotions and letting them pour out on stage while performing is a real talent.