Country Sub-Genres

[Kentucky25]

I'm trying to categorize my playlists in iTunes (got a lot of country and sometimes I'm in a certain mood for certain types of country). I have a couple ideas that seems to fit but I would like to get an idea from Pulse users on how to categorize the genre. My main struggle has been catheorizing the early 2000s stars like Chesney, McGraw, and Keith. They're not necessarily neo-traditional but also not pop country.
What I've go so far (obviously not as thorough) is...

Neo-Traditional - Easton Corbin, George Strait, Greg Bates
Pop - Carrie Underwood, Lady A, Dan + Shay, Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts
Bro - Luke Bryan (not the first two albums), FGL, Aldean (minus first couple albums), Shelton (some of new stuff), SwIn fell
R&B Country - Rhett (new album), Eldredge (new album)
Alt-Country - Eric Church (Outsidera), ZBB (new stuff)

I've found this to be a bit more difficult to categorize just as one artist is strictly one thing as some albums or singles go in a different direction. Like Aldean is Country/Rock or Bro (but Two Night Town is neither).

[bjer127]

Sept 29, 2015 9:58:54 GMT -5 Kentucky25 said:

I'm trying to categorize my playlists in iTunes (got a lot of country and sometimes I'm in a certain mood for certain types of country). I have a couple ideas that seems to fit but I would like to get an idea from Pulse users on how to categorize the genre. My main struggle has been catheorizing the early 2000s stars like Chesney, McGraw, and Keith. They're not necessarily neo-traditional but also not pop country.
What I've go so far (obviously not as thorough) is...

Neo-Traditional - Easton Corbin, George Strait, Greg Bates
Pop - Carrie Underwood, Lady A, Dan + Shay, Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts
Bro - Luke Bryan (not the first two albums), FGL, Aldean (minus first couple albums), Shelton (some of new stuff), SwIn fell
R&B Country - Rhett (new album), Eldredge (new album)
Alt-Country - Eric Church (Outsidera), ZBB (new stuff)

I've found this to be a bit more difficult to categorize just as one artist is strictly one thing as some albums or singles go in a different direction. Like Aldean is Country/Rock or Bro (but Two Night Town is neither).

I do the exact same thing on my itunes and Spotify playlists. My moods and things like that reflect on what I feel like listening to. Not sure of your specific tastes but here are some of mine

- 90's Country : I grew up on it, and love it still. I listen to this all the time. 492 songs and going. Great memories. Basically all the hat acts LOL
- 80's Country: Maybe my second favorite decade. Anything from Ronnie Milsap, Alabama, Earl Thomas Conley to Vern Gosdin and Keith Whitley and Randy Travis.
-Outlaw Country: Basically anything bad ass, way too weird for radio. LOL. I have alot of things like Jamey Johnson, Ray Scott, Roger Alan Wade, Whitey Morgan, Merle, Willie, Waylon, Bobby Bare, Billy Joe Shaver, Hank Jr and alot of Red Dirt stars.
- Texas Music/Red Dirt: Tons of artists and songs out there about Texas.
- Classic Country : Love this playlist too. over 500 songs. All the good stuff from 50's, 60's, 70's.
- Country Duets - I have a playlist of all my favorite duets, about 150 songs long. Got bored one day
- Neo-Trad "Pure Country" - Ihave one of these playlists too. Alot of 2000's stuff. Easton Corbin, early Billy Currington, Rodney Atkins, Alan Jackson etc etc. Good playlist to just turn on while doing things around the house


Hope this helps, I go even further and break down some crazy playlists. I have lots of free time sometimes LOL

[Kentucky25]

Sept 29, 2015 11:01:41 GMT -5 bjer127 said:

Sept 29, 2015 9:58:54 GMT -5 Kentucky25 said:

I'm trying to categorize my playlists in iTunes (got a lot of country and sometimes I'm in a certain mood for certain types of country). I have a couple ideas that seems to fit but I would like to get an idea from Pulse users on how to categorize the genre. My main struggle has been catheorizing the early 2000s stars like Chesney, McGraw, and Keith. They're not necessarily neo-traditional but also not pop country.
What I've go so far (obviously not as thorough) is...

Neo-Traditional - Easton Corbin, George Strait, Greg Bates
Pop - Carrie Underwood, Lady A, Dan + Shay, Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts
Bro - Luke Bryan (not the first two albums), FGL, Aldean (minus first couple albums), Shelton (some of new stuff), SwIn fell
R&B Country - Rhett (new album), Eldredge (new album)
Alt-Country - Eric Church (Outsidera), ZBB (new stuff)

I've found this to be a bit more difficult to categorize just as one artist is strictly one thing as some albums or singles go in a different direction. Like Aldean is Country/Rock or Bro (but Two Night Town is neither).

I do the exact same thing on my itunes and Spotify playlists. My moods and things like that reflect on what I feel like listening to. Not sure of your specific tastes but here are some of mine

- 90's Country : I grew up on it, and love it still. I listen to this all the time. 492 songs and going. Great memories. Basically all the hat acts LOL
- 80's Country: Maybe my second favorite decade. Anything from Ronnie Milsap, Alabama, Earl Thomas Conley to Vern Gosdin and Keith Whitley and Randy Travis.
-Outlaw Country: Basically anything bad ass, way too weird for radio. LOL. I have alot of things like Jamey Johnson, Ray Scott, Roger Alan Wade, Whitey Morgan, Merle, Willie, Waylon, Bobby Bare, Billy Joe Shaver, Hank Jr and alot of Red Dirt stars.
- Texas Music/Red Dirt: Tons of artists and songs out there about Texas.
- Classic Country : Love this playlist too. over 500 songs. All the good stuff from 50's, 60's, 70's.
- Country Duets - I have a playlist of all my favorite duets, about 150 songs long. Got bored one day
- Neo-Trad "Pure Country" - Ihave one of these playlists too. Alot of 2000's stuff. Easton Corbin, early Billy Currington, Rodney Atkins, Alan Jackson etc etc. Good playlist to just turn on while doing things around the house


Hope this helps, I go even further and break down some crazy playlists. I have lots of free time sometimes LOL

This does, hadn't thought of duets and I'll be adding that in...I think the genre is so wide and has such variety that it is a difficult task to do, but it's also not always effective to shuffle the 3300+ Country songs I have lol.

[bjer127]

Sept 29, 2015 11:49:12 GMT -5 Kentucky25 said:

Sept 29, 2015 11:01:41 GMT -5 bjer127 said:

I do the exact same thing on my itunes and Spotify playlists. My moods and things like that reflect on what I feel like listening to. Not sure of your specific tastes but here are some of mine

- 90's Country : I grew up on it, and love it still. I listen to this all the time. 492 songs and going. Great memories. Basically all the hat acts LOL
- 80's Country: Maybe my second favorite decade. Anything from Ronnie Milsap, Alabama, Earl Thomas Conley to Vern Gosdin and Keith Whitley and Randy Travis.
-Outlaw Country: Basically anything bad ass, way too weird for radio. LOL. I have alot of things like Jamey Johnson, Ray Scott, Roger Alan Wade, Whitey Morgan, Merle, Willie, Waylon, Bobby Bare, Billy Joe Shaver, Hank Jr and alot of Red Dirt stars.
- Texas Music/Red Dirt: Tons of artists and songs out there about Texas.
- Classic Country : Love this playlist too. over 500 songs. All the good stuff from 50's, 60's, 70's.
- Country Duets - I have a playlist of all my favorite duets, about 150 songs long. Got bored one day
- Neo-Trad "Pure Country" - Ihave one of these playlists too. Alot of 2000's stuff. Easton Corbin, early Billy Currington, Rodney Atkins, Alan Jackson etc etc. Good playlist to just turn on while doing things around the house


Hope this helps, I go even further and break down some crazy playlists. I have lots of free time sometimes LOL

This does, hadn't thought of duets and I'll be adding that in...I think the genre is so wide and has such variety that it is a difficult task to do, but it's also not always effective to shuffle the 3300+ Country songs I have lol.

Yea definitely. When you have so many songs it's always good to categorize. I personally enjoy a lot of truck driving / traveling / road songs. Plenty of those out there to build playlist on. I also have a playlist for really sad country songs , usually steeped in steel guitar. That's one of my favorite playlists when it's raining outside or cold weather.
Glad I could help

[Deleted]

Whoever decided to make "bro-country" a genre on Wikipedia seriously detracted from the unbiased nature of the encyclopedia. If an artist ever officially identifies as "bro-country" and releases an album that they specifically call a bro-country album, then it's okay to put their work in that category, but otherwise you're assigning labels based on your own opinion/perception and not any actual source. So I won't be going to Wikipedia for my information on country artists any time soon, other than specific numbers (i.e. sales and chart positions) that can't be spun.

[Deleted]

Oct 4, 2015 6:48:46 GMT -5 @daydrinker said:

Whoever decided to make "bro-country" a genre on Wikipedia seriously detracted from the unbiased nature of the encyclopedia. If an artist ever officially identifies as "bro-country" and releases an album that they specifically call a bro-country album, then it's okay to put their work in that category, but otherwise you're assigning labels based on your own opinion/perception and not any actual source. So I won't be going to Wikipedia for my information on country artists any time soon, other than specific numbers (i.e. sales and chart positions) that can't be spun.

Eh I have to respectfully disagree with you on that. I think the person that did decide to make bro-country a thing is right. It was around FGL's emergence that we started getting artists releasing the same type of songs about the same thing like with Cruise you also had Get Your Shine On with FGL mentioning the Sugar Shaker line (thank you Maddie & Tae for pointing that out). Then you get Blake Shelton's pure sexist second verse about the "girls round here all deserve a whistling" as Maddie & Tae would say that ain't no way to treat a lady. Regardless if an artist identifies with bro-country if the lyrics are either sexist or like in songs like where they are going somewhere nobody knows or mentioning the truck or just not giving the fenale perspective of things in the song (Examples Chilling It, That's My Kind Of Night, Make Me Wanna, Gonna Wanna Tonight, Hell Of A Night, Gonna, Lemme See Ya Girl, Looking For That Girl, Better In Boots, Close Your Eyes, Already Calling You Mine, Where It's At, Kiss You In The Morning, Kick The Dust Up, Burning It Down, Just Getting Started, 1994, Homegrown Honey, Don't Ya, Lose My Mind, Turn It On etc.) just because an artist doesn't identify with a genre doesn't mean anything because people are going to take notice that a lot of the music in lyric quality (which is non existent by the way) is sounding all the same and there's no variety than people poke out which songs in particular and lump that together. If there is one thing though they don't say stuff like FGL's Dirt Luke Bryan Roller Coaster and Strip It Down are bro-country but for the most part those artists keep releasing the same stuff over and over again 

Bro-Country even if an artist doesn't exactly say they are guess what actual critics not the fancy Taste Of Country where every song is special in it's own way, actual critics like those that run those blogs like Saving Country Music and Country Perspective (tough crap if they call out one of your favorites not every review will be positive) they will call those artists out on it where you have artists making albums with lots of bro-country songs (ex. Chase Rice, Canaan Smith) critics who have a backbone like those sites and not TOC will call it how they see it. Are they the most professionally written? No but at least they don't say every song is good when clearly they are some that are not. So they'll call out artists who make bro-country. I of course doubts that makes a difference to what the artists dies but those blogs do inspire a lot of readers to listen to artists they suggest. Look once again if some people like bro country then good for you who am I too judge fans on personal taste. 

I hope I explained why people do talk about bro country as if it's a thing

[Deleted]

Whether listeners or critics like something has nothing to do with whether an unbiased, factual encyclopedia should be able to arbitrarily assign genre labels to artists and songs. Also, these classic country fan blogs are not "actual critics." They are simply country music fans who made their own blogs to talk about their opinions. I could do the same thing. If I made a blog and decided I was going to start calling songs like "American Kids" and "John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16" their own genre called "nostalgic country," should Wikipedia also start labeling these songs as a separate genre? These blogs are even specifically prohibited by Wikipedia from being used as references, since they're considered "non-notable." So their opinions are totally irrelevant.

And for the record I highly doubt anyone gets truly offended when these individuals "call out" their favorite artists, just as I'm sure no one would bat an eyelash if I made a blog where I ranted about Kacey Musgraves and used sexual slurs and expletives to describe her personality and music.

I guess the bottom line I'm trying to hit here is this: There has definitely been a trend of songs with similar themes and lyrics, and bro-country has become a widely accepted name for this movement, but you can't go calling out individual artists or songs as bro-country unless there's a mathematical, objective criteria, no matter how stereotypical a song may be. And Wikipedia is even labeling entire albums and artists as "bro-country." I can't think of a single album that contains 100% bro-country, and I really don't know of any artists who have specifically identified themselves as bro-country artists, so who is Wikipedia to tell artists what their own music is when the artist themselves don't identify as that? Basically this is a case of a site that is supposed to present only solid, hard, citable facts assigning extremely unofficial labels to stuff.

[Deleted]

Oct 4, 2015 8:12:14 GMT -5 @daydrinker said:

Whether listeners or critics like something has nothing to do with whether an unbiased, factual encyclopedia should be able to arbitrarily assign genre labels to artists and songs. Also, these classic country fan blogs are not "actual critics." They are simply country music fans who made their own blogs to talk about their opinions. I could do the same thing. If I made a blog and decided I was going to start calling songs like "American Kids" and "John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16" their own genre called "nostalgic country," should Wikipedia also start labeling these songs as a separate genre? These blogs are even specifically prohibited by Wikipedia from being used as references, since they're considered "non-notable." So their opinions are totally irrelevant.

And for the record I highly doubt anyone gets truly offended when these individuals "call out" their favorite artists, just as I'm sure no one would bat an eyelash if I made a blog where I ranted about Kacey Musgraves and used sexual slurs and expletives to describe her personality and music.

But when actual sites not those blogs call the song bro-country then guess what it is. I know their not actual critics but they usually bring up points on a lot of fans minds.  Okay no opinion is totally irrelevant lets not say Critic A's opinion on a song is more important than Bs I happen to believe every person who writes reviews I value all their opinions equally. But I don't get why Wikipedia uses the always positive Taste Of Country who doesn't say anything negative about any artist. I like to have you read this fascinating read from Country Perspective 

countryperspective.com/2015/05/28/the-hodgepodge-hey-taste-of-country-music-reviews-still-matter 

This particularly describes why critics say what they want and have to say. 

Trust me they are are those people who are a tad to passionate about an artist they go crazy. 

Finally question for you would you actually rant about Kacey Musgraves like that I'm assuming you don't like her music.

[Deleted]

^I wouldn't make crude sexually demeaning remarks about Kacey Musgraves, lol. But I'm anything but a fan of hers.

I'm no fan of TOC either, but that's kind of a separate debate regarding which sites are important enough to be mentioned in the critical reception section of an article. If Taste of Country were to start calling stuff bro-country, which I'm sure they have, that would still be no justification for labeling the information on Wikipedia as "bro-country." Basically I need to hear a record label or artist saying, "We're releasing a bro-country record," in order for the record to be acceptably labeled as "bro-country" on Wikipedia. And even then I wouldn't approve of labeling an entire artist as bro-country, unless of course the artist came out and said, "I'm a bro-country artist."

It's not a matter of some sites trying to whitewash the bro-country movement or depict these artists in a more positive light, since there really isn't a lot of stigma associated with bro-country in the mainstream. It's just that you can't factually prove any one song, artist, or album is bro-country, so this isn't an appropriate label for an encyclopedia.

Then what happens when you get into the grey areas, with songs like "Yeah" or "Beachin'" that are sometimes regarded as bro-country and sometimes not? "Beachin'" never mentions trucks or tailgates, but it mentions tan lines and margaritas. "Yeah" mentions four-wheel drives and headlights but doesn't mention beer. Where do you draw the line? This is simply a distinction Wikipedia should not be making. It's entirely unprofessional.

[Deleted]

Oct 4, 2015 8:45:07 GMT -5 @daydrinker said:

^I wouldn't make crude sexually demeaning remarks about Kacey Musgraves, lol. But I'm anything but a fan of hers.

I'm no fan of TOC either, but that's kind of a separate debate regarding which sites are important enough to be mentioned in the critical reception section of an article. If Taste of Country were to start calling stuff bro-country, which I'm sure they have, that would still be no justification for labeling the information on Wikipedia as "bro-country." Basically I need to hear a record label or artist saying, "We're releasing a bro-country record," in order for the record to be acceptably labeled as "bro-country" on Wikipedia. And even then I wouldn't approve of labeling an entire artist as bro-country, unless of course the artist came out and said, "I'm a bro-country artist."

But the thing is you need critics for songs and that's something country music lacks besides those blogs when I see on Wikipedia for the most part every songs critical reception is always positive and that's why I applaud sites like Country Perspective and Country Universe (check that site out)

Why aren't you a fan of Kacey Musgraves is it her lyrical themes which I understand but there's no denying she respects the roots for the genre and I honestly love the fact she has her music on the Americana chart. Since country radio gave her the shaft unfairly since there's plenty of people who desire her music.

[Deleted]

raylatch98, I think you're getting into a different discussion. I'm not talking about which sites' reviews are acceptable to publish on a Wikipedia article, or whether we should have positive or negative reviews. I'm referring to the label Wikipedia places under some songs, artists, and albums that says "Genre: bro-country." There is definitely some more room for compromise in the argument you're having about using Country Universe and other harsh critics in an article's reception section, but we'd have to continue that discussion via PM since it doesn't relate to the topic of "country sub-genres."

[Kat5Kind]

I hate the bro-country terminology too and don't recognize it as a subgenre.

[dajross6]

Wait, is this discussion about Wikipedia actually being discussed as an actual encyclopedia? That's ridiculous in so many ways since I can edit any page in the world with a thought or comment without any sort of repercussion and is stated as fact until someone else overwrites it. How can that actually be considered an official source of anything?

If it makes you feel better, feel free to add a paragraph to the bottom about how it's not an official sub-genre and simply an opinion?

[Kentucky25]

I know it's not the best answer but I do use bro country on a song-by-song basis. Some songs I'll give the attribution and others I won't but it's more of a personal feeling than a consistent definition for all.

[.indulgecountry]

I love how this thread got hijacked and turned into a debate on the validity of Wikipedia of all things, lmao.