Opinion: Modern country is the worst musical genre of all time

@tylermunns: Excellent post! You said it all, your every point well taken and perfectly argued.

How many here can argue the complexities of “jazz.” Frankly, unless you’re a musician educated in jazz, who can truly play, it’s beyond your comprehension. So in essence, there’s no argument to be had.

There’s no racism in stating jazz was created by black people. It’s a cultural fact, and if you’re black, something to be proud of. You can’t escape the fact that jazz was created during a time of this country’s greatest racial strife, aka Jim Crow. Facts.

Country music, at this point, is more of a political statement than an art form. I don't really see the 'country' in it anymore.  I don't think there is much left of rural American life. All those 'small town' they sing about are pretty hollowed out.  Country serves as the Epcot Center rural America soundtrack.  It's Fox news with a backbeat, and it more or less sounds like classic rock with an occasional mandolin. 

@clearthinker Once again, you’re just flat out wrong.

The race of an artist, or group of artists, of a particular time/place, was completely irrelevant to the argument at hand. Yet, you inexplicably interjected such into your argument. By no means did you (as you’re now trying to characterize) effectively “merely point out the fact that jazz was created by black people.”  
Again, even if that was indeed “all you did,” this was completely irrelevant to the topic. An inexplicable choice.
But, of course, this was not “all you did.” 
You said, “jazz is the most complex music ever created, by black people no less.”  Clearly suggesting (‘…,no less.’) that it is “surprising” or “remarkable” that black people would create something exceedingly sophisticated.
That’s racist.  

“How many here can argue the complexities of “jazz.” Frankly, unless you’re a musician educated in jazz, who can truly play, it’s beyond your comprehension. So in essence, there’s no argument to be had.”

Goodness gracious me. 
Once again, you’re just flat out wrong.  

This oversimplified, grandiose bluster (perhaps betraying an insecurity more than anything else), this foisting of a qualification for one’s legitimacy of opinion, is not merely a shovel; it’s a JCB 5CX backhoe with which you’re digging yourself a deeper hole.

1) Simply pointing to a transcription that has a glut of chords listed over the top of each bar, chords with titles 8 characters long, marked by 11ths, 13ths. 13#11ths, augmentedness, diminishedness, and general harmonic esoterica, does nothing to prove that the transcription is “more complex” than that of, say, Le Sacre Du Printemps, or the countless microtonal pieces written over a span of multiple centuries preceding the existence of jazz (and concurrently during the existence of jazz), or the general complexity of an orchestral score that goes on and on and on, page after page, written for a dozen-odd different instruments.

An instrumentalist may, in jazz, display virtuosic improvisational acumen, doing so seamlessly while negotiating exotic harmonic structure, esoteric shifts in modes, key, and time signature.  
This doesn’t make the music, necessarily, more “complex” than classical.

2) To suggest that it takes an educated, trained, fluent-in-music-theory-person to recognize the relative complexities in jazz and classical is untrue.

Sure, such a person may be able to boast of their knowledge of fancy musical jargon.

Sure, a person outside of any particular field may not be able to hold their own in a room full of folks actually in the given field, if attempting to speak authoritatively on the subject.  
A classy expert, secure in their knowledge and competence, would not need to flippantly dismiss the entirety of the “outsider’s” opinion on the subject. This more-knowledgeable person may indeed take what the outsider has to say with a grain of salt given the outsider’s relative ignorance, but wouldn’t need to protect their own ego by hiding behind insider-jargon, a supercilious, elitist perspective, and an outright, wholesale dismissal of that “outsider’s” opinion.

When I perform music, whether solo as a piano-vocalist, or a guitar-vocalist, when I arrange scores for and perform with orchestral and jazz ensembles, when I play music of virtually any kind (and I do), I may indeed, at times, have an attitude of, “anyone who doesn’t like this is an ignorant rube whose opinion is inadmissible.”  
That’s me needing to protect my ego against any less-than-effusive opinions others may have of my music. It’s not good.  

Being true to one’s self with no regard for appeasing and pandering is good.
Being a dismissive, arrogant elitist is bad.
 

@taxonomy: Have you read the entire thread? The "Country" music to which you refer is not at all what Americana (the underground---not on radio or TV---"Hard"---Traditional---Country) artists (T Bone Burnett, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Iris DeMent, Gillian Welch, Buddy & Julie Miller, Jim Lauderdale, Marty Stuart, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, etc. etc.) are producing.

Are you saying Robert Plant is making music (his two albums with Alison Krauss) which is "classic rock with an occasional mandolin"? You my friend need to try a little harder if you want to know what is available for your listening pleasure (reading this whole thread would be a good start). You ain’t gonna hear it on commercial Country radio, and shouldn’t expect to. That’s like expecting to hear Rock ’n’ Roll on a jazz station. Just because the music business calls something "Country" doesn’t make it so. As T Bone years ago said: "They’ve learned how to sell Country music to people who don’t like it." It’s called marketing, which is all the music business is now.

Have you seen the movie Ghost World (a great one)? If so, think back to the scene where Steve Buscemi’s character is dragged to a Blues club by his date, and the band Blues Hammer gets up on stage and bludgeons (Blues Hammer is an apropos name ;-) Blues music with their hideous attempt to play it? The Country music you have apparently heard is the Country equivalent of Blues Hammer.