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

@bdp24.....You hit the nail on the head !.....80's and 90's country and Bluegrass is good stuff. Todays over produced country and their 10 gallon hats is pure, unadultrated Crap.

Saw Jorma Kaukonen last night with Dave Bromberg.

Excellent "country blues" . Check out Jimmy Rodgers for understanding of true country. Merle Haggard did a tremendous album of his music btw. Bluegrass does not have drums. Alabama and Garrh Brooks started the demise though there has always been an element of saccharine in country and bluegrass not to mention the patriotic pap. Dylan ruined folk with amplification.  Ballad big hair bands ruined rock. That said car radio country is formulaic,  embarrasing, and monotonous.  At least rap tackles some difficult subjects though it is also predictable and musically challenged. 

Stream WNCW for relevant country. 

And sorry for the ramble, drank too much Green Man for the concert.

Y’all took the trolls bait. 

or we highjacked the thread and turned it into a lively convo

I was searching "new" country and rap songs (both mentioned in this thread) and discovered a genre I was not aware of, which is Country Rap.

DeKay

@jpwarren58: Yup, Jimmie Rodgers is considered the founding father of Country music, and the Carter Family the first family of Hillbilly. When Johnny Cash first crossed paths with June Carter, he considered her "royalty" ;-) . In 1990 Rounder Records issued a series of LP’s of Jimmie’s earliest recordings. I have First Sessions 1927-1928 and The Early Years 1928-1929, along with The Best Of The Legendary Jimmie Rodgers.

By the way, June’s daughter Carlene (her pa was Country singer Carl Smith) was for a time married to Nick Lowe, after which she was with Howie Epstein, Tom Petty’s second bassist. Howie produced a couple of albums for John Prine, and played bass on recordings of some of my favorite artists, including John Hiatt. Howie unfortunately developed a taste for heroin, which cost him his life.

It’s ironic that after a lifetime of playing drums in Garage bands, Frat bands (while in high school I played a lot of gigs in the frat houses of Stanford University. Before moving up to San Francisco, Jerry Garcia did some busking on the campus of that rich-kids school), Blues bands, Country-Rock groups, Jump Blues/Swing bands, Singer-Songwriters, New Wave bands and singers (Pearl Harbor, who had three albums on Stiff/Columbia Records, married to Clash bassist Paul Simonon, sweet girl), Instrumental combos (Surf, Lounge, etc.), backing Oldies acts (Don & Dewey, the 1950’s Specialty Records Rock ’n’ Roll pioneers), Power Pop masters (Emitt Rhodes, John Wicks of The Records), and the one-and-only Evan Johns (he was a bandmate of the guitarists-guitarist, Danny Gatton. Vince Gill nicknamed Danny "The Humbler" ;-) , and I end up loving Bluegrass---drum-free music, as jp correctly points out!

Here’s a Bluegrass story: In the Fall of 1971 I was entering a San Jose band just as it’s bassist and drummer were leaving. The drummer was starting a band with Dave Shogren, who had just been kicked out of The Doobie Brothers. The bassist was going to focus on mandolin, and was going up to Marin to study (okay, take lessons ;-) with David Grisman. David advised Todd (Phillips) that there were plenty of great mandolin players, but a dearth of upright bassists.

Todd took David’s advice, got himself an upright (he had been a Fender P Bass player), and carved out a very nice career for himself. He even ended up playing in bands with David! Todd also worked with everyone’s (including the late Art Dudley) favorite flat-top acoustic guitarist, the great Tony Rice. Not bad for a kid from San Jose. Yeah, but I still have my hair, and Todd is bald ;-) .

I last saw Todd ten years ago, when we played music together for about an hour. I heard the sound of his 19th Century bass in the flesh, and can use my memory of it’s sound when I listen to Todd on recordings. My Rythmik/GR Research OB/Dipole Subs are fully up to the task of reproducing that sound..

Bluegrass owes much to its Scotch-Irish roots.  Jigs and Reels and Shanties.

Stephen Foster, Scott Joplin, Robert Johnson, Jimmy Rodgers, Maybel Carter, Woody Guthrie. (does rap owe a connection to his protest music?)

All American shoulders from where our music now perches. 

The way to tell an audiophile from a non-audiophile is an audiophile never insults the musical tastes of another audiophile.  I didn't realize this until I came to Audiogon.  Its truly refreshing that I rarely (until now) see any criticism of musical genre on this forum. 

@bdp24 excellent post.

Also, always cracks me up when people have to go out of their way to let us all know how much they hate rap (not to mention the hilarious and original addition of a "c" to make it say "crap" that is just so edgy!). Please tell us all the other stuff you dislike, it's truly fascinating!

@skyscraper +1

My daughter in law loves the current country and western music, and after an hour of listening (sort of)to the music I ask her why is the same singer performing all the songs, as they all sound the same?  All is not lost because of new musicians like Billy Strings  He's killer on the flat top guitar  

@xtred I do not hate it, don’t like it either and I am 27. 

Beauty is the the eye of beerholder!

I love how songwriter Harlan Howard (4,000 recordings of his songs! In the early-60’s, 15 of the Top 40 songs on the Billboard Country charts were his!! Amongst them are Patsy Cline’s "I Fall To Pieces" and Guy Mitchell’s "Heartaches By The Number". Ray Price, Willie Nelson, George Jones, Waylon Jennings, Dwight Yoakam, Rosanne Cash, Cyndi Lauper, and even Country Joe & The Fish! have recorded the latter) characterized Country music:

"Three chords and the truth." Harlan is being modest; some of his songs have four chords ;-) .

Emmylou Harris is one of Harlan’s biggest fans (as is Elvis Costello), and about him Marty Stuart said "He was truly a master." Did you know Marty became a professional musician at the age of 13, when he joined Lester Flatt’s band? 13! That’s the age at which many Rock guitarists are just beginning to learn how to play. I met Marty in the early-90’s, at The Palomino Club on Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood, and he couldn’t have been a nicer person. Believe it or not, that’s where The Pretenders played in L.A. on their first U.S.A. tour. The place was stuffed to the gills! They were great live, by the way.

@bdp24 what a great story/history lesson, thanks for sharing.

How this post turned out is a testament to those that actually care about music, and to do that, you must have an open mind.

A country show came on the radio.

Between songs, they played a snippet of a recording from a movie? a recording? a variety show? I don’t know.

Man: Tell me, what kinds of music do you have?

Woman: Why, we have BOTH kinds, Country AND Western.

I seriously can’t think of anything worse. I grew up listening to country music in the late 80s and early 90s, and a lot of that was pretty bad. But this new stuff, yikes.

Who sees some pretty boy on a stage with a badly exaggerated generic southern accent and a 600 dollar denim jacket shoehorning the words “ice cold beer” into every third line of a song and says “Ooh I like this, this music is for me!”

I would literally rather listen to anything else.Seriously, there’s nothing I can think of, at least not in my lifetime or the hundred or so years of recorded music I own, that seems worse.

https://vshare.onl/

I got this,..

@jpwarren58      Dylan didn't say he was playing folk when he was amplified.  In fact he has always disliked dividing music into genres.

prndlus

A country show came on the radio. Between songs, they played a snippet of a recording from a movie? a recording? a variety show? I don’t know.

Man: Tell me, what kinds of music do you have?

Woman: Why, we have BOTH kinds, Country AND Western

That's from the first Blues Brothers movie.

After I posted, I remembered Bob Newhart on the subject.

It’s been so long, I must paraphrase:

Many people enjoy country music. Myself, I don’t care for it. But I don’t wish to denigrate those who do like it. And for those of you who do… [long pause] …the word ‘denigrate’ means, to insult, or put down.

By the way, just having fun here; I like early country music, old-timey, and bluegrass.

And thank you for the insight, cleeds.

"I like both kinds of music---Country AND Western" is an old, old joke (I first heard it in 1969). It wasn’t written by anyone involved in the Blues Brothers movie, it was just repeated in it.

Here’s another good one:

On one stay in the hospital later in his life, a nurse asked Buddy Rich if he was allergic to anything. His reply was "Yeah. Country music."

By the way, there are two basic strains of Bluegrass music: Traditional, and Progressive. Traditional is that which usually features singing, with the instruments providing musical accompaniment. Progressive is purely instrumental, with lots of Jazz elements. Jerry Douglas plays both. I love his Traditional playing, his Progressive not so much. He and his band came through Portland on his last tour, and I of course went to see and hear them. As is common in Progressive Bluegrass, there was lots of soloing, lots of "noodling", just like in Jazz (and The Grateful Dead and Phish). Not my cup of tea.

Jerry has produced over 100 albums, and played on over 2000! A recent one is his collaboration with John Hiatt: Leftover Feelings, which was nominated for the 2022 Grammy Award For Best Americana Album (Jerry has won 14 Grammy Awards), and as I have been saying for quite a while now is my favorite currently active living musician. But only when playing Traditional Bluegrass ;-) . In this genre Jerry has a "side project"---The Earls Of Leicester, who have produced two albums, one studio, one live.

Genres are ill defined, lending themselves to commercialization more than anything else. Try Wilco, particularly their collaboration with Billy Bragg. California Stars is sublime and Walt Whitman's Niece is poetry.

@bdp24 

Have you read R. Crowell's autobiography?

For those who don’t care for Rap, I have one suggestion for which you may make an exception, and it is from a rather unlikely source: Lucinda Williams!

On her album West she has a 9:06 song entitled "Wrap My Head Around That". The song structure is just two alternating chords played on acoustic and electric guitars (both Bill Frisell and Doug Pettibone are listed in the album credits), with a simple boom/crack drum beat (played by Jim Keltner) and a mildly funky electric bass part (Tony Garnier, Dylan’s long-time bassist).

Like the entire album, the song’s lyrics are absolutely fantastic. Lucinda "sings" them is Rap style of a sort---almost every word in the same note, sung rather "matter-of-factly". For you Rockers, late in the song a stinging, kinetic electric guitar part erupts from out of nowhere, filling the space between the last verse and chorus. Quite thrilling!

Two songs later comes the last song on the album, and it is really something special. It is entitled "West", and once you hear it you will know why she chose the song as the album’s title, and as the album’s final track (it is the best ending to an album I have ever heard, and that includes "The End" on Abbey Road).

"West" is the most beautiful, deeply romantic song I have heard in a VERY long time, and brings me to tears every time I listen to it (almost every day for the past two years). It sort of reminds me of "Moon River" by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer, as sung by Andy Williams. A masterpiece of a song imo.

The album also starts off strong with "Are You Alright?", in which Lucinda inquires as to a friend’s well being after suddenly disappearing from her life. Yes, Lucinda is a very romantic soul. I deeply love her, and often replay in my head my mid-80’s meeting of her in Club Lingerie on Sunset Blvd. We were both there to see her then-husband’s band The Long Ryders live (he was their drummer. For you musicians he was playing a set of 1940’s Radio King drums. Very cool!).

Sure have @stuartk. Chinaberry Sidewalks, 2011. It’s on a shelf in a bookcase, alongside those by Ray and Dave Davies.

I managed to see Rodney live at The Roxy Theater on Sunset in 2001. Just he and his guitarist Steuart Smith, along with master bassist Jerry Scheff (Elvis, Roy Orbison, L.A. studios, a favorite of T Bone Burnett). Hearing Scheff live was transcendental! Perhaps the best bassist I’ve heard live, and that includes John Entwistle (The Who of course), Joey Spampinato (NRBQ), and Rick Danko (The Band). Sitting at the table next to me and my gal was Dave Alvin, taking mental notes to himself no doubt ;-) .

Definitely a contender for worst but there are many pop music genres in the running - each have their strong points. That said, I’ve always found Country to be a genre where the vast majority is absolute crap, and I say that as a musician tbat really likes some good country, honkytonk, and country rock. I’m thinking, Hank Williams, Wynn Stewart, Patsy, Tammy, graham parsons, Emmylou Harris, and many many more.

Oh yeah, there are a couple of other observations about "West" I had intended to include in my comments about this fantastic song.

The song is performed in a VERY slow tempo, which many drummers find difficult. Not Keltner, of course. He takes advantage of the slow tempo to play some great bass drum parts, including the coolest employment of triplets I have ever heard. It reminds me of why Jim has been my Gold Standard of drumming since I heard his playing on Randy Newman’s Good Old Boys album in 1974, almost fifty years ago!

And then there is the lead guitar playing on the song. Very, very tasty, it sounds to me like Bill Frisell, one of the handful of the very best guitarists playing today.

@joshindc: Wynn Stewart; now THERE’S a name you rarely see mentioned! I have a 2-LP collection on Bear Family Records of his 1958-1963 Challenge Records recordings. He was part of the Southern California Honky-Tonk/Rockabilly scene, and was a favorite of Merle Haggard. Dwight Yoakam of course loves him.

Also rarely mentioned is Lefty Frizzell, another favorite of Merle. I learned of Lefty when The Band included his 1959 Country & Western hit song "Long Black Veil" on their 1968 debut album, Music From Big Pink (Johnny Cash had recorded the song in 1965, but I didn’t hear it back then). Yes, as the rest of the Rock world was still being psychedelicized by Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, etc. etc., The Band included a Lefty Frizzell song on their 1968 debut! Six months earlier Dylan’s John Wesley Harding was released by Columbia Records, itself a very Country-influenced album (recorded in Nashville).

As you say, there are of course plenty of others, including George Jones (Gram Parsons’ favorite singer), Buck Owens (a huge influence on Yoakam). The list is actually quite long, that is if your musical taste includes the genre.

Garcia played a few Lefty tunes in his day. The acoustic folk country was part and parcel of the psychodelic scene in SanFran of the 60"s. Even the Stones got into the act with Factory Girl and Prodigal Son a little bit later

 Another outstanding current songwriter-singer. Gillian Welch, right there with Lucinda

You’re all dirty dopers

 modern R and B which is pure tripe trash, 

modern rap is indescribable, if I did these anti Constitution people in here who censor our first amendment would flip a switch, and you would not have the pleasure of being forced to read my poor punctuation, lack of paragraph rants with my 4th grade skills.  It’s just trash. 
 

rap in the 80’s when political, and actually told a story is much better

bdp24...i enjoyed your input...thank you...cgiv

@jpwarren5: When I saw The Dead (and The Airplane) live in the Summer of ’67 they sounded just like their debut album, which I at the time liked a lot. They still sounded like their choice of drugs was cross-tops (what my friends and I called the little white pills mentioned in Dave Dudley’s "Six Days On The Road") washed down with a quart of beer.

They sounded completely different on their 1968 album Anthem Of The Sun and 69’s Aoxomoxoa, which were very psychedelic (acid had sure influenced their music). While Jerry had a background in Hillbilly and Bluegrass (there are pics of him playing banjo in ’65, I believe it was), you didn’t hear it in the music of The Dead until 1070’s Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, and even more so in Jerry’s first side project (as far as I know), Old & In The Way (which I bought when it was released in ’75).

But in 1968 the Rock band playing pure Country/Hillbilly was The Byrds, with the release of their Sweetheart Of The Rodeo album (which contains songs written by Dylan, Merle Haggard, Woody Guthrie, and The Louvin Brothers. Anthem Of The Sun and Aoxomoxoa sure don’t ;-) . Bassist Chris Hillman invited Gram Parsons to replace the departed David Crosby, and he did. It is said the album sold poorly, but everyone I knew had it in ’68.

Gram Parsons is given the lion’s share of credit for the Sweetheart album, but Chris Hillman deserves at least as much. Prior to joining The Byrds in 1964, Hillman had in the late-50’s started out playing mandolin in a Bluegrass band, and his band The Hillmen (a quartet whose other members included future Country music star Vern Gosdin) had a single album released in 1963. By the way, Chris’ solo Bluegrass albums on Sugar Hill Records are fantastic, as is his latest album, produced by Tom Petty.

Before joining The Byrds, it was Folk music Parsons was playing, not Country, Hillbilly, or Bluegrass. Parsons is also given credit for discovering Emmylou Harris, but it was, again, Chris Hillman. Chris had heard Emmylou in a Folk club in NYC, and knowing Gram was looking for a singing partner for his upcoming solo album, told Parsons about her. The rest is, as they say, history.

In 1969 Hillman and Parsons had taken their Country/Hillbilly leanings even further than the Sweetheart album, when they both left The Byrds and started The Flying Burrito Brothers. Future Eagles member Bernie Leadon eventually joined the group, and Gram left after their second album to go solo.

In the mid-80’s Hillman started a new Country music group, The Desert Rose Band, Joining him was a fantastic singer and musician named Herb Pederson, formerly of the Dillards. The DRB were very successful, producing a lot of great music and hit records.

You are spot on regarding Gillian Welch JPW. And you audiophiles who might consider listening to this music we are discussing if it was available in high end audiophile recorded sound quality, Gillian’s albums on her own Acony Records label are just what the doctor ordered. Her partner David Rawlings has a couple of solo albums, but they are unfortunately not so hot (imo).

Least you have a Country genre. Real Soul has been dead for decades. No song writers, no industry. My guess is the recording industry figured it’s such a small percentage of people that listen, like jazz, we won’t bother with them. Heck, is there even a true RNR recording industry around anymore?

I neglected to mention that Chris Hillman also penned his autobiography, and it too is a great read (a term I for years have resisted using, but am finally giving in ;-) .

And how can anyone say, “I don’t like jazz.” How can you ‘not like’ what you don’t understand?

If you haven’t ever played an instrument in your life you don’t have a clue what’s going on! If you don’t know what a chord, or chord change is, you’re clueless.

Simply say, you don’t know jazz, because you don’t know music. Jazz is the most complex music ever created, by black people no less. How in the heck did the most disenfranchised create the most creative music ever is the better question. And don’t even tell me a 4 chord tune, that’s a mega hit, is just as good. It’s simply more popular.

You don’t have to be a musician to enjoy jazz, many aren’t. But it helps to have some idea of what is going on.

@coltrane1: If it’s Soul music you want, there is one current "act" I can enthusiastically recommend: The War & Treaty. An unlikely name, but this husband & wife duo of Michael and Tanya Trotter are absolutely fantastic!

They came to my attention solely for the fact that their debut album Healing Tide was produced by a favorite of mine---Buddy Miller. I don’t know who put the Trotters and Miller together, but the results have to be heard to be believed. Buddy started out in the Contemporary Christian Music field with his eventual wife and musical partner Julie. When he evolved into the secular market, he ended up as guitarist, harmony singer, and bandleader for Emmylou Harris (a position previously filled by Rodney Crowell).

A "Country" musician (he’s far more than that) producing a Soul duo?! Perhaps because he came out of Gospel music, as did Soul music. The duo have VERY strong voices, and the album’s material is excellent. Emmylou joins the duo on one song, the result being fantastic 3-part harmony (Emmylou is a master at singing harmony), which we all love. Right? ;-)

Healing Tide is the strongest debut album I’ve heard in a long, long time. No studio tricks were used in it’s making, done at Buddy’s home studio in Nashville. I use the term literally: Buddy turned his entire 19th century house into a recording studio. When Julie isn’t feeling well (she’s somewhat sickly), he runs a mic cable up to their bedroom, recording her in bed ;-) .

While not wishing to appear argumentative, I must take issue with your proclamation that "Jazz is the most complex music ever created." All Jazz? As in all genres, there is a range of complexity found in Jazz. But more importantly to me, are we to ignore the Baroque era in Classical music? Now THERE is complex music! J.S. Bach was an absolute genius, no secret there.

As for a 4-chord song, I’ve heard a fair amount of Jazz that is composed of less than that, sometimes only one chord, as heard in the music of the "Modal" movement. And then there is the issue of the relationship between complexity and quality. Is quality determined solely by complexity? Using that yardstick, ALL Blues sucks.

For an example of a song that superficially sound simple and non-complex, listen to "God Only Knows", written by Brian Wilson. If you try and play the chords of the song on piano, you are in for a surprise. The chord progression and use of modulation, bass inversion, counterpoint, and other musical devices is surprisingly sophisticated. His peers (including Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Leon Russell consider him a genius. But he’s no J.S. Bach ;-) . Another example is "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted", my absolute favorite "Soul" song.

@bdp24, thank you for the recommendation, I’ll check them out. But the only soul hit I’ve heard in 25 years is Leave The Door Open, by Silk Sonic. Coincidentally, it had a hip and complex chord structure for an RB tune. It was truly more complex than a typical RB tune, but that’s what you get when it’s produced by Bootsy Collins and Bruno Mars, an exceptional musician who plays multiple instruments.

You’re pointing out exceptions to the rule. Miles popularized modal music in the very late 50’s. Miles, I believe, got the idea when he was visiting Paris, and asked to create a film soundtrack for a popular French film while he was on tour. This laid the groundwork for his musical comeback. The rest is history.

But anyone who knows jazz knows that modal music isn’t the norm. And even so, isn’t Miles modal album, Kind of Blue the greatest selling jazz music LP ever created? Of course it is. It’s been an entry to jazz for countless people. Yet, Trane, Cannonball, Evans, Chambers, the 18 year old Jimmy Cobb, and Davis created an LP that is still selling today, 75 years after it was created. So much for simple modal music.

I love Classical music! But it doesn’t have the complex chord structure as most jazz. But it couldn’t have, for it was Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker who popularized playing plus Eleven Thirteen chords. Still, Classical music is it’s own genre. And that’s because it’s roots aren’t based upon the blues, which wasn’t created until the 17th century when African’s were forced to come to America and the Caribbean. Without the blues, there is no jazz. As much as I love Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, who truly bordered playing jazz chords in a few bars, Classical is just that, Classical. Which is more complex? That’s a column left for an entirely different thread. But ask the question. Can jazz players play Classical? Yes, so many came to jazz with a Classical background, Oscar, Jarrett, Evans, etc. But how many Classical musicians can improvise?

If it’s complexity you want, listen to J.S. Bach’s Concerto For 4 Harpsichords and Orchestra. Each harpsichord plays a different melody; just trying to keep those 4 threads separate will keep your mind busy! And those 4 parts are played over an insane string of chords, the string played at breakneck speed. A lot of other Baroque compositions have a mind-boggling progression of chords through which the musicians must traverse. And modulations (key changes), not to mention the counterpoint parts in the Fugue form. The hardest thing I ever had to learn to do was sing one part in a Fugue-based Pop song, when I was recording with a songwriter who was a music major at The University of California at Riverside, known for it’s excellent music department. It was he who turned me on to J.S. Bach. By the way, his favorite Pop music songwriter was Brian Wilson.

"Classical music is it’s own genre." Well yeah, of course. I agree, you can’t compare it with Blues-based music. But it was you who said "Jazz is the most complex music ever created." You didn’t say the most complex Blues-based/non-Classical music.

As for improvising, you apparently aren’t aware that a lot of Baroque compositions are written with sections requiring the harpsichordist to provide "ornamentation", the baroque term for improvisation. Keith Jarrett is one pianist equally capable in both Classical and Jazz musics; I have a bunch of his Classical recordings.

Terry Adams is one Rock ’n’ Roll keyboardist (piano, clavinet) who uses Jazz influences (Thelonious Monk, Sun Ra) is his band’s (NRBQ---an acronym for New Rhythm & Blues Quartet. Still going strong after 55 years!) songs, and does so with a great sense of humour. The best band in Rock ’n’ Roll!

@coltrane1 “Jazz is the most complex music ever, by black people no less.”

Sweet Martha.

Simply repugnant racism aside, you think fancy chords and improvisational acumen makes “Ellington and Parker” (we could throw in Monk, Mingus, and Coltrane to name a very small few more) “more complex” than Bach, Stravinsky, Bartók, Boulez, Schoenberg (to name a very small few)?  
Musical “complexity” is far more nuanced than your gross oversimplification suggests.

The noted advantage most top jazz instrumentalists possess in improvisational acumen does not make the music of jazz, necessarily, “more complex” than classical.  
If a top-shelf classical instrumentalist may be, at times, a fish out of water when “sitting in” and trying to hold their own in a top-shelf jazz ensemble, the inverse may also be true.  
Plop the most complex, demanding classical score in front of an all-world jazz player, and their inability to play it on sight with impeccable precision and perfection on the very first go may indeed be exposed. 
Just because versatility in instrumental acumen across all ensembles may arguably favor the jazz instrumentalist, this does not necessarily make jazz music, as a whole, “more complex” than classical.
 

@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.

@taxonomy Fox News.... is that all you've got?

Musical labels are for record companies and radio stations marketing efforts. 

All music is folk music.  I ain't never heard a horse sing a song. -- Louis Armstrong

@onhwy61 “Musical labels are for record companies and radio stations marketing efforts.”

Thank you.  
I feel people have inherited, internalized and accepted this stuff.  
Music journalists don’t help. The way they describe music is just an exercise in hyphenation. Contrived balderdash to sound like they know what they’re talking about.

It was the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo LP that made me get beyond my hatred of Country & Western and begin to love it more than I rightly should. I might say, too, that somewhere down the line I bought a banjo. I still play it more than I ought to. I play it both Bluegrass Style and in the Old Time Frailing style. And oh yeah, Old Time frailing enthusiasts absolutely despise the boing-dee-boing-dee-boing bluegrass style. They consider it slickster sacrilege. Bluegrass banjo players, meantime, mostly consider Old Time banjo playing to be charming if a bit quaint.

Can't we all just get along?

@tylermunns 

I think you have me confused with another contributor.

I did not write the material about jazz you cite as I know little about jazz.

It is particularly unfortunate that your post suggests I am racist.

So please make sure you apologise and make matters entirely clear.

As a musician, I find this statement,

"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."

funny.

You don't have to be "educated" in jazz to discuss its complexity or lack thereof. You only need to have some musical education and appreciation. Even assigning a complexity to music is probably a fools game. What makes a music complex?  There is no official definition. If you just look at total variety of harmony, rhythm, melody, and dynamic structure, classical is always going to win. It is any wonder. We are talking about pieces of music crafted over months or years, for a large number of instruments.

So what makes Jazz complex and is it all jazz, or just jazz that does not follow typical musical structures in which case is it complex, or just different?  Some would consider this music very complex:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LxXw2OiL6Q . Interestingly it bears similarity to some jazz music. Which came first?

All music is beautiful to those that enjoy that particular music. Jazz, old country, new country, classical, pop, rock, rap, hip-hop.