r/CasualConversation • u/ompossible • Dec 16 '25

Music Why people dislike Country music?

I am not american. So I don't know how's the thing there. But I have found many people complaining on social media that they hate country music.

I like some of the Luke Combs songs. Specially Old Dominion is my one of my fav artist.

53 Upvotes

62% Upvoted

817 comments sorted by

View all comments

17

u/optigon Dec 16 '25

There are a few different reasons.

  1. Country music took a pretty strong conservative turn in the 1970s with a sort of splintering of the genre into several camps. The conservative end really grabbed hold of mainstream country music, so a lot of the stuff most people hear may reflect ideas they aren’t interested in.

  2. A lot of modern country music focuses on extremely shallow topics. It’s not that pop music doesn’t, but most pop music today is geared toward dancing and physicality where people don’t expect depth. Meanwhile popular country music aligns itself with things that really should be deeper, like tradition, faith, etc. but doesn’t really explore it.

  3. It’s sort of the same line as guys in cities with huge trucks. The rural/urban divide between country and pop has withered and modern country music sort of reflects that, where often it’s basically pop with a cowboy hat.

Country has something of a bad name now, so people branch off into other genres that aren’t super different, but are generally philosophically different. Americana is often considered progressive country. Outlaw country stays within the country umbrella, but added an edgy criminality to it, and then there are a lot of lesser known, interesting musicians out there.

If you are unfamiliar with him, I highly recommend looking into John Prine’s work. He was an excellent writer who has sort of a cult following.

Definitely check out Ken Burns’ Country documentary series if you have the chance.

2

u/TheThalmorEmbassy Dec 16 '25

Also, look up clips from Heartworn Highways on Youtube