Random hits, 28.8.17

My first thought on seeing this was “Singer of watered-down ‘country’ music shills for watered-down beer. Seems legit.”

Now that I think about it, though, that’s rather an unfair insult to Bud, because Bud is closer to actual beer than Thomas Rhett is to actual country music.

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Just so everyone knows, we’re fine over here in San Antonio. Just got a little bit of wind and rain, and the power was out for about 45 minutes Saturday, but that was about it. I have friends down towards Rockport and Corpus, as well as over in Houston and the Golden Triangle, who of course aren’t faring so well, so keep them in your thoughts.

That’s pretty effed up.

Also, as if we needed a reminder of how, shall we say, out of whack things are…

On one hand we have supposed “country” act Florida Georgia Line doing a duet with the Backstreet Boys, and on the other hand, on her album that just dropped yesterday, we have pop star Kesha doing a duet with Dolly Parton on “Old Flames (Can’t Hold A Candle To You)” (a No. 1 country hit for Dolly back in 1980) — and a surprisingly good version of it, even.

Granted, Kesha actually has a somewhat personal connection to that song, as her mother co-wrote it, but even so, this is a disappointingly rare thing, and a pretty damning commentary on the state of affairs in Nashville. You hear people talking about country having to appeal to pop fans, and maybe that’s true to an extent, but I for one think this is a much better way of doing it — that is, pop stars putting their own spin on gems from country music just like this one. People are gonna hear this, and they’ll go hunting for the Dolly recording of it…

…and if they’re half as inquisitive as I am they’ll find the Merle Haggard version of that song…

…and from there, who knows? They might even come away fans of those artists in general. And there are a lot more great songs where that one came from, from dozens of artists.

You laugh, but do you think FGL and Luke Bryan doing their thing with their non-existent country/hip-hop mixtape is gonna get people turned on to George Strait, even?

In memory of Glen Campbell…

…who died today at 81, and who showed us that pop country did not have to suck, and could, in fact, be very good, very good indeed…