The Sensitive, The Spiritual & Brian Wilson

One thing I've struggled with regarding social media usage over the years is watching myself and other people feel the need to announce their commentary on a current event, under the presumption that people have been waiting for you to break your silence and finally share your thoughts on the topic via the Internet. 

Brian Wilson passed away 3 days ago. I wasn't going to spill any Internet ink on this. But I've brought this up in conversation with multiple people. And apparently people in my actual life don't know anything about Brian Wilson.

As opposed to giving you a bunch of facts you can find on Wikipedia, I wanted to write this in his honor for very personal reasons. I know his work has been highly influential to tons of artists over the last 60+ years. But forget those people. Brian Wilson's work has been influential to me.

THE SENSITIVE, THE SPIRITUAL & BRIAN WILSON

I have my own Bandcamp page with a bunch of my songs scattered around there, with only a few I actually like. One of those good ones is a Beach Boys ripoff called "Shoulda Tried To Hold Your Hand." I've often wondered if I could make an entire album centered around that sound. Something The Beach Boys would have recorded in '65 or '66. 

On summer nights, my mind tends to reside in the thematic spirit of this music. Somewhere between dreaming of a girl you have a boyish crush on, or looking up at the skies at God in a state of yearning for purpose in your confounding life. Something about being outside in the night air after a sunny day. A lot of existential pondering and burning emotion.

At this point in my life, I often feel like I failed at adolescence and young adulthood. Feeling like I walked away from it unfinished. Like I didn't have enough fun. I didn't make enough mistakes. I didn't love enough. I didn't explore enough. I didn't find the stable, mature sense of self that was supposed to naturally come about. And now I'm supposed to commit to stuff as if the world assumes I actually live life with any emotional fulfillment whatsoever. At age 34, I'm still living in lyrics sheet for Pet Sounds. 

Let's go over some songs. Perhaps Pet Sounds songs like "That's Not Me" and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" are the best examples of how that album works as a spirit guide for me. Honest to God, I was gonna insert an italicized section here with the most relatable lyrics from "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times," and realized I was just sharing the whole song.

I guess I'll give a brief shoutout to Brian's rather nonsensical opus Brian Wilson Presents Smile, which is easily my 2nd most-listened-to work of his. But let's get back to early Beach Boys, as that's more of an era for personal inspiration.

Ever since I was a teenager, I've been drawn to The Beach Boys' 1963 ballad "In My Room." I never had my own bedroom until I was 16, and I suddenly connected with the list of things that happen in that song: Dreaming, scheming, lying awake, praying, crying, sighing, laughing, telling my secrets, locking out all my worries and fears. I wrote a paper about this song in junior college and my teacher pulled me aside to tell me it was the best paper he read all semester.

The band's early work is full of sentimental melodies to the ladies, which is perhaps best represented on Side B of their 1965 album The Beach Boys Today! My personal favorite song here is "Please Let Me Wonder" and has Brian on lead vocal. Perhaps it's lame for a a guy over 30 (or even over 20) to be so drawn to a song that definitely sounds like a diary entry of a teenage boy with a dreamlike crush. But it's the "wondering" that always strikes me with this era of Brian's music. He questions life itself, which means he also must question love. If I had to work with Mike Love, I'd be "questioning love" too.

Sorry, had to. 

Anyways... Growing up in California, it was normal for my parents to play their cassette tape of The Greatest Hits -- Volume 1: 20 Good Vibrations on a summer drive to a NorCal beach. So my earliest Beach Boys memories probably begin at age 4. And naturally, I associate this band with going to the beach. But I've left all those childhood memories washed up in the sand. It's the coming-of-age yearning that lives on within me.

I've long felt the emotional weight of Brian Wilson's music in my own soul. I associate it with self-discovery and romance, both of which seem like impossibilities in my life. I also associate it with youth, which is half my life ago at this point. At some point, boys have to grow up. I sometimes wonder how things will be "when I grow up to be a man," but then I realize I've already been living on the other side of that. And now, the "boy" who wrote that song isn't alive anymore.

If you came into this blogpost not knowing anything about Brain Wilson, I'm sure none of this helped out at all. I'll always see him as a spiritual figure among my favorite songwriters. He drew a line between how I personally view modern art and God. I can only assume he was good man in real life. But in the music world, he was the best damn boy who ever lived.

Summer Time

I don't really have anything to say about summer. 

I do have a lot of thoughts about summer. 

So like most people, I'm using the internet as an outlet for producing words without actually saying anything.

Summer Time

Summer memories aren't always good. I've been alive for 34 years. Only a few summers stick out to me. And they were all a pretty darn long time ago, at this point. 2008, 2009, 2013, 2015. Everything outside that was something less than memorable. 

But yeah, I remember friends and feelings and music and experiences from all these summers. They're all pretty darn different from each other. There's a buddy of mine from summer 2013 whom I've spent a lot of time with recently. He once claimed that old summer to be his "peak" era as a college kid in his 20s. I have to bring this up, because I was there, and I liked it too. On the downlow: I prefer spring over summer. And it's no coincidence that I'm writing this blogpost on the last day of May, as I feel like spring has officially turned into summer. I had a good spring. So I'm really banking on the change of the season not screwing things up.

Summer 2013 was like a group of friends trying to get through a checklist of all the cliché American summer experiences you're supposed to have while you're still young. It was also really weird. For me.

It's been a remarkable point of discussion with my therapist. Even 8 years after graduating college, I still think of my life in terms of "semesters." I remember each year, and each season, and I tend to divide everything up that way. In college, each semester felt like I was a totally different person. So it's like... I've always considered 2013 to be a great year. Fond memories of all 3 semesters. But my memories of it all come with a thick haze. Summer 2013 seemed to have nothing to do with my life in either spring or fall of that year. But I mean, hey. At least it was fun.

I've only recently discovered an important tie-in as to why college years were so divisive and my post-college years have been sucky: The Fragmented Self. I'll try not to get too deep into this. But I've gone my entire adult life without really having an essence of self that seems connected to a "through line" of character development as life goes on.

Perhaps that's why those other summers stick out to me. They seemed to be developmental or spiritual times in my life, in a rather pivotal way. I don't really think of summer 2015 as a time full of having a bunch of fun with a bunch of friends. But I felt like I was learning stuff. Like, actual edification. I'd dare say that summer kicked off a "though line" within myself. This would eventually fade out when college graduation came around. I once was lost, but now I'm found--Oops. Lost again.

There's been a lot of days recently that remind me of summer 2008. I have no idea why. That was a summer full of having a bunch of fun with a bunch of friends. And I was still a teenager. This is half my life ago. Holy crap.

I absolutely loved being in a local production of The Laramie Project. Me and some dudes went on a backpacking trip in the Sawtooths. I have vivid memories of the Jerome County Fair, for whatever reason. There's a video of me somewhere dancing like a moron in a church parking lot to "Rock Lobster." I was getting grounded a lot for always coming home after midnight. None of these things have anything to do with my current life. But those were some good times, and I don't mind those feelings resurfacing.

Anyways. I'll always consider ages 17-18 as a "through line" in my life. Summer 2009 after my senior year of high school is a time I actually put too high on a pedestal. Not that I think of this time (or any other time of my life) as "perfect." But a lot of internally important stuff ended when that summer ended. Not just my childhood, but this streak of development I didn't know how to hold onto when my life went through a seemingly minor change. This has become a common reoccurrence throughout my adult life. How I define myself has since been chopped into different versions of myself for each semester of my life. Which brings us to summer 2025.

To reference the intro to this blogpost: I don't have much to say, but there's a lot of important thoughts at hand. By all means, I spent much of this blogpost talking about the past. But I've been making an active effort to not think about the past this much. There are plenty of good and bad things happening in my life right now that are starting to feel very real to me. Namely: Life itself. And that thing usually doesn't feel real to me. 

To say that "life is real" sounds super obvious. But to actually experience life, and for that to feel real... That's seemed increasingly impossible to me, the older I get. And yeah, I'm 34, and suddenly the realization that life is real has brought me some new senses of joy and pain. Summer has arrived, and there's a lot of intensely bittersweet summer feelings going on right now. It's enough to make a person execute some questionable actions.

I thought I'd write a blogpost about this season where the kids are out of school and the weather's so hot that you only want to be outside when the sun's down. It's a good time be young and a strange time to grow old. And it's literally where we are right now. Summer Time. 

TPAB Turns 10

To Pimp a Butterfly. What kind of album title is that? Even after hearing the album a million times and getting the context of what that phrase means, it will never easily roll off the tongue. I don't want to write about what "to pimp a butterfly" means. Instead, I'm writing about what To Pimp a Butterfly means.

On March 6, 2015, Kendrick Lamar announced he would release an album on March 23. I was stoked. I had spent the previous couple years obsessed with good kid, m.A.A.d city. That 2012 album alone had me convinced that Kendrick was the greatest artist alive, of any genre. After getting acquainted with a couple funky promo singles, I wasn't sure what to expect on March 23. Surprise: Kendrick released it on March 15. 

The critical acclaim for this album immediately went through the roof. Kendrick himself did a handful of interviews and waited a few months before doing any live performances, but the TPAB love was everywhere. I was part of it. I was posting stuff about it on Facebook like an annoying fanboy. I wrote a small review for The Utah Statesman where I gave it a 10/10. I was onboard with all the music publications instantly declaring it the best album of the decade. A little hype never hurt anyone, right?

Here's the deal. I understand rap way more now than I did back then. Like, I honestly loved Kendrick, but I didn't love the genre for what it is. In hindsight, I can see fair reasons for people disliking TPAB. Maybe it's preachy. Maybe it's a flawed tracklist. Maybe it's too self-serious. Maybe it's too much of an "Obamacore" thing. And you don't want to hear a white college guy who reads Pitchfork sharing any of his opinions on rap. I was hyping this album like it was some culturally significant moment, and I didn't even know what I was talking about.

I mean. I was right. But, yeah.

People don't really talk about TPAB the way they used to. Perhaps there was a revived love for it at the end of the 2010s when publications were releasing their lists for the best albums of the decade. This ended up being the aggregate #1 by a longshot. But the discussion around TPAB doesn't feel the same at all. A lot of that has to do with the change of political climate over the years, and therefor cultural climate. 

There's kind of an unspoken embarrassment among The Millennial Left when it comes the Obama hype in 2008. It seemed to gradually fade with each year. It should be noted that TPAB was released in the thick of Black Lives Matter protests across the country. I definitely remember the couple of videos going around of protestors chanting the chorus of Kendrick's "Alright." The album was a soundtrack for a moment where liberalism suddenly didn't look as appealing as actual revolution. People who once endorsed Obama started questioning if he actually cared about systematic racism, but had yet to start questioning if that future could (and will) get worse. 

It seems like the narrative behind the TPAB love has become tied with the smug "Obamacore" mindset. The idea that we'll never have to worry about The American Right again if we just ignorantly dismiss them, as we're too high-minded for their childish ideals. But I personally don't think I can tie TPAB to that. It's political, for sure. But track-per-track, it's centered around Kendrick's own story. It's his experience with fame, identity, poverty, racism, the music industry, spirituality. The politics on TPAB is totally sensible. It's just that over time, it's harder to evaluate political music because it can never possibly be accurate enough. A valid take, but just a reminder: These songs are really freaking good.

I'll try not get into my old "this album is objectively great" ways. I used to tinker with that too much. I just think that even with super pessimistic hindsight, the overloaded praise for TPAB was justified. Taken at 100% face value, the album shares a personal story that could have existed any time in the last 100 years. Much of it gets pretty dark, and that's what gives the optimistic messages on the record more conviction. And I actually think I've underestimate the album's sonic qualities. This sounds amazing through your speakers in 2025. 

I think there's room for more optimism in music. I've never been an optimistic person for longer than 5 minutes. I don't think any of my moments of hope ever really came from a political figure. TPAB is just as much about black unity as it is about going through your own metamorphosis. The idea of metamorphosis comes off corny to me, but the actual possibility of it happening to me is inspiring. 

I love this album. A lot of people do. Maybe it doesn't need more acclaim. My deal is, I've often called this the best album of the last 10 years. And today is the last day I can say that.

I'm really, really not from here

I still feel awkward when people ask me where I'm from. 

I was born in Central California. I lived there for 15 years and 8 months. 

My family then moved to Idaho. I lived there for 3 years and 8 months, before serving a mission.

On my mission, I told people I was from Idaho. Until I had a companion who had lived in Idaho his whole life. He told me I couldn't tell people I was from Idaho because I only lived there for 3 years and I've never been fishing before. He didn't seem very serious when he said this. But he was correct.

LOGAN

I've lived a collective 10 years of my adult life in Logan UT. I've kinda adopted the place as "where I'm from" over the years. But there's become a contradiction in recent years. The longer I live here, the less it feels like home. 

By the time I hit 30, I found myself surrounded by peers my age who have strong reasons to live here. Coming across more people who were born and raised here, and will likely never leave their family community. I'm even still in touch with a handful of college friends from wherever the heck else in America. Many have found a spouse here; some of whom have started their own family to focus on. I myself love the scenery here. I've explored every street in town and every trailhead up the canyon. I had a few cool semesters at Utah State University, where I graduated from 8 years ago. Am I just living here because the atmosphere makes me nostalgic for the flare of my young adulthood?

Ummm... Yes. 

CALIFORNIA v IDAHO

So it's hard to say I'm from Logan. And I can't say I'm from Idaho. Should I just say I'm from California? I would, except for the fact that I don't really remember it.

I should remember it though, right? That's where I developed as a human being for over 15 years. The orchards, the freeways, being "the token Mormon kid" in every class. All unrecognizable to me.

I usually think of my life as though it never began until I turned 17. My junior year at Jerome High School in Idaho. I switched from thinking of acting as something fun I was getting into, to treating it like an art of progress. I accumulated a lot of new friends. I started going through the pivotal adolescent emotional course. I was really molding as a person for a couple years there. Does this make Jerome ID the place where I truly feel like I'm at home?

The answer is apparently a hard "no." I've had a few stints of living in Jerome as an adult, and most of that time really sucked. I mentioned earlier that I've begun feeling like I'm just a long-term tourist stuck in Logan, surrounded by homebodies. Jerome is like that times 10. If you can imagine.

To me, for any reason, I never felt like my California upbringing was important. But I tell ya what. It's apparent that I definitely didn't grow up in any place like Jerome ID or Logan UT.

NOWHERE

I don't know where I'm from because no place feels like home to me. I'm living a life where I rarely feel any sense of security. Seems like I only feel at home when I'm listening to music or spending time outside. But come to think of it, this was once something liberating for me.

When I was 17, my favorite artist was Beck. A notably weird dude from LA who built a career on refusing to be defined by a genre. Looking back, I have mixed feelings about Beck's shtick, but I believe I totally needed an artist like him in my teenage life. His music never sounded like he was from California. Honestly, he doesn't sound like he's from any particular place at all. I don't think he represented counter-culture. I think he was laughing at the idea of "cultural significance" itself. There's a world of beautiful and terrible music out there. There are millions of people from California. I learned that being from California doesn't have to mean anything. 

It's kinda ironic that I never got into the hip Californian clichés until I moved to Idaho. Stuff like getting involved in theatre, siding with leftist political ideals and loving weird music. In fact, one of my favorite bands is this old 90s band from Stockton CA. I was a kid living in Stockton in the 90s. But I never knew this band existed until I was an Idaho teenager with internet connection.

The band is Pavement, and their album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was the soundtrack to my final days of high school. As senior, I could hardly recollect my California freshman year. But as far as I was concerned, this band's rather ugly sound was a close sonic approximation to what the streets of Stockton looked like. Their song "Lions (Linden)" is even titled after the farm-town high school I briefly attended.

As a teenager, it was as though developing my own aesthetic helped me grow my own community. Perhaps having a stronger sense of self and having a reliable community around you go hand-in-hand. And when no place feels like your home, you can always at least have your self. 

I wish that was the end of this blog post.

WHERE AM I FROM?

Where am I from?

I don't know. It's become harder for me to identify myself with any place--or any thing at all--as I've gotten older. I was always under the impression that this stuff would be less dramatic with age, and yet I find it more difficult than ever. As much as I glorify my teenage era of self-discovery, that progression was definitely cut short. An incomplete development, despite doing things that were supposed to make me my own man, like serving a mission and going to college and working fulltime jobs. 

The fact that my first 17 years feel irrelevant to my life might be a thing. Like maybe there's some inner-child stuff to work on there. Like maybe I was always a tight-wound sensitive boy and maybe that boy never went away and I hate that boy, but you didn't hear that from me.

Anyways... I live in Logan, but I'm really, really not from here. There's no real place or thing that makes me feel at home, or in touch with myself. Not for longer than a few minutes, anyways. At some point, I can't lean on my locale or my music taste or my past highlights to define who I am. I think I have to begin some things that are much harder to begin than anything I've ever begun before. 

So I'll tell you where I'm from when I get there.

xmas classix

xmas classix

Songs that have nothing to do with Christmas but always remind me of Christmastime.

My vague memories of my awkward first year of high school

The Scientist  ---Coldplay

Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)  ---Bruce Springsteen

My Love  ---Paul McCartney

The View  ---Modest Mouse

My vague memories of my awkward first Christmas in Idaho

Adrift  ---Barenaked Ladies

Recovering the Satellites  ---Counting Crows

Bling (Confessions of a King)  ---The Killers

Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses  ---U2

Peace on Earth  ---U2

Junior year winter when I thought I was a hard-ass

Sunday Sun  ---Beck

Impossible Germany  ---Wilco

Intervention  ---Arcade Fire

Hypnotize  ---System of a Down

Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)...  ---Jay-Z

Heard 'Em Say  ---Kanye West (ft Adam Levine)

Celebrity Skin  ---Hole

Without Love  ---from Hairspray 

The year I played Ebenezer Scrooge in the school play

Across the Sea  ---Weezer

Flashing Lights  ---Kanye West (ft Dwele)

Whatever You Like  ---T.I.

My Love  ---Justin Timberlake (ft T.I.)

Get Innocuous!  ---LCD Soundsystem

Man out of Time  ---Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Death and All His Friends  ---Coldplay

Spaceman  ---The Killers

That one date I went on with a girl who definitely wasn't into Radiohead

Optimistic  ---Radiohead

Depressing December where I definitely wasn't ready to serve an LDS mission

Blindsided  ---Bon Iver

Today Is the Day  ---Yo La Tengo

Exit Music (For a Film)  ---Radiohead

Fade Into You  ---Mazzy Star

The Wagon  ---Dinosaur Jr.

Feeling Yourself Disintegrate  ---The Flaming Lips

The winter I started "feeling things" for the first time in years

Michicant  ---Bon Iver

Babys  ---Bon Iver

Myth  ---Beach House

Song for America  ---Destroyer

Forrest Gump  ---Frank Ocean

Studying for finals in the TSC computer lab past 1am

Immunity  ---Jon Hopkins

Driving my 1984 Honda Civic on a snowy night

Help Me Lose My Mind  ---Disclosure (ft London Grammar)

Afterlife  ---Arcade Fire

Depressing December where I mostly listened to actual Christmas music

Grace Cathedral Park  ---Red House Painters

I started dating this one girl...

As  ---Stevie Wonder

I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times)  ---Jamie xx (ft Young Thug & Popcaan)

And I Remember Every Kiss  ---Jens Lekman

Heaven or Las Vegas  ---Cocteau Twins

Nothing Even Matters  ---Lauryn Hill (ft D'Angelo)

Basketball Jones  ---Cheech & Chong

Moby Octopad  ---Yo La Tengo

Chosen One  ---The Flaming Lips 

Songs I listened to while I did my last college final before graduating

Sunday Candy  ---Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment

Pick up the Phone  ---Young Thug & Travis Scott (ft Quavo)

Driving my 1997 Ford Taurus on a snowy night

Runaway  ---Kanye West (ft Pusha T)

That one good December on antipsychotics 

Saturday  ---Yo La Tengo

Mary Jane  ---Rick James

A couple bad Decembers on antipsychotics

Nothing Gets Crossed Out  ---Bright Eyes

Sail to the Moon  ---Radiohead

These ones kinda just keep coming back

More Stars Than There Are in Heaven  ---Yo La Tengo

Nude  ---Radiohead

Ágætis byrjun  ---Sigur Rós

The New Fake-Ass Country Music Revolution

COUNTRY ON TOP.

Between July 2023 and July 2024, there were 8 country songs that occupied the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. 

Morgan Wallen - "Last Night"

Jason Aldean - "Try That in a Small Town"

Oliver Anthony Music - "Rich Men North of Richmond"

Zach Bryan (ft Kacey Musgraves) - "I Remember Everything" 

Brenda Lee - "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"

Beyoncé - "Texas Hold 'Em"

Post Malone (ft Morgan Wallen) - "I Had Some Help"

Shaboozey - "A Bar Song (Tipsy)"

I guess there's debate as to just how "country" each song here is. I'd put 'em all in the same boat, myself.

The dinky trap beat on "Last Night" isn't enough for me to confuse it with anything outside your standard country pop song. Jason Aldean has been a country radio staple for 20 years. Oliver Anthony's look suggests he might be more of a folksy bluegrass guy, but to entirely separate that from country is a stretch. Zach Bryan is an Americana purist, which means he's just country for people who drink PBR. Gotta include Brenda Lee's 1958 hit "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," as Wikipedia classifies this song as "rockabilly," therefor sharing more in common with early Johnny Cash than anything by Blake Shelton. "Texas Hold 'Em" is a fun little backcountry stomper. "I Had Some Help" sounds like it could have been a country hit in any of the last 20 years. And that Shaboozey song seems to take from multiple genre influences to ultimately create something that's unmistakably country.

As I write this, Shaboozey's "Tipsy" is reigning as the #1 song in America for the 14th week. Still not caught up to the 16 weeks that Morgan Wallen's " Last Night" spent at #1 last year. Heck, Morgan Wallen is actually the king of the mountain right now. His last 2 albums have combined to sell 13x Platinum in the US. All since January 2021. 

For context: Within this same amount of time, Taylor Swift has released 2 new albums and an additional 4 re-recorded releases of her older albums. All these releases have combined to go 9x Platinum. 

Unlike Swift, Wallen is far from the American icon status of Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley. Per Spotify, he sits at a relatively scant ranking as the 92nd most-streamed artist in the world. But in America, people are paying money for his songs. And that doesn't happen to people in 2024. 

While it can't be denied that country music is having its own moment right now, I don't get it when people call it a "comeback." 

Individual artists can make comebacks, for sure. But a genre? Heck no. Especially with country, where its popularity and cultural relevance has always been super difficult to measure. Like, when was country's heyday in the first place? Are you referring to Garth Brooks going 108x Platinum with a decade's-worth of album releases? Are you an American Millennial reminiscing about the post-9/11 country marketing boom from your childhood? Are you an old-head talking about how much better the genre was before it went pop? Are you realizing that even at its most popular, country was never actually on top? 

What's happening with country right now has never happened to the genre before. The run has been too successful to call it a fad. But it's too stupid to call it a revolution. 

LET'S TALK ABOUT COUNTRY.

I personally find country fun to talk about. In fact, it's more fun to talk about country than it is to listen to it! 

I've technically been listening to country my whole life. Country music is the soundtrack to hanging out with friends who won't give me the aux cord. On my own time, I pretty much never listen to country. And yet so many of my favorite artists are influenced by it. 

Bands like Wilco tend to take the steel guitar twang and gritty folk elements of country to make some depressive indie rock. Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, these guys have all toyed around with it. Zach Bryan draws the most obvious line between my favored "boring white guy" music and country's chart-conquering moment in America right now. But if I'm being honest with myself, my relationship with traditional country is more like appreciating it from afar rather than being a real fan.

Country is one of the most purely American-born genres of music. It's been around for like 100 years. Like anything culturally significant, it originates from the voices of people in poverty. Any US state that struggles with tornadoes or hurricanes, that's where country comes from. You're out there writing songs based on experience, and your experience says that nature is working against you. 

So are Americans playing more country songs in 2024 because we finally get a chance to connect with these distinctive voices?

Haha nope.

I'll get some things out of the way here. It's not like I only acknowledge a country artist's validity if they have a lower-class upbringing. This is more the conversation people have been having about rappers for years. If you're not black, don't pretend to be black. If you're not from the hood, don't pretend like you're from the hood. I believe these chart-topping country songs come from artists who are genuine fans of the genre. Nobody's pretending. Ever-profitable pop superstar Post Malone is out there making some generally accessible country songs that don't sound too forced. And the new Beyoncé album kinda works as a musical museum for every angle of country. 

And yet I see America's rise in country music sales as a "fake" movement. It has hardly anything to do with the artists making it. It's the speculated "cultural impact" of it all that's absolute horeshit. 

In a piece I wrote about music of the Trump Era back in December 2020, I claimed: "The musical landscape has simply turned into a big fat meme." I should have known. This is just how it's gonna be from now on. The new country music boom hasn't changed anything. Not a strong enough force in musical innovation to overpower our iconic pop stars. Not enough revolutionary ideals to change anyone's political perspectives. But it's fun and it's in your face. So it's a meme. 

Going back to that Trump Era quote from myself... That was in the middle of a paragraph where I talk about a song that has proven to be kabillion miles ahead of its time. The song that still holds the record for most weeks at #1 on the Billboard chart. That's right: "Old Town Road."

Its first week at #1, this song was 113 seconds long, just a simple banger trap beat and some lightweight banjo, led by a gay 19 year-old black man using a comically country-tinged voice; some guy we've never heard of named Lil Nas X. While the listening experience comes off pretty harmless, everything surrounding this song's existence and its popularity says it's an anomaly. So how did he extend his place at #1 another 18 weeks? He further meme-ified it. Added a goofy rap verse from goofy country tabloid star Billy Ray Cyrus. Nothing about "Old Town Road" is serious, yet everything about it is brilliant.

Meme music and mainstream music had officially become indistinguishable. I found this easy to embrace at first. Making dumb pop songs dumber. I'm kinda all for it. And I wouldn't call any of these new country hits "meme music." It's just that the way we see the genre itself has become a meme. 

Dolly Parton has practically become a meme hero. 

I remember Beck being my favorite artist when I was 17. Genres were a joke to him back in the 90s. The dude was ironically rapping over a big fat buffet of cheeky weird instrumentals that would be sure to make your parents worry about you. In a way, one can say he was ahead of his time. But I would dare go in the opposite direction. 

We figured out that making music in a bunch of different genres is easy. You ask someone what type of music they listen to, everyone just says "everything." And they're not lying. We have access to it all. Sometimes we feel like unleashing our inner gangsta rapper. Sometimes we feel like dressing up in tacky bright 80s outfits. Sometimes we just wanna sweat it out to some EDM. Sometimes we wanna put on a cowboy hat and drink Budweiser. 

I find this all kinda cool. Aside from the fact that none of it matters.

The deal with country is that everybody likes country. It's easy to market and easy to make. It's been that way for a long time now. You can go on YouTube and find people who just take any given 4-chord song, add a twang, sing it in a Southern accent, and boom: Sound like Dierks Bentley. "U2 but make it country" Instagram reels like, yeah. That shit's easy. And you can make a buck off that.

Even the other way around, John Michael Montgomery's 1994 country hit "I Swear" made a seamless transition into an R&B hit by All-4-One. Pretty much all pop-centric genres that have their own circle of radio airplay have been fair game since the 60s. Country is not exempt. And for those of you who've always been into it, I think country culture was best described to me by an unintentionally wise kid named Alex: "Country isn't a lifestyle. It's a state of mind."

Country doesn't necessarily have gatekeepers either. Heck, I don't think there's any other genre that takes more pride in branding itself as "music for people who don't think about art." You can ask any country fan to name their favorite country artists, and they'll all name the same five people. It's all chill around these parts.

I guess there technically are country music gatekeepers. I try to take up their recommendations, but I think gatekeeping a genre just as much preserves the music's purest forms as it limits its boundaries. You'll never meet a hardcore country fan the same way you'll meet snobs that represent metal or punk or jazz. "That's not REAL metal!" "That's not REAL punk!" "Jazz is NOT dead, it's just not profitable!" Ok, that last one is true, but still. 

America has always been full of casual country fans. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that any time I've tried to take this year's country boom seriously, I'll ask myself: "Why country? Why now?" And the answer is always: "Why not?" 🤠

OH YEAH, THE SONGS.

Going back to the songs at the top of this blog post, there's a reminder that it's the music scene as a whole that's become meme-ified. Over the last 5 years, one of the biggest hits of our time is a little holiday treat made back in 1994. Mariah Carey. "All I Want for Christmas Is You." 13 collective weeks at #1 in the US. In the world of memes, you don't even have to be new or trendy. You just have to be mem-eable. This 1994 song is the first song that comes to mind when we think of Christmas in 2024. And what the hey, let's throw "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" in there. It's a party now. 

Despite his massive success, I don't consider Morgan Wallen as part of the new country movement. His 2021 release Dangerous: The Double Album was an immediate Nashville smash. Country albums have always sold millions within their own market. The Billboard Hot 100 chart just functions differently now. With niche radio stations becoming obsolete, there's new emphasis on charting what's getting streamed the most by the people. For example, Garth Brooks' album sales rival the likes of Michael Jackson. Yet "Friends in Low Places" did not even chart in the Billboard Hot 100. Absolutely insane.

So we get "Last Night" as  Wallen's signature generic megahit. Somebody has to take the crown as The Face of Country, and Morgan's the man right now. I think the his brand of lyrically-conscious and pop-friendly country appeals to people from multiple generations. I actually think his reign will last for the whole decade. I have no idea who's #2 in the radio country kingdom. They're so far behind, people have forgotten that country airplay still exists as its own entity. If country is selling, Morgan Wallen is carrying that world on his back. 

Then of course we've got the 1-week wonder "Try That in a Small Town" by Jason Aldean. 

The first song I remember hearing (and liking) by Jason Aldean was a song called "Amarillo Sky" back in 2006. I remember later moving to Idaho and listening to the song "Big Green Tractor" with my friend Kori. She told me, "Scott, if you ever want to win over a girl, get your guitar and play her this song." People who actually like country have known Aldean's name for like 20 years now. His 2023 single "Try That in a Small Town" doesn't sound much different than anything else on country radio. Its brief spike in nationwide popularity had more to do with the lyrical content becoming a discussion piece among people who hate the song. 

Honest to god, I heard more negative press than positive about this song. This probably could have been avoided if he didn't shoot the music video in front of an old lynching site. Every benefit of the doubt you want to give its violent lyrical context is suddenly shattered. So look out all you rebel-rousers! Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck, guess that includes y'all too. The "Big Green Tractor" guy is out to lynch you. Yikes.

Then of course we've got the 2-week wonder "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony Music. Again a song that's more powered by discourse than airplay.

Oliver Anthony Music was a new face with a rather meteoric rise to popularity. An acoustic field recording of a song that could have been written by Dale Gribble himself. Its lyrics were discussed at the first Republican primary debate in the summer of 2023. Oliver Anthony Music condemned the Republicans for their use of his song, distancing himself from any association with the party.

This response made sense to me. Even in the realms of far-right libertarianism, even the right-wing folks in DC are still part of the controlling government machine you disgust. Might I suggest, to anyone out there who wants to write political music: If you don't want certain people to agree with you, stop saying things you know they'll agree with.

Then of course we've got the 1-week wonder "I Remember Everything" by Zach Bryan, featuring former-Grammy darling Kacey Musgraves. 

The charts are weird sometimes. Bryan had the #1 album of the week. Often times a huge album means its most popular song shoots to #1. While "I Remember Everything" still stands as Bryan's only #1 hit, it feels more like a consolation prize for his actual most popular song. From 2022, his single "Something in the Orange" has gone 7x Platinum. Wow.

Anyways, yeah, I consider myself pro-Zach Bryan. I love this dude's voice. A younger Millennial who grew up in Oklahoma and served in the Navy. I wouldn't consider him very "fun." Like, at all. I think he's trying to distance himself from the country pop world and wanting to be a critically-acclaimed Americana figure like Jason Isbell. He just has to work on being a bigger asshole. 

Then of course we've got the 2-week wonder "Texas Hold 'Em" by Beyoncé. I can spill a novel's-worth of ink about the album this comes from, Cowboy Carter. Some good words, some bad. The song itself? There is nothing to say about this freaking song. 

It's not bad. It's fun. I'd call it country. The actual song's not all that memorable. I know there's a part where she invites the listener to dance by saying "don't be a bitch." That's, like, a really weird thing to say, right?

Anyways. For anybody who thinks Beyoncé is just a non-country artist trying to capitalize on the country meme, I don't think that's the case. She absolutely does the genre justice throughout Cowboy Carter. It's a grandiose project with hundreds of writers and performers involved, full of songs that I'm never in the mood to listen to. I appreciate the presentation, but I feel like Queen Bey further trades off her conviction for production with each album.

I think we've now reached the threshold of just how far the meme-able country movement can go. These final #1 hits I'm about to get into are much stronger certified hits than than the brief chart-toppers I just mentioned. I think things can only descend from here. And I'll expound on that.

If you were wary about Beyoncé going country for a cash grab, I'm not sure how you were less wary about former-rapper Post Malone doing the same thing a few months later. He spent a few weeks at #1 this year with his hit " I Had Some Help," featuring some help from The Face of Country himself, Morgan Wallen. 

What's sad is that this song is undeniably country, but it's also just super flavorless. When I say I'm not a big country fan, I'm talking about this stuff. This song makes me feel like I'm watching a Chevy truck commercial in 2004. And I have to realize that this is why people like it. 

The song is selling, the album is selling. Anyone who watched Post Malone sing "America the Beautiful" at the Super Bowl this year knows that he has respect for the genre. Ah. "Respect for the genre." Something critics didn't say about him back when he had his breakout rap hit "White Iverson."

So has Post Malone found himself a home in country? Will he settle with it? I think he could. But I know he won't.

The current #1 song in America is "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" by Shaboozey. Its 14th week at #1. Still behind Morgan Wallen's 16-week reign with "Last Night." But I actually think Shaboozey will pass him up. I even think this song can break the 19-week record set by "Old Town Road." This will be the song that people see as the height of the country movement. And it's the song that will make us all tired of it. 

There's just something so simple and relatable about this guy's approach. An acoustic guitar, some handclaps, a chorus that's easy to sing along to. It's a newly established anthem for every American ready to get their beer-driven swagger on at the local bar this weekend. Without using much, it's got everything.

BECAUSE NOTHING MATTERS.

So now I believe we've finally crossed beyond the threshold. The next time a pop star announces they're doing a country album, it will be seen as a sellout move that's behind the times. In fact, just this weekend, Ringo Starr announced that he's releasing a country album. It's the beginning of the end, folks.

I think Morgan Wallen will still sell. He'll live on as "the country guy" among America's biggest superstars. There's this weird thing with Morgan Wallen fans, by the way. Has anybody else noticed that everyone who's super into his stuff, their favorite genre of music is EDM? I can't make the connection. It's just a weird fact unrelated to anything.

I've written a lot about country here. Because while I find the movement unimportant, there's something really funny and fascinating about it all. Who would think there would be a time where pop stars could start making country music, and it would be seen as an act of selling out? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. People are using the exact opposite career strategy that we once witnessed from the biggest artist alive: Taylor Swift.

My biggest stretch of an opinion here is that the meme-ification of the modern music scene originated in 2016. 100% in line with the US presidential election.

A lot of Millennials who had associated with the Democratic party started pulling towards actual socialist ideals. A lot of the usual Republican Millennials voters found a truer sense of identity with libertarianism. But it was then made clearer than ever in our adult lives that what actual people believed never mattered. The administrative funding was always gonna be between Clinton and Trump. We always knew that, but we held onto false hope. And there was this conundrum as to whether these 2 candidates were ideological planets apart from each other, or if they were technically the same thing. 

As far as making this music-related, the guy who won this election had to settle for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as the big-ticket musical performance for his inauguration. The eternally left-wing music scene was not pleased with the election outcome. Over the last 8 years, now with some quarantine experience added into the mix, younger artists have given themselves more questions than answers.

Do the things that I believe in even matter? Does it matter who wins a presidential election? Then again, how are these elections even close?

Is it a big deal if country music comes from a black woman who started off as an R&B artist? Should we keep buying country music from a guy who gets caught saying racial slurs in public? Why is that even a question?

Should I get less political? Should my music career go county? Should I take cheap CBD tablets and flip through TikTok while I work from my apartment?

Perhaps the answer was always to put on a cowboy hat and ignore anything important all along. It's been fun watching the country meme reach its peak. I have no idea what musical genre will win America's next fake "culturally-significant" lottery. But like everything else, I will probably only be able to enjoy it ironically. 

Replacements for an Identity

There are a couple moments with my therapist that led to me writing this blogpost. 

Dating back to the first week of March, our sessions took a whole new direction we've been riding with ever since: Developing a sense of identity. There are a lot of loaded questions that come with a topic like this. But interestingly enough, there's a question in this ballpark that I've had an immediate answer to for years. What band reminds me the most of myself? The Replacements.

My therapist threw out an interesting statement in our last visit. It felt emphatic in the moment, then it escaped me, and now it's coming back to me. They mentioned that some of the most impactful moments in our lives are times when we felt understood. I've been trying to recall times where I actually felt that, among friends or whoever. It's hard to pinpoint lasting moments where I felt this sensation after talking to someone. But I know there have been times where I felt deeply understood by some guy yelling at me in my headphones. Again, I'm talking about The Replacements.

It's both puzzling and comical to think that I feel connection with these guys I've never had anything in common with. Angsty, rebellious, alcoholic punks. There's something at the heart of their lyrics that I've kept in my heart like it's Moses's 11th Commandment: Self-Loathing.

If I were to list of my 20 favorite bands, you would see self-loathing is a common theme between most all of them. I've just always loved the character that Paul Westerberg presents. I referred to him as "angsty" earlier.  But I think the proper word for him, and the undying emotional state I share with him, is "frustrated." Sure it's depressing, but it's also passionate. Classic rock taught us that rock singers should be wailing about drugged-up sex with crazy groupies and stuff like that. I want to hear someone yell about feeling too messed up and worn out for the world they see in front of them. Paul is a guy who could convince you to share a beer with him, but warns you that it's not worth becoming too attached. And yeah. Dang. I've seen myself this way as far back as I can remember.

I had a Pandora station for Pavement when I was 18. Every band it threw at me had me like, "This is what music is supposed to sound like!!!" This is where I listened to The Replacements for my first time. 

I remember "Can't Hardly Wait" instantly became an anthem for me. I always thought of it as this ratty young man who's unsure of himself wanting to make a change. With only a handful of words sung within 3 minutes, he depicts scenery involving anxiety, love letters, heaven, and ashtrays. "Jesus rides beside me. He never buys any smokes." That's genius. And of course, the simple play on words with "I CAN'T hardly wait." Sounds like something a teenager would mumble as they roll their eyes at their parents. The energy of this song tells me this is an inspired person who wants to start making changes. But he wants to make sure we know that he's not excited about the process. That's often how I feel about my own life.

This might sound like a perfect band for guys in high school or college. Then why does all this stuff still feel applicable to me at age 33? Trying to navigate towards signs of self-discovery through the tarpits of your own self-loathing. I've never been under the impression that there's any true "destination" in journeys like this. We're always developing as people. But I'm still seemingly stuck in some developmental stage that most people go through in their adolescence. I've felt less willing to work and more agitated toward my peers over these last few years than I ever did as a teenager. Maybe I just need a band who'll invited me to "hang side by side" with them as we're punished for our crimes of human inadequacy. Or maybe listen to a dude continuously yell "I'M SO UNSATISFIED" for like 4 minutes. 

A band can't be an identity. And hating yourself doesn't count as an identity. But it can at least be a replacement for one.