Little Known Facts: May '18

In his teens, Jason Aldean was dropped by a vocal trainer who told Aldean's parents it was like trying to teach a legless man soccer

The greatest Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band is Lynyrd Skynyrd

The average Rascal Flatts fan is average

Evidently Bebe Rexha is not the subject of an early 90’s animated movie written by Reginald Hudlin

The bootleg Hank Jr. shirts on Facebook are sold by Hank Jr.

Cody Jinks, Whitey Morgan, and Ward Davis tour together so often so they can get the group discount at the beard groomer

Reba McEntire is the first Colonel Sanders to not have a cock, but only because she is allergic to feathers

Turns out, Blake Shelton is the jackass

The previous country fact was brought to you by The NFL Keurig Starbucks Yeti  Nordstrom Netflix Oreos Dick's Pepsi TJ Maxx  Lou's AR-15 n' Whiskey Shack

I was going to write the 500th fact that points out Shooter Jennings is short but I wanted to bring Farce the Music to new heights

Sam Hunt recently announced a winter 2018 Mexican tour starting on November 1, 2018

Blind item: Texas singer who recently signed with a major label uses full body pillows for his head

Early reports are that Chris Stapleton is the favorite to be named NBA Rookie of the Year

Support of a border wall by Congress has reached an all time high as long as it can be completed by November 2, 2018

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Most of these by Jeremy Harris, but especially *that* one; you know the one. 

Borat Country Reaction Gifs

You think Florida-Georgia Line sucks too?!?

Country radio exec:

*sees Paul Thorn in public*

Me: Try not to say something stupid...

Me: I don't like to dance

*Jo-El Sonnier song comes on*

Me:

When Jason Aldean puts out a good song with Miranda Lambert

Chris Stapleton had the second most added song at country radio this week!

When the car beside you is playing Kane Brown

The new John Prine album is nice, huh?

When your passenger says they're tired of listening to Merle

Still more country than Sam Hunt

Country TwitterFAIL: April '18

Opinion: Stop Presenting Mainstream Country Stars as Saints

by Trailer

Look, I prefer positivity and goodness in life. Despite the snarky, critical persona I take on as the proprietor of this site, family, love, faith, and understanding are high up on my list of things that don't suck. Happy relationships and strong families are of utmost importance in this world. Charity is wonderful and if you can give to the less fortunate, do so. Be nice, tell the truth, do right, and all that stuff. 

All that said, could one of the dudes from Old Dominion possibly get caught naked in a crackhouse with a one-legged prostitute? Can we maybe uncover a chop-shop on Brantley Gilbert's property? Are there incriminating photos of Kelsea Ballerini meeting with Russian informants? Did Thomas Rhett have a lost period of years as a drug mule?

An illegal firearm? Poaching? Jaywalking? Not even a misguided interview response? Nothing? Come on!

Almost to the person, country artists these days are either as plain as ecru painted walls or as sweet as cotton candy, and I'm over it. I miss the days when country artists were packing heat, snorting ski slopes of cocaine, and chasing tail from one coast to the other. 

Can you imagine the memes Farce the Music would have generated in the 70s and earlier? These folks were driving their pimped out Cadillacs with the horns to their mansions with guitar shaped pools and taking all the drugs and drinking all the whiskey. They were having public screaming fights with their significant others at a Shreveport hotel. Even the nice guys were outlaws back in the day - John Denver made Jason Aldean look like Mr. Rogers. In 2018, all the rowdy friends have settled down. 

The only thing safer than the lifestyles is the music. It all has an 80s elevator music quality to it. Every song's gotta fit the same sonic texture as everything else on country radio. It's not about getting the best music out to people; it's about keeping people zoned out and listening so they might pay attention to an ad about erectile dysfunction or mortgage refinancing every now and then. 

And the country music news cycle now… this guy played a charity show, this lady is just so grateful to be liked, this couple adopted an entire town in Niger. Again, all those things are wonderful! By all means, please do good, country stars. I'm not saying they shouldn't. It's just gotten so syrupy sweet and perfectly groomed and PR managed that my eyes glaze over every time a story that should make me smile pops up on the news feed. 

Look, I don't want anybody sinning and being unlawful just for the sake of edginess. All I'm asking for here is realness. Country music is about truth, and truthfully, nobody is as perfect as these people are made out to be. Somebody's cheating. Somebody's nursing a pill habit. Somebody else is an awful diva. 

While some of these truths are understandably a little too controversial for PR people to let get out (not to mention that stars are people and deserve some level of privacy), other glimpses into stars' imperfections would make them more endearing. People probably would've been into Johnny Cash no matter what, but the fact that we knew he was as flawed (or more so) than the rest of us made him that much more relatable and beloved.

Let us see behind the curtain a little. All this white picket fence idealism is not only getting dull, it's insulting. We know better.

Monday Morning Memes: Luke Bryan, FGL, Isbell

Tuesday Morning Memes: Luke Bryan, Football, Loretta

Alabama vs. Georgia!

The Crud Report: December 2017

Shaun of the Dead: Country Reaction Gifs

Warning: Some gore and foul language.

All your friends are going to the

Brantley concert tomorrow...

Do you really hate current pop country that much?

Will you be reviewing Kelsea Ballerini's new album?

Trying to describe Thomas Rhett's new album

When everybody loved your latest FGL meme

When some troll won't leave you alone about

why you don't think Sam Hunt is country

Trying to fit in at a Luke Bryan concert

The only useful thing to do 

with a Jason Aldean record

Editorial: How Gun Violence Corrupted the Church of Music

by Robert Dean

And here we are again. We can’t keep up with the news cycle, and our social media feeds are melting with comment wars and a whole lot of folks arguing about what it means to be an American. A lot of people are dead, and a lot more are wounded. A bullet now marks hundreds of people’s lives and yet we’ve been here before. We watch the news, we stare at our phones and we hold our breath as the stream of information flows inward, giving us the gruesome details, once again.

This is the new American Way. We turn on the talking heads, and just as the crow flies, someone is continually getting murdered by way of the gun. Every day, there are bodies stacking in Chicago or New Orleans. Every day, a child gets their hands on a pistol not secured properly, and every day, someone gets shot for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

The Twitter junkies and Facebook Keyboard Warriors will argue about that person’s right to that gun, about the second amendment. The body on the other end of that conversation will throw their hands in the air in disgust. The cycle is endless and ugly. And don’t believe for a second that your government will do a thing about it. The NRA owns the United States government, and more dead bodies mean more profits: consumerism is the child of fear. We learned that the hard way after Sandy Hook. These buffoons in ugly suits don’t care about you, they care about votes, they care about kickbacks, and they care about power. What makes you think for a second that they’ll put forth any kind of meaningful legislation when they can’t squash that pesky Obamacare they had eight years to solve?

I know people who should not have guns. When these people fly off the deep and turn an AutoZone into WarZone, I won’t flinch. We all know someone who has a gun that shouldn’t. The national conversation will devolve into “something, something mental health, yadda yadda” and they won’t pass a damn thing. It’ll get filed away with taxes, pork, or whatever convenient box once we shift focus to the next drama. Those crazies in our lives, they’ll still have those automatic rifles under their beds. Don’t worry.

I’m progressive liberal. I’m also from the south side of Chicago. I have lived in the south for the last decade. I have southern family and am married to a southern woman. I have shot automatic rifles. I have shot plenty of guns over the years, and I understand their appeal. But, what I don’t understand is the unwillingness to flinch when it comes to rights and freedom and all of that flag waving stuff that equates to nothing but more death.

But, despite the acumen of location or whatever, there’s one community that’s mine: the community of music. I go to as many shows as I can every year. I love live music. I love being able to say, “I saw that band back when.” That’s my passion. But, when my church, the church of glorious noise - a venue - is corrupted, that hits home. I have stood in countless crowds, both big and small.

I’ve been in rooms that broke every fire hazard code known to man, and I have stood in endless seas of bodies, waiting for our heroes to take the stage. To think that a show, the one place I truly feel connected with a world is compromised, makes me feel sick.

This world is gross, dirty and ugly. It’s got scars, and it has many issues. But, one thing that’s intrinsically yours is your music. And now, people are dead because they wanted that freedom and that moment to throw their hands in the air and shout along to their favorite anthems. Just like the Pulse nightclub last year, we’ve been compromised. People are victim to their passion of life: losing themselves in the beat of their favorite songs.

We lost Dimebag Darrell to gun violence, and there are a few folks in France who know unexpected suffering while attending an Eagles of Death Metal show, too. Same goes for the city of Manchester, England. But, those countries don’t have gun laws like we do. They have “isolated attacks” and we have “incidents at large”. They deal with larger scale terrorism coming from all sides, and we grow our psychos in our own backyards.

We never feel more connected and alive then when we share the experience of music with one another. We holler in the bar, or we beat our steering wheel like a bass drum in the car. We’ve now tainted that with liability to passion. We’ve poisoned the well of common sense with propaganda, that your rights dictate the will of the people around you. Congrats. You are no more free and you never will be.

We keep letting bad things happen because we can’t look ourselves in the mirror and say it’s time to stop this. Our egos are too big. We think everything is about us. And now, we cannot even hear our favorite songs. We’ve let those be taken away, too.

Those people didn’t deserve this. They deserved music and joy. 

I’ll be looking over my shoulder, as is my new habit when it’s my turn to sing along.

Life is Full of Important Choices

You're Not a Real Country Singer!

You're Not a Real Country Singer If...

Your jeans are tight but your name ain't Dwight

You've ever suggested a trap beat to your album's producer

You've spent any amount of time trying to work 

the phrase "poop emoji" into a song @samgazdiak

All your fans need a ride from their parents to the concert... -Eddie Combs

You're more likely to be seen with a Sun Beach tan than a Miller can

You think Bobby Bare is the name of an exotic dancer -Justin Chambers

You haven't left a girl in West Virginia, up there where the green grass grows. 

Another girl in Cincinnati waiting where the Ohio River flows -Anthony Machado

They play your song on country radio @harrymorgan1937

You are certain Hank done it this way -Carl Wallace

Your jeans are tighter than your electronic drum beat @mkleiner2

You have tattoos but no scars -Seth Wilson

Your favorite Patty Loveless song is "Who is Patty Loveless?"

You are Kane Brown @amanda_darlene3

Your name rhymes with "mane crown" -Garrett Dressler

You can't get stoned with your band because it's all computers @Famous_Abell

You have a hype man

You think the Carter scratch is something your DJ does @JuliThanki

You don't say anything at all about mama, or trains, or trucks, 

or prison, or gettin' drunk. -Connor Smith

You sing about Dixie cups. (if you do, you're either a dentist or a toddler) @ryankentm

You can't name 3 George Jones songs but you remember every winner of The Bachelor

You use "how we roll" in a song and your protagonist in the song 

isn't a truck driver. -Michael Crabtree

You think American Aquarium is a nickname for Seaworld @SeanRKent

You'd rather be spayed or neutered than express any negative opinion whatsoever

At least one Backstreet Boy was involved in the 

creation of your latest album. @10lbhammerbp

You think Conway Twitty is just someone The Family Guy made up

Your truck tires are higher than your IQ @Senor_Fern

You think Jason Aldean is "old school".... -Chuck Dye

You can't recite the "third" verse to "Friends in Low Places" @swoletexan

You sing about bars and churches, but haven't been to either one in years

You have backup dancers -BamaDan Ferguson

You think a Telecaster is the guy who reads the news on TV - Seth Wilson

You think Moe Bandy is a rapper featured on Ariana Grande's next single

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Thanks to our Twitter and Facebook friends for the replies!

All others written by Trailer.

Friday (The Movie) Country Reaction Gifs

When an attractive female walks by 

...wearing a vintage Waylon t-shirt

"You know, Thomas Rhett's album is actually

pretty good if you don't expect it to be country" 

When you see that Kane Brown has a top ten hit...

meaning that he'll be sticking around for a while.

If there was a fight between any woman on earth 

and Jason Aldean

"I got an extra ticket to Chase Rice; wanna go?"

When the post office loses your order 

of all Sturgill's albums on vinyl

When somebody says you hit like a girl 

and you say "Yeah, Loretta Lynn"

When you're at a folk festival in Colorado 

and somebody asks if you're enjoying yourself