2 "It's Honest Work" Country Memes

If George Strait Had Released a Bro-Country Album (with track list)

Stolen Memes: Alan Jackson, Kaitlin Butts, Trace Adkins

By Lindsey Folkerts

Jim Carrey Country Reaction Gifs

What people who started liking Morgan Wallen after 'the incident' look like to me

When somebody at the party puts on some Turnpike

🎵 Got it goin' on like Donkey Kong 🎵

Carrie Underwood fans when they see a non-superlative opinion about her latest song

"People said Waylon and Willie weren't country in the 70s"

Chad Russell or Thomas Jordan or Dylan Hardy has the number 1 country song this week?

You're the one person who liked Billy Currington's last album?

Don't mind me, just listening to the new Kaitlin Butts album again

When it took you 42 years to get the twist in "He Stopped Loving Her Today"

 

Still More Worst Country Songs of the Last 4 Decades

By Bobby Peacock

I really didn't want to do this, because I feel that I've let negativity get the best of me lately. But I just found too many songs not to do a part three. This is the last one, I swear.

1980s

"Arab, Alabama" by Pinkard & Bowden

The only thing keeping me from also including "Libyan on a Jet Plane" is that I can only find a live version. This one's dated "jokes" about the PLO, Cubans hijacking planes, South Americans smuggling drugs, and Fidel Castro marrying "one of Loretta's sisters" read like a couple of racist hillbillies thumbing through the newspaper and riffing on everything they see. And that's before we get to them referring to Middle Easterners as "sheet heads"; a list of offensive stereotypes is just that. But what do you expect  from a couple buffoons who think that shoving the word "cock-sucking" into a song called "Censor Us" is a punchline? (And more importantly, how did one of these guys also write "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma?”)

"Everybody's Sweetheart" by Vince Gill

I hate to do this to Vince Gill. But that one line, "shoulda kept her barefoot / Barefoot and pregnant all the time"... yeah, that's some really ugly sexism. There is no way to deliver that line correctly, and I'm surprised it wasn't more controversial even in 1988. And it's a shame that I'm letting it come down to that, because the central idea on its own -- the conflict one feels in a relationship where both people are touring musicians (in this case, Janis Oliver of Sweethearts of the Rodeo) is a great idea for a song. But to actively wish disdain on your own spouse's career, and in such a crass, misogynstic fashion to boot? Thankfully he treated the same topic more tactfully with "The Radio". And I really can't see him saying anything like this about Amy Grant.

"I Loved 'em Every One" by T. G. Sheppard

After the "worst of the '80s" list dropped, I had a DJ e-mail me and thank me for including "War Is Hell (On the Homefront Too)". He stated that he also dislikes how most T. G. Sheppard songs are "about getting laid" and I realized just how true this is. (His '70s songs, like "Devil in the Bottle", sound like a completely different artist.) Plowing through women like an allergy sufferer through Kleenex is bad enough when you're not even trying to assign any personality or emotion to them; outright admitting that not one, but several of them were prostitutes is just the added layer of squick. He may be hoping they had some fun, but I'm just hoping that everyone got tested for STIs.

"Red Neckin' Love Makin' Night" by Conway Twitty

Among an otherwise decent run of singles in the 80s, hampered only by some dubious cover songs ("The Rose"), we get him setting the stage for the chest-thumping boogie-country of Hank Jr. and the sleazy "drink beer with a hot girl in a truck" of bro-country. The only difference is since this is 1981, the music's on an 8-track instead. Conway's attempts at asides and breaking from meter only make the song sound more forced and drawn out than it needs to be -- not that the horribly-scanning lyrics ("I got a six-pack of longnecks in the trunk on ice / Ooh, but you sure look nice") do him any favors on this front. What a waste of the usually reliable Max D. Barnes and Troy Seals. Even "Tight Fittin' Jeans" manages to be a million times less sleazy.

1990s

"Better Than a Biscuit" by John Berry

For a long time, the three tracks off John Berry's two unreleased Capitol albums seemed to exist nowhere on the Internet. "The Stone" and "Over My Shoulder" are both good songs, but this one... oof. I'm not opposed to food songs -- hell, "Weird Al" Yankovic built a career on them -- but there has to be some thought put into them. While the production is looser than usual for him, it's wasted on some of the worst lyrics I've ever heard. "Somebody call the Colonel, she's finger-lickin' good" (dude, I don't want to know what she was doing to your fingers), "She'd make any turkey breast look like a can of Spam,” and let's not forget the hook: "she tasted better than a biscuit double-dunked in red eye gravy.” It reminds me of "Fancy Like" in just how blatantly un-dignified it is -- even if, unlike that song, it actually bothers to sound country.

"Don't Take the Girl" by Tim McGraw

As my disdain for "Humble and Kind" showed, I'm not afraid to go after some of Tim's more beloved songs. Even when I was 7, I thought this was hackneyed. From the forced name-drops in the first verse (Jimmy Johnson and Tommy Thompson? Really?) to the robber at the movie theater to the now-grown woman dying in childbirth, the melodrama just gets thicker and more contrived as it strains to match the hook. "Same chorus, three meanings" is such a common country music trope that can be done well or badly like anything else, but the lengths to which this one stretches are far beyond my suspension of disbelief. His whiny vocal does nothing but prove how much more nuanced he'd get in the coming years. It's not hard to see why I can only find one other charted single for either writer...

"Genuine Rednecks" by David Lee Murphy

How is this is the same David Lee Murphy behind such thoughtful songs as "The Road You Leave Behind" and "Dust on the Bottle"? Even worse is how blatantly he's ripping off his own "Party Crowd"; while that one had the setup of a likable everyman just wanting to ease his broken heart, this one lacks any semblance of setup other than "I want to party". There's an annoyingly judgmental tone to lines like "if you don't like them, you won't like me" and "where I do belong, it don't come with a crystal chandelier", combining with an overdone fake twang. It's not hard to see why this brought his singing career to a screeching halt, and it's only worse in hindsight when you follow the trail from this to his worst co-write by far, Josh Thompson's "Way Out Here.”

"The Man Song" by Sean Morey

My dad used to listen to The Bob & Tom Show when I was young. This was my first exposure to awkward foul-mouthed male comedian-singers whose work has mostly aged poorly, such as Tim Wilson (who, incidentally, co-wrote the aforementioned "Arab, Alabama"). From that same mold comes Sean Morey, who doesn't even really bother with the whole "singing" part. Instead, he recites rote non-jokes about a henpecked husband ("I wear the pants around here... when I'm finished with your laundry") that, even by 1998, seem extremely outdated, sexist, and not funny. But what do you expect from a man whose idea of a Christmas song is racist stereotypes, and whose apparent comedic pinnacle is called "The Hairy Ass Song?”

2000s

"Help Pour Out the Rain (Lacey's Song)" by Buddy Jewell

While the curiosity of a child is only natural, this song goes off the rails fast. No kid that isn't in the comic strip The Family Circus is going to think that the Milky Way Galaxy is literally a candy bar, or that angels "pour out the rain". (What you believe about Heaven is ultimately up to you, but I think most people -- even kids -- know that it's not just a visit.) And of course, this doe-eyed naïveté moves the narrator to pull over, cry, and pray about meeting Jesus, all while recounting the situation in a schmaltzy "la da dee" croon. Again, you can believe whatever you want as long as it's not harmful, because it's turtles all the way down the line. But this is the kind of over-the-top contrived schmaltz that doesn't even belong in a PureFlix movie.

"I Don't Know What She Said" by Blaine Larsen

I admit that I never cared for Blaine Larsen. Most of his songs (I'll give him "How Do You Get That Lonely") felt as if others were forcing this suave Southern gentleman style onto him against his will. But the only one that actively annoyed me was this one. Thankfully it isn't overtly racist like "Illegals" or "This Ain't Mexico,” and it at least bothers to get the Spanish mostly correct (outside a couple jokey lines like "señor blah blah blah blah"). But it still has a smug, condescending, and borderline creepy tone toward the attractive Mexican woman. It's hard not to read this as a horny 20-year-old trying to get laid. And cringeworthy "no one actually says that" lines like "J.Lo had nothing on her" don't help, either.

"I Got My Game On" by Trace Adkins

Most of Trace Adkins' novelties didn't bother me much. I'm not gonna say that "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” "Swing,” or "Ladies Love Country Boys" are good, but they at least seem like plausible everyman scenarios. This is just a rich cocky asshole bragging about his Cadillac, platinum credit card, Armani suit, and alligator boots, not to mention all the tail he's getting. Exactly what part of this is supposed to be entertaining or even relatable to anyone not among the elite? Maybe it catered to the people who would later watch him on The Apprentice. But for those of us who want no part of testosterone-fueled power fantasies, I'm just left wondering why he was so anxious to withdraw "I Wanna Feel Something" for new music if this is what he had to offer.

"I'll Walk" by Bucky Covington

This one almost feels like a parody of the old "use the chorus in three scenarios" trick. How do they go from having a fight on prom night, to her getting hit by a drunk driver, to him suddenly turning around any marrying her? The setup is so contrived, not to mention downright manipulative by dismissively framing the woman in the song as the vehicle for a horribly predictable outcome. There's no other emotion -- no guilt on his part, no anger on either of theirs. "The Walk" by Sawyer Brown was a million times better at recontextualizing different "walks" between two people, and "The Impossible" by Joe Nichols a million times better at handling someone overcoming a handicap.

"Lost" by Faith Hill

Faith's bombastic country pop diva shtick was never my cup of tea outside "Cry,” and it was pretty passé by 2003. While Fireflies relegated the bombast to the deep cuts and went with an okay-to-great batch of singles, I guess she just had to get one last awful power ballad out of her. (I would expect no less out of a "hit factory" style songwriter such as Kara DioGuardi.) There's no semblance of originality to be found in this already outdated and sterile approach: "if it's a dream, don't wake me up,” "with me everywhere I am,” "can't believe we've come this far" are all belted to the rafters as if they're the most important truisms in the world when they're barely good enough to even put in a Hallmark card. At least "Red Umbrella", love it or hate it, had flavor.

"Maybe She'll Get Lonely" by Jack Ingram

This one came out at the same time as Lee Brice's "Happy Endings,” another song in which the narrator hopes that his ex will have a change of heart. A lot of songs have done it, and maybe if there weren't a much better take on the same premise out at almost exactly the same time... nah, this one would still be just about the least amount of imagination given to this premise. Screen door, kicking up dust, praying, turn that wheel around, love her/need her/can't live without her, too far gone -- there isn't a single original or interesting line that has even the tiniest bit of personality. There's barely even setup, and the hook is just weak-willed at best. This was around the same time that Pat Green was getting all of his edges sanded off in a failed attempt at going more "mainstream,” and for both him and Ingram, the results were just pitiful pandering that pleased nobody.

"Nothing Catches Jesus by Surprise" by John Michael Montgomery

What... is this song? One of the last credits for Waylon Jennings before his death, the first major misfire for Tom Douglas, and the first song that inspired me to write a part three to this list. Each couplet is just baffling in how random it is:"Catching Babe Ruth, catching Roger Maris / The way you caught my eye in Paris, Tennessee.” Every line afterward seems to be at least trying to aim at a parallel between worldly contradictions and an unlikely marriage working out, but misses its mark by a country mile. And what does Jesus have to do with any of it? How is any of this mishmash suggesting that anyone is trying to catch Jesus by surprise?

"The Obscenity Prayer (Give It to Me)" by Rodney Crowell

What a step down from his best song "Earthbound.” The "satire,” if you can call it that, is of a rich right-wing douchebag who wants a hot wife, a good body, booze, etc. -- but doesn't want to work for it. And it's delivered with no sense of subtlety, irony, or humor. Line after line is on-the-nose to the point of cringe: "I despise all bleeding hearts / I don't patronize the arts.” "You're tryin' to get me to show some compassion / Man, that's so outta fashion.” "The Dixie Chicks can kiss my ass / But I still need that backstage pass.” The song just drones on and on, long after it's made its thuddingly obvious point. I really hated to do this to the usually very talented and smart Rodney, but thankfully this and the equally navel-gazing "Sex and Gasoline" were the only missteps of his entire career.

"Redneck Anthem" by Ty England

Highways & Dance Halls seemed to finally mature Ty England after two mediocre hat-act albums, so how did he end up backsliding this hard? Sounding far weaker than ever, he plows through some of the worst redneck clichés on the planet in a manner that makes his previous groaner "Redneck Son" sound like Merle Haggard in comparison. He crams the phrase "jacked up" twice in the first verse alone, then lists off such things as sleeveless shirts, aggressive jingoism, "mow our lawn with a billy goat," guns, daddy, Skoal, NASCAR, and even a name-drop of Larry the Cable Guy's "git-r-done" catch phrase. The album leans into this caricature all the more with "The NRA Song,” "Stick to Your Guns,” and "Texans Hold 'Em.” I think even Jeff Foxworthy would tell this guy he's making rednecks look bad.

"Tail on the Tailgate" by Neal McCoy

You can hate "The Shake,” but ultimately I find that one too goofy to be bothersome. This, on the other hand, does not get a free pass. This guy gets a beat up old truck from his brother, who points out the one thing I don't want to know: "hey, I fucked a lot of women in this truck.” At that point, the only reaction should be "eww!" But instead, this sleazy little pervert takes the truck and does exactly the same thing with an already cliché party in the woods. While he tries to dismiss it with a "that ain't what you're thinkin'", how else am I even supposed to interpret that hook? It's fitting that this was an early Rodney Clawson co-write, because it fits right in with all the bro-country songs he'd later write.

"Whistlin' Dixie" by Randy Houser

Having "Dixie" in the title isn't even a concern when at least half the lyrics are a billion times worse. Let's start with "learn how to talk straight, not back / Or my little white butt get a whippin'" for some parenting as horrible as the grammar. Add to the pile shotguns, naked Southern women, drugs, and food, and then scream it over an overly-loud mishmash of guitars, and the result is headache-inducing on so many levels. At least "I'm All About It" seemed more lighthearted, but it's not hard to see why his second album got delayed. Thankfully, the downward slide from the very good "Anything Goes" would later be reversed in favor of the much better "Like a Cowboy" and "What Whiskey Does.”

2010s

"Fly" by Maddie & Tae

Hey, look, another motivational cliché song with a nonsensical hook. I thought we stopped doing those in 2002. "You can learn to fly on the way down" is not an inspiring image. If you're falling, it's too fast for you to suddenly learn how to fly; instead, you're just gonna face-plant into the ground. And now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's count off the clichés: "heart's a mess,” "find a way to make it,” "keep on climbing" (wait, weren't we just flying? Why are we now climbing?), "we've come this far,” "more to this than just the breath you're breathing.” While the song does sound less processed than others like it, that's not saying much when the lyrics are this bad. And why does it randomly shift from third to second person halfway through?

"High Class" by Eric Paslay

This song sounds like if "Uptown Funk" shat itself. As he tries to come off as the country boy who's still "street" enough to crash even the ritziest of parties, Eric Paslay does nothing but embarrass himself. What the hell does "Cadi up that Lac" even mean? Is he listening to the Lacs in his Cadillac? (The closed captioning on the official YouTube upload says it's "cattle up this 'Lac", which makes even less sense.) Not to mention the zero copula (that's the technical term for omitting verbs, as in "tonight we high class") that tiptoes dangerously close to "white person using AAVE". Add in the most forced name-drop of Justin Timberlake since "I'm a Saint,” and the result proves that you can't spell "high class" without "ass.”

"Hope You Get Lonely Tonight" by Cole Swindell

If I were to rank songs for "worst production choices,” this would be neck and neck with "Bob That Head.” The loud-ass drum machine that sounds like driving over rumble strips, the overdriven muddy guitars, and Cold and Rainy's wallpaper-paste voice all combine into sound (but no fury), signifying nothing. Maybe better production and a different vocalist might make this at least tolerable -- actually, no, it'd still be about drinking and kissing on a tailgate, drunk late-night sexting, and two white-trash doofuses screwing. So yeah, Michael Carter, I think you're off the hook with this one. Cole, however, can just go back to being the Save-a-Lot brand mayo that he is.

"REDNECKER" by HARDY

HARDY really started off on the wrong foot. I ended up hating this song so much that I also hated "ONE BEER" entirely by proxy until I finally analyzed it on its own merits. I get that he's at least trying to deconstruct the "list off redneck clichés" trope by one-upping them, but just like "The Worst Country Song of All Time" (which he also had a hand in), just doing the thing you're riffing on louder isn't the same as subverting it. And there is literally no reason for any song to include a lyric as gross as "I piss where I want.” Just like most Joey Moi productions, this one is all processed guitar and Auto-Tune. HARDY has had a few flashes of brilliance on there, but he started off so thoroughly on the wrong foot that I almost dismissed his entire career by proxy.

"The Rest of Our Life" by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill

I'm gonna be honest: I've never liked most Tim and Faith collabs because I find their vocal styles too dissimilar. And it's especially bad here, because Tim is way out of his range, straining and shaking to catch up to Faith's bellowing (especially on the chorus). And I can tell that Ed Sheeran wrote this, because it has his whimper-y sweet little nothings all over it. Other than jarringly out-of-place names for their kids (which has zero buildup, by the way) and somehow working in the word "waistline" (seriously, not even "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Fat" did that), it's just a bunch of mushy platitudes with no narrative connection. This just sounds like an even more embarrassing "Shape of You" clone.

"Honey Jack" by 17 Memphis

The intro to this, which sounds like a vaporwave remix of Kiiara's "Gold,” is probably the worst way to start out a song since "Bob That Head.” Then come the trap snares, played on quite possibly the same broken-as-fuck drum machine used on "Hope You Get Lonely Tonight.” Underneath this extremely ugly interior are laughably juvenile lyrics that take on backroads, whiskey, trucks, phones, etc. Both members of the duo actually have decent voices and there is some chemistry on the recording, but it's hard to tell with the farting synths, jackhammer drum machines, and Auto-Tune doing everything to drown them out. It's easy to see why these two didn't go anywhere.

"21" by Hunter Hayes

When your song's hook is "gonna party like we just turned 21" and you still sound like you're in kindergarten, what other reaction should I even have? I legitimately laughed out loud the first time I heard this. I want to like Hunter Hayes because of his child prodigy nature, but for the most part, his discography has leaned way too far into Disney Channel-esque teeny-bopper fluff for me to care. "Wanted" pissed me off by being extremely stale and one-dimensional, but this one annoys me for the opposite reason. It calls for an edge that Hunter just does not have. His musical image was already too squeaky-clean, and the song is just too lethargic for lyrics about "going crazy". This just sounds like a slower version of Rascal Flatts' "Summer Nights,” which itself is just an only slightly-less-bad rewrite of Hot Chelle Rae's "Tonight, Tonight.” And you know what they say about copies of copies.

"You Look Good" by Lady Antebellum

No, this isn't about the naming controversy. However, that whole scenario did make me reassess this duly lamentable group who does almost nothing but blandly emulate the worst of cheesy soft rock. Charles is as stuffy as ever, Hillary is as pitchy as ever; put them together, and you're just mixing two different bottles of warm water. Even with the horn section behind them, these two are just way too bland to even begin to convey the flash of spending New Year's in a penthouse or head-turning dudes in black jeans and shades. This is less outwardly offensive than Eric Paslay's attempts to crash upscale big-city parties, but it's almost more embarrassing in just how out of place they seem. (Fun fact: both "duly lamentable" and "blandly emulate" are anagrams of "Lady Antebellum.”) 

Bobby's 15 Worst Songs of 2021

By Bobby Peacock

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15. "Beer Beer, Truck Truck" by George Birge

This guy used to be one-half of Waterloo Revival, a duo who somehow worked Siri into their generic-ass "party in the woods" anthem "Backwood Bump". You can tell this is made for the TikTok crowd because it's barely two minutes long. The premise is a failed attempt to staple a "country music doesn't live up to stereotypes" hook onto a "chase your dreams in the city"-type song, but all it does is reinforce the clichés by pretending not to use them. (If it "ain't all beer beer, truck truck", then what is it? He never says.) Ash Bowers, who produced this track, knew how to play with small town tropes right with "Stuck", and I think re-releasing that would have been a better move.

14. "Glad You Exist" by Dan + Shay

I debated whether I should include this, for fear that I'd be bashing the artist and not the song. (Spoilers: This is why a certain mulleted racist isn't on here.) But analyzing this song entirely on its own merits, I think it's justified. D+S pitched this on Instagram as "a message to[...]our fans, our friends, our families". But the lyrics mentioning drunken late-night calls, "bad decisions", and meet-cutes don't even try to fit the tone of that sugar shock-inducing post. It's just a list of random sweet little nothings that sound like a zillionth-degree dilution of "Bless the Broken Road" with a weak chorus and even weaker hook; it doesn't even try to sound country, and it's so half-assed in its execution that it barely breaks two minutes. I'm not glad that Dan + Shay exist.

13. "Drinkin' Beer. Talkin' God. Amen." by Chase Rice feat. Florida Georgia Line

I have a coworker who mostly listens to hip-hop. Recently he heard this song in lobby and told me how awful he thought it was. Good to know that he and I can agree on something. This song's mentions of God are tangential at best, and feel stapled onto yet another stock "party in the woods" anthem. Unlike FGL's two best songs "Confession" and "Dirt", there's no attempt at introspection or thought. It's just campfire, beer, radio, backwoods, girl, Amen. While it is one of the least-bad vocal performances from all three parties, it's still dragged down by the awful lyrics and mediocre-at-best production from Corey Crowder (who, by the way, blocked me on Twitter for having the audacity to say anything negative). Chase Rice is way less cringe than he was in the "Ready Set Roll" days, but he still has a long way to go before he can even reach mediocrity.

(Editor: Now is a good time to remind you that the views and opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent that of the website as a whole and Trailer in particular (though he does agree with most of the choices, just not the one below))

12. "Things a Man Oughta Know" by Lainey Wilson

With all the hype this song gets, all I can notice is how it just doesn't add up. Verse one tries to push against gender stereotypes by saying that she can hunt, fish, and change tires too -- but I feel that by saying a "man oughta know" how to do these, all she's doing is reinforcing outdated archetypes of masculinity. (Of course women can hunt and fish; anyone can. It's the use of "oughta" that chafes here.) While it can be a good thing to patch up a faltering relationship, this song (like far too many) forgets that sometimes, truly loving someone can mean letting them go. And what the hell is the second verse even talking about with "if I can't have it, I can do without / I can hang a picture same as I can take it down", which has nothing to do with the rest of the song? And why does this have the same three-note stair-step melody over and over and over? And why am I the only one who seems to see this song's myriad flaws?

11. "If I Didn't Love You" by Jason Aldean feat. Carrie Underwood

Jason's music has just been mildly irritating white noise for so long (unlike, say, his personal behavior) that this one at least has the advantage of a different soundscape -- unfortunately, it's not a better one. His already weird voice is no match for Carrie's dynamics, but they're both buried under so many layers of Auto-Tune that this is only a minor complaint in comparison. Just the idea of pairing these artists makes about as much sense as mixing Great Value ranch dressing and Diet Coke. The lyrics are the kind of cliché pop balladry that I thought we'd left in the '90s: "all that I want", "tell a lie when somebody asked", "find someone new", "still cry sometimes". Can he just go back to being forgettable?

10. "Country Again" by Thomas Rhett

Don't you have to be country in the first place before you can be "country again"? Thomas Rhett -- the guy who finds it a bragging point that his wife has a verified Instagram account -- could hardly be less convincing in his tales of hunting, fishing, driving a truck, and listening to Eric Church (I bet he can't even name a single song other than "Springsteen"). The boots that he claims to own probably cost more than every piece of footwear I've owned in my life combined. And his attempts at sounding "down to earth" with that acoustic guitar are utterly undermined by the drum machine and vocal processing. But maybe that's TR's perception of country -- maybe to him, it is just an image that a rich white boy can put on when he feels like it, just long enough to pander to the masses, and then slip back off in time to cut another florid ode to his wife or duet with Chris Tomlin.

9. "Like a Lady" by Lady Antebellum

Maybe in an alternate timeline where the dispute with Anita White (the real Lady A) did not exist, I might not be as hard on them as a whole. But separating the art from the artist, this still sucks. Like too many of Pre-Civil-War Female's other songs, Hillary Scott is just too bland to convey any semblance of "fun" or "emotion" or "singing in key". (And why the hell are Charles and Dave singing most of the hook?) The lyrics, other than the extremely out-of-place name-drop of "Hips Don't Lie", find literally nothing even remotely interesting or original to say about womanhood. And they have the gall to compare this to the powerhouse that is "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!"? It's a grab-bag of you-go-girl clichés at best, and tone-deaf virtue signaling at worst. Go listen to Anita White's music instead. (Just not on Spotify, because it can't tell the two Lady As apart.)

8. "No Sad Songs" by Niko Moon

Obvious joke: more like "no good songs", am I right? As "Good Time" established, Niko can't sing for shit, so here, he just hides it under multi-tracking. (Just because it worked for Eddie Rabbitt doesn't mean it'll work for you, Nicholas Cowan. And stop removing your birth name from your Wikipedia article already.) Unlike "Good Time", there isn't even a token acoustic guitar, just skittery snap beats and practically the same premise about drinking beer, dancing, and cranking tunes (he name-drops "Chicken Fried"!). The fact that he also blocked me on Twitter for saying anything negative about his music, combined with the uniformly empty-headed content of said music, has me convinced that Niko is utterly unable to handle negativity. Or hell, even artistry. I have a feeling we'll be hearing No Niko Moon Songs in 2022.

7. "Smoke in a Bar" by Travis Tritt

I remember when you could smoke in a bar. But I spent nearly three decades of my life watching my dad smoke himself to death, and I'm glad that smoking is on the decline. Like a poor-man's "Grandpa (Tell Me 'Bout the Good Ol' Days)", this is a whiny, rose-colored-glasses look at a time when parents never divorced, child safety wasn't a thing, and "everything" was better because shut up and respect your elders or I'll whoop your butt with my cane, sonny boy. Of course he gets sociopolitical with lines about honesty in the news (people have been criticizing American news media for bias since before we were even a country) and respect for the flag (he's forgotten about Vietnam War protesters). Tritt sounds like a sad, bitter old man pissing into the wind, not helped by his unnaturally feeble vocal performance. If I miss anything about the "old days", it's when Tritt still made good music.

6. "Throw It Back" by Breland feat. Keith Urban

Getting back to the subject of horribly mismatched duet partners... Forcing Keith Urban to sing in African-American Vernacular English is probably the most cringe-worthy thing he's done since "Female". Add on repetition of the title instead of coming up with a rhyme (really? you can't find a rhyme for "back"?) and a shoehorned-in reference to LMFAO of all artists, and... really, it's just a horny, obnoxious, droning trap song that sounds like every other horny, obnoxious, droning trap song out there. It just has a six-string banjo that's been crudely sewn on like some sonic equivalent of The Human Centipede and a 53-year-old man continuing to embarrass himself by straining for cred that he doesn't need. Throw it back, indeed.

5. "The Worst Country Song of All Time" by Brantley Gilbert feat. HARDY and Toby Keith

I love subversion. But there's more to it than just "do the opposite of what you're setting up" -- that's just a Wayne's World "NOT!" joke, and those died out in the '90s. This upholds the stereotype that country music still has to be about hunting and fishing, drinking beer, driving your truck down dirt roads, and name-dropping other songs. And that's before we get into a few dodgy politically-charged lines and glorification of child beatings. It's all sung by a mush-mouthed dullard far removed from his few okay songs, a newcomer who vacillates between decent and awful at the drop of a hat, and a blustery jingoistic has-been... It's not the worst country song of all time, or even the worst Brantley Gilbert song of all time, but it is the fifth-worst of 2021. Perhaps the only enjoyment I got out of it was watching how quickly radio 

4. "Fancy Like" by Walker Hayes

Walker has lived the kind of life where Applebee's is considered fancy, and so have I. So on concept, this isn't the worst. But the execution is less "celebrate the simple pleasures" and more "rub your own tackiness in everyone's face" (can you tell this song made it big because of TikTok?). He's so aggressively un-country that it almost seems like trolling, what with his incessant AAVE-peppered slang, snap beats, and talk-singing. Lyrically, it's no better; the first verse is about Wendy's, and the second shows us that the trailer trash Natty Lite-drinking protagonist somehow owns a Vespa. Overall, there's no self-awareness or coherence to the idea, and the fact that this is actually being used in commercials just drives the smug cynicism home. If you want a good song about eating fast food with your lover, then how about "Common Man" by John Conlee?

3. "Happy Birthday America" by Toby Keith

Most of the red-state MURICA songs of the past, even others by Toby himself, at least had passion. But between this and "Smoke in a Bar", it seems like most of the right-leaning music is just extremely bitter and dour. His primary target is as non-specific as ever ("everybody's pissin' on the red, white, and blue" -- who's "everybody" and what specifically are they doing?), ignorant to America's role in both World Wars (giving me horrible flashbacks to "The Good Lord and the Man"), dubiously hyper-focused on minor points (do we really burn flags more than anyone else?), and of course, ad hominem toward "the left's design". (Sure, he tries to balance it with "the right can't seem to get it right most of the time", but after that line, it seems half-hearted at best.) His voice is whiny and Auto-Tuned, and the melody is just a boring slog. Maybe Sawyer Brown was onto something by wishing for another side.

2. "Where the Country Girls At" by Trace Adkins feat. Luke Bryan and Pitbull

Between the title and the artists, do I even need to say anything else? Even in his heyday, I remember how cool it was to hate on Pitbull (I do like "Timber" though). Dragging him into a "country" song seven years after his last major hit is almost as laughable as watching 59-year-old, grey-bearded Trace Adkins trying to convince us that he's still got his game on... or hearing Luke Bryan say "brotha" non-ironically. And are we supposed to believe that Mr. Worldwide even knows what the Daytona 500 is? (I at least believe that his idea of "country" is "hot girls drinking in short shorts"...) Thankfully this song didn't go anywhere. I guess these three old farts can't find the country girls because even they have better taste now.

1. "Am I the Only One" by Aaron Lewis

And we complete the "old man yells at cloud" trifecta that Travis and Toby started. Droning and growling over a guitar riff that sounds way too close to The Calling's "Wherever You Will Go", the former frontman of Staind starts with generic worldly complaints before launching straight into infuriating awfulness. All the while, he doesn't seem to have even one positive thing to say. Claiming that he'd "take a bullet" when you know he won't (unlike, say, many of the protesters who have) and a failed diss of Bruce Springsteen (one of the most openly patriotic musicians ever) are bad enough. But all of that pales in comparison to the verse where he bemoans the removal of Confederate statues (dude, you're from goddamn Vermont). At that point, he's crossed the line to overt racism. And in the current climate, that is the last thing we need in country music.

Dishonorable mentions: "Best Thing Since Backroads", "Waves", "Single Saturday Night"

Wrasslin' Country Reaction Gifs: Christmas Edition

When Santa comes through with a vintage Travis Tritt muscle shirt

When your friend starts playing "Hard Candy Christmas" at the Christmas party

When the neighbor kid's rolling coal and cranking FGL in his Christmas present

When you keep asking Santa for that Hank Sr. box set that's out of print

Billy Strings fans on Christmas Eve

When somebody tweets that they're sad Walker Hayes' new album isn't out yet so they can get it for Christmas

If there was a Christmas remix of "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk"

Well excuse me but I think you've got my chair

My present to people who call me a liberal for making fun of Jason Aldean