Good music is good music. Perhaps labeling music into rock, alternative rock, punk, hip-hop, country etc. is a negative dynamic when it comes to music. However, since these labels are used I can't help but wonder what sounds now define that label, especially when it comes to country. Let's face it, it is easy to distinguish the rock of Radiohead from the pop of B. Spears, and Green Days sound is very distinctive from Elton John's. But country has become a hodge-podge in terms of sound. There is some great music being recorded by people like Keith Urban. However, a country radio station sounds like the old pop top forty twenty years ago, with some Urban thrown in to rock us. Who do you think best defines country as a unique genre unto itself? If you heard an artist on radio, not knowing if you were on a country or rock station, who would definitely make you aware that the station is country?

I'd say the southern drawl singing style and the twangy guitar sound still scream country.

But you're right that the songwriting and production style shown in modern country music isn't all that different from what you'd hear on pop radio. It's sure as heck a lot different from classic country. Most of today's "country" fans would probably hate old Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, or Hank Sr. records if they listened to them.

Country can be done well as you have said with bands like the Corb Lund Band, etc. Even the new Jason Collett album has a country feel to it but I wouldn't consider it country.

Flag waving.

There's nothing wrong with applying labels to music per se. Any musical style or genre has its own unique conventions. Labels are problematic, however, when they're used as a convenient excuse to dismiss whole categories of artists, which is something that happens a lot when it comes to country.

I saw Walk the Line earlier today (so-so movie, good performances), which reminded me of this question in the first place. Some early rock 'n' roll was often indistinguishable from the country hits of the day and vice versa, just as it was hard to distinguish from a lot of contemporary jump blues. The 50s Countrypolitan sound wasn't so far removed from the corresponding pop sound of the day.

I think the 70s Outlaw movement had a good effect in that it revitalized the music to a great degree, but also had the unintended consequence of letting every cowboy-hat-wearing semi-talent call themselves country. I've made little secret of my disdain for the Contemporary Country stars of the 80s and 90s, but I really hear very little coming out of Music Row or on mass-market country radio that sounds much different than what American Idol is cranking out, reasonable musical chops wrapped in a thin veneer of the drawl singing and twangy guitars ericg75 mentions.

All of which is a long, drawn-out way of saying, I dunno, my dear Rev. In most of my favored musical genres (jazz, classical), I crave explosive, unexpected change, but in country I'm and unabashed traditionalist. I love the alt-country movement, but it has really proven to be largely return to traditional contry music conventions and values. The only overtly country album to crack my top albums list for the year is from staunch traditionalist Robbie Fulks and the artists that represent country on a lot of critics year-end lists (Nickel Creek, Gretchen Wilson) are certainly more pleasant to my ears than their pop mainstream colleagues, but they are mainstream all the same.

Sorry to be of little help, but I tend to view country today as suffering from much the same miasma that has affected jazz over the past two decades. Artists either produce music so slick and commercial as to leave the aesthetics I most love behind or so traditional as to be a carbon copy of earlier decades. Personally, my own listening tends towards the latter, but I'd be awfully pleased to hear something really surprising and for that reason, I keep listening.

Now Playing: "After 5 Weeks" Derek Bailey Carpal Tunnel

Country music has always been a hodge-podge of influences. Look at Hank Sr. you can't tell me that he wasn't influenced by blues. The studio guitarist used by most country entertaines is Brent Mason who comes from a strong Jazz background. Bluegrass and Folk are as much a part of country Music as anything else. Even Rock has a place in country music. Travis Tritt would never have had a place in country with out blues and rock. All of these Genre's have something in common though, They are all about expression, though they use different means to accomplish that expression which is what defines them.

The problem anymore is that Country is being influenced by Pop/Money. Pop music is not a form of expression, it is a form of entertainment. Meaningless, it's only purpose to generate revinue and pacify people who don't really care what they are listening to but "like the beat".
When is the last time you or someone you know was "moved" by a pop song? It's all about reaching the largest audience possible, because the more people that like your music, the more people will by your album.

To answer your question the only way to identify most country that you hear on the raido as country is to look at your dial to see what sation you have tuned in.

And yes, I am very bitter.

Today's Country Music is so fluffy, to be honest when I watch CMT, there are some commercials on their network that are playing better songs than they are!

I haven't bought a CD since 2001 and before that about 1996 and when I go to the store sorting through what is so called " Country Music today I end up buying a George Jones best Hits CD!
The songs in today's Country are so boring and of no consequence very few have anything that catches your ear as witty anymore! I guess they are being careful to be politically correct?

The last new song that caught my ear as something I'd want to invest some time in listening to was Josh Turner's, "Long Black Train",however I listened to samples on the net of the rest of that album and found I really didn't fancy any other of the songs on that album so I didn't buy it!
Country Music is no longer the working man's music it seems it is reaching for the college and high school crowd as the age gender is so young that it really doesn't seem to fit in with a serious listening adult world!

For having been a music where the nature of it's art was to mirror the realities of real life experience by telling the truth and identifying with the working class, it certainly is failing that challenge today!

I believe North America is ready for a new gender of music something that plays, "The Cold Hard Truth"!

To me, country music is rebel music.

I'm reminded of this line on "Lubbock or Leave It," talking about Buddy Holly-- "I hear they hate me now/just like they hated you./Maybe when I'm dead and gone/I'm gonna get a statue, too."

Willie Nelson was a rebel, with his concept albums and pot smoking. Buddy was, too, with his rockabilly fusion. Hank Williams hung out with black artists, which his virulently racist counterparts condemned him for at the time.

Johnny Cash was the first to bring percussion to the Grand Ole Opry stage by folding a dollar bill in his guitar neck under the strings. June Carter eventually married the man (which was scandaloud to even divorce, much less remarry at the time) and delved into his same darkness.
Eventually, Cash got a drum set on the Opry stage. Then, before he died, he covered an industrial musician's song-- the most un-country shit ever-- and the video, which the word "gripping" doesn't even begin to describe, was spun on both CMT on MTV before and after Cash's death.

Breaking tradition. Rebelliousness.

Lucinda Williams has not had some nice words for the new Garth Brooks Nashville. Ryan Adams is about as hip, urbane and non-country as you can get, but "New York, New York" and his cover of "Strawberry Wine" was still played on CMT.

Country music of every permutation is hung on a time line of rebelliousness. I think its beautiful.