On many occasions, I have been listening to music with friends and we might start to get bored of whatever music we were already listening to and we end up switching to country music, or someone simply brings up the whole idea of country music. But as soon as it’s brought up, we inevitably end up playing country music bingo. For those of you who don’t know, country music bingo is picking any country song, listening to it, and then ticking off a bingo list of country music clichés. These can be anything you want, but we usually fill the list with the classics, things like beer, trucks, jeans, eagles etc. Its great fun, everyone loves to make fun of country music and I understand, country music can be cliché. But the clichés make it what it is, at its heart country music is just pure fun. So why do so many people have such hatred for country music?
The amount of people that I have heard say that they like any music other than country music is incredible. What is it about this genre that people hate so much? Or has it simply just become a guilty pleasure for so many people, where they don’t want to admit they actually enjoy it. Country music is one of the most successful genres in the music industry, and I’m a firm believer in the idea that no matter what type of music you are talking about, there will be a song or something that everyone can enjoy. So, the amount of people that seemingly hate country music just doesn’t seem to add up. It might have something to do with the genre being so America specific, so the stereotypes and associations that come with that might turn off British listeners. But that’s simply just not true, as seen by Luke Combs selling out multiple arenas across the UK on his tour. Clearly country music fans do exist in the UK.
So we know they exist, but why do people hide the fact that they like this incredibly popular genre of music. I think it has something to do with people being weirdly embarrassed, I’ve never seen people be shunned or looked down upon because of their music taste as much as the people who like country music. So no wonder people might be reluctant to call themselves a country music fan. I think this is so much truer in today’s world as well, everyone seems to be obsessed with having the best music taste and liking “good music”. People care more about if their Spotify wrapped looks cool than just listening to the music they actually enjoy.
Don’t get me wrong, if you genuinely don’t like country music then that’s fine, there isn’t anything wrong with that. I just don’t think anyone should ever be ashamed of the music they enjoy, and nobody should be shamed by other people for the art that they enjoy in their life. Country music is fun, and people shouldn’t pretend they don’t like it, if you like country music, be proud of it! If you don’t and you haven’t given it an open-minded opportunity before, maybe you should, you might find your next favourite genre.
