I grew up with country music. I think it had to be the remnants of my mother’s southern upbringing which always seemed to win against my father’s northern attitude. For a while I had my mind made up about country music. It was nice, comforting, and something I could always count on to be the radio in my mother’s car and mine as I got older. Country music is glued to my summers in Maryland. Even as I moved down south, I stumbled upon more country music and more people that exemplified country music enthusiasts, I don’t mind at all. When taking this class, I knew we would talk about the creation of country music, its history, and its fan base. I was so confident that I knew country. I knew the legends and loved the greats.
For about the first few weeks of the class, I wondered why we were spending so much time on music that sounded too folk and more like a barber shop quartet. It makes sense that music that was made for simple living started with simple beginnings. I always knew country music was about the simpler things and we’ve all heard the jokes about what country music can be about: trucks, girls, beer, hunting, and sun. Occasionally some family stuff too, but it’s all expected. With the accents and the hats, it started to all make sense, as it had before for me. It was odd that something that I thought was more diner dinner music or off branching folk music was still country. It took a little getting used to but it made sense that it had sort of humble beginnings. As we got closer to the 50s, it started sounding like something I recognized.
My turning point with country music had to be what made something country music. It seems to stupid that this is what rattled my cage. I knew the voices, motifs, and instruments to look for, even though I didn’t know what most of them were called. It was when we first started asking who makes country music? What makes something country? Who is it for? I knew we would talk about the cowboy hats and all the musicians with that accent thicker than molasses. But then I thought about all those musicians that wear multi million dollar suits and wouldn’t know the first thing to do on a farm. I thought of all the country artists that don’t even wear cowboy hats or boots, but they’ve got that accent. I thought of Dolly Parton. She’s a goddess that’s a fact I think most of humanity shares. She grew up country and we trust her to make that country music, but her most recent album is strictly rock music. For her husband because he doesn’t like country music and it’s weird because her voice brings you home to country. What matters more? The voice or the lyrics. Lana Del Ray announced that her next album is going to be a country album. No one seems to be sticking with their genre anymore. A lot of country artists are more pop and rock country than just country now too. To be honest, when I come to a song, I make a flight or fight response on whether it’s country or not. Sometimes I find that my reasoning for making a song country is what it reminds me of. Would I play it during my summers in Maryland or would those boys in the jacked up funny looking trucks blare this out their windows?
I think a good example of when this question came back to me is the song, “All Summer Long” by Kid Rock. I have always known this song to be a country song. It gets grouped in with those highway country songs that roll out in late July when you’re on your way to the barbeque. This song is just like Sweet Home Alabama to me. I listened to it on repeat while I cleaned my room and it didn’t occur to me until after a few listens that this counts as rock. Hell, the artist’s name is Kid Rock, but I’ve only known it to be on country playlists, it’s on mine and many others, listed as country. This was the crossroads. The whole song is about simple living. It’s about slowing everything down, getting drunk, and enjoying a slow hot summer with the people you meet down at the creek. This song reminds me of my summers in Maryland. I decided to include it in my field notes, because this is a country song. To me and at least all the people I’ve come to know.
Another thing I wanted to explore was genre shifts. Many artists have moved around with country and some of them were able to shed their country roots and some still have those cowboy boots glued to their feet. Look at Dolly Parton and Shaina Twain. These women have slipped into rock and pop and yet, they still sound country. But Taylor Swift and Lana Del Ray have moved out and into country. Lana Del Ray, to me, never had the voice or style of a country artist, but then I heard her cover Country Roads. Her voice is the same and she didn’t do anything out of the ordinary for herself, but once the narrative and lyrics changed, I could see her as a country artist. Taylor swift ditched the banjo and accent but kept the same narratives and motifs, but it’s hard to believe she was ever even country. What this showed me is that I think what defines a country is the identity you've created for yourself, your accent, and what you sing about. I think instruments and beats matter less for me, but that’s only because that’s the kind of music listener I am. If I isolated just the instruments and beat, it would be a completely different story.
I think country music gets boiled down a lot. I think a lot of people have decided what country music is and we don’t think about all the things that go into it. The truth is, I think anyone that isn’t a snob or oddly dramatic and not in a charming way, enjoys a little bit of country if not a lot. When the weather gets hot, it’s the fourth of July, or you’re driving through the countryside, you’d want to put on a country song. Country music is definitely more than just the station I play back in Maryland, it’s a lifestyle and a community. After this paper, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to tie country down and if I’m being honest, I hope I can’t. Music shouldn’t be put in a box like that. That’s why we play it out loud and the really good people in life dance to it. I think country has grown into something that some people like to be a part of and I never have liked those people that cover their ears and freak out when you put it on. How can you be so averse to music that brings people together? It can't hurt you, that I already knew.
I was on the marketing team for the label project. I did marketing mostly because planning stresses me out to the gods and I knew that wasn’t going to be something I would ever gain the ability to do nearly as well as the other students. I can acknowledge when it’s time to look yourself in the mirror and say, not your sport champ. But marketing seemed fun and this day in age that’s half the battle. I was so happy to be working with Nico, less excited to be working with Harry. He just didn’t mess well with the rest of the group. I am personally pretty creative and I am a writer, so I knew coming up with imagery and titles for the album wouldn’t be impossible. I think I took a more authoritative role in the creation of things and I was really good about giving everyone something to do. Harry didn't really do much, but Nico was better about bouncing ideas off with me. We did as much as we could without having the music or while they were figuring out the music, we tried to do as much research as we could and give them a few ideas. I took the initiative to ask them about how the process was coming along so we could make a good list of our ideas.
My initial thoughts for the project is that I was originally really overwhelmed. I didn’t have any marketing experience and I only vaguely knew what to look for when researching. I just started gathering data and putting it on the page. I loved getting to name the page, marketing for the masses and I was doing pretty good about taking advent notes about our process. The problem is while I was trying to form a coherent thought and making sure everything was in perfect place, Harry would just loom over me, not doing any work and just telling me to do things. Like I’m not your minion and you are legal and not my problem. Also, you know when some ideas are so off base that you shouldn’t even consider them. That’s all of his ideas and when I’d say that title that he wanted to give the album was not even fitting for what the creative team is doing or wants, he would ignore and and just keep barking until I typed it out. He was a major pain in the ass. After a few weeks at this project and knowing that the creative team was still hard at work on the songs, my work kind of stalled. We knew we had a few ideas for some posters, I knew I wanted three different ones and that was something that I could definitely make. But with not knowing anything that was concrete yet, we just tried our best to formulate an idea for the album. Again, it was all up in the air for a while. For a little bit of the project I thought I was doing it wrong, because I thought there was no way we were making a two month project and I had nothing to do. For a while I was really worried that I wasn’t doing enough, but as time went on, I realized I was doing as much as I could.
Overall, the actions weren’t the worst thing I had ever experienced, but they did make this project more annoying than it had to be. I was praying that he would just leave me alone and when the rest of group wasn’t there, he would sit next to me and not do any work, and just complain about whatever was going on in his life or better yet (and this is super rhetorical), he would tell me how powerpoints work and talk down to me about topics. I would try my best to ignore him and get him to leave me alone and I guess this dude just has no social skills, because he would just keep talking and I had work that I needed to get work done. This dude did not help that much with the project and was mostly just there to bother me. This affected outcomes in a very littler way because Lexi and I did almost all of the work, and I was good about ignoring him to get the work done but it was annoying when I was talking through what we needed to get done and making everything get together in a list, he would just keep bugging me.
There were no structural issues with our team overall. There was nothing about the layout of the project that was impactful on us getting things done. I would have gotten things done in the same manner and at the same speed even if we did it over again, but I can’t stress enough that I would have had less headaches if Harry would have left me alone when I asked him.
Overall, I realized country music is something you really can’t tie down. After going through all the decades of music, there are so many changes that I don’t think you can even decide what country music is. For the portion of the project that I had a hand in, I can say that advertising the album is something that is pretty easy to do, a lot of country music is advertised the same way and as the research was showing that a lot of people like it to be that way. If something is just working for a group of people, I knew there wasn’t anything too wild we needed to do differently. After doing this project, and getting to watch the creative team I learned how much just goes into making music as a whole. Seeing the marketing side of music, I understand why so many people do like getting into marketing for things. It was really fun to make a whole identity for a creative project, but I also get why there are so many more extravagant things for other genres of music. There is definitely a clear set of standards that go into country music. Such as the boots and the instruments. Country music is still something that is hard to define and something that you will just know when you hear it.
Taking this experience into my professional life, I think I would change up the process if it was clear I couldn’t do my work because another group was still working on their project and that means that there needs to be a break up of responsibility. I typically don’t like super involved group projects, because I don’t like when I can’t do something or I feel like my hands are tied. I rather work on a small part of the project that I could complete by myself and then the other group just finishes what they're doing and it doesn't mean I have to wait around for anyone else.
As for what I think should be changed about this project overall, is the creative team works as their own executive group of sorts and everyone else in the class is there to help them or learn how to work the music website. I think the project was a really good idea and there are benefits to being in any single group with the music. It was not fair to the creative team, that the other groups basically just sat on their hands for weeks on end. I think the workload just needs to be reworked and I did really like the project as a whole and keep the fact that there is no paper. Hands-on with the music was the best option. Overall, the class was fun and something very unique.