Comments on: Bro Country

By: NateHevens. He who hates straight, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied men (not really)

Wed, 04 Feb 2015 03:58:20 +0000

Blues is basically the same.

I adore the Blues. It’s my guitar style (well… that and Experimental/Psychedelic Rock). But the Blues that came (and still does come) from men is basically Bro Blues.

If you want good feminist Blues, it’s to the women you want to look. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie, Billie Holiday, and many others from the heyday of the Blues. And of course you can’t leave out Bonnie Rait. And today, you want Chantel McGregor (please please please oh please listen to her; I’d put her guitar-playing up against Eric Clapton any day and her voice is incredible… plus, Jamie Kilstein is now a fan because of me :D), Samantha Fish, and so many others. And I gave you an extremely tiny list here. There’s so many more amazing women Blues artists out there to find.

Much guitar-driven music seems to be like this, in fact. Blues, Country, Jazz, Rock, Punk, Metal, etc. In fact, probably the only music to kind of avoid this is Progressive Rock, and only then because they focused so much on pretending there was no audience that they kinda forgot about lyrics all together (I should note that I adore Progressive Rock and Metal, but yeah… they really forgot that they were playing to an audience)… so, avoiding the whole “Bro” aspect was more of an accident, and now that I think about it, Progressive Rock was basically all men with no women to be found (I still dream of an all-women band that takes Pink Floyd and Porcupine Tree as inspirations), at least in the late 60’s and 70’s, anyways.

In short, you get the Bro Music, then women fight back and write awesome stuff in the same genres.

It’s really probably true of music in general, and not just the music I’m familiar with…

The video was downright awesome, and I could get in to Country if more of it was like Maddie and Tae.

By: Ysidro

Ysidro — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 02:21:40 +0000

I don’t really care for country but I think I can dig Maddie & Tae. Now if I would only learn to stop reading Youtube comments.

By: justsomeguy

justsomeguy — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:14:05 +0000

What’s interesting to me is that a lot of the country music sung by *women* during the 70s and 80s (Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire and such) is filled with songs about powerful, independent women who may enjoy the company of men but also get along just fine without. I’ve never really been a country fan but started listening to some of the older stuff recently, and I was very struck by how strongly feminist it was.

By: culuriel

culuriel — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:05:22 +0000

The song, and video, are awesome. In fact, I almost forgot it was country music. DO NOT go into the YT comments though. It’s a slimepit.

By: Marcus Ranum

Marcus Ranum — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 16:42:31 +0000

@Hexidecima – you might want to take a listen to Ray Wylie Hubbard (“missisippi flush” or “ballad of the crimson kings”) or Fred Eaglesmith (“water in the fuel” or “drive in movie”)

By: hexidecima

hexidecima — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 16:30:48 +0000

ah, my husband introduced me to the petshop boys. What lovely cynical songs. Before I met him, it was showtunes and soundtracks for me. He introduced me to rock, where I’ve happily stayed ever since. Anything by Jim Steinman (Meatloaf sings a lot of his stuff), Kansas, Styx, Aerosmith, and I’ve graduated into scandanavian metal with its orchestrations and darkness.

I will admit that I do like Johnny Cash, if that is considered country.

By: Marcus Ranum

Marcus Ranum — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 15:57:27 +0000

You might want to check out Heather Myles. Highways and Honky Tonks is pretty good, and it’s about country/honky tonk life from the woman’s side.

By: Kayla Sue

Kayla Sue — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 15:15:18 +0000

There are strong feminist elements throughout the country tradition. It kind of surprised me that this song was as shocking to people as it was.
.
Dolly Parton released Just Because I’m a Woman in 1968, Wanda Jackson had “My Big Iron Skillet” (although I don’t condone bashing your philandering husband with a skillet, it’s definitely a song about a woman standing up for herself), Loretta Lynn did “The Pill” in 1975.
.
Hank Williams, Jr has “Outlaw Women”, which blatantly and shockingly respects a woman’s right to own her sexuality, societal standards be damned. George Strait did “She Let Herself Go”, about a woman who finds herself alone after devoting her life to a man. Instead of thinking about her wasted time, she lets herself go. Merle Haggard had “Irma Jackson”, in which he sings about breaking off an interracial relationship because of the pressure of society (of course, he also caught flak for supporting Hillary Clinton for president–does that mean he had to turn in his country music card??).
.
In the Bluegrass tradition, Hazel Dickens did “Don’t Put Her Down (You Helped Put Her There)”.
.
Modern artist Neko Case addressed abortion in “Pretty Girls”, a song about women waiting at a Planned Parenthood: “The TV is blaring and angry // As if you don’t know why you’re here // Those who walk without sin are so hungry // Don’t let the wolves in, pretty girls.”
.
Even Hunter Hayes addresses consent in a wonderfully mainstream way: “Yeah, I could be so good at loving you, but only if you told me to.”
.
And that’s just a short list. It’s really amazing when you consider the subculture these songs are coming out of that these ideas are even there. I grew up in a very southern country tradition, in a fundamentalist independent Baptist church, and to think that the same people that consistently preached that I was inferior and made to be subordinate were also introducing me to these very ideas that have crafted me into a feminist in the long run is just….mind-boggling.
.
Definitely work to do, as in most areas of our culture, but there’s every reason to believe that feminism can take a beautiful stand in this type of music. It already has a history of doing so. Maddie and Tae are building on that tradition, not creating something completely new.

By: Katie Anderson

Katie Anderson — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 14:20:15 +0000

In reply to Katie Anderson. Okay, no not really an article with him talking about it, just an article with his mashup. I thought I remembered it being longer when I last saw it. Maybe there's something good hiding in the comments or something...

By: Katie Anderson

Katie Anderson — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 14:13:22 +0000

My wife listens to the country station and we both hate the “bro country” songs. Like you say, it’s not a new thing, but the specific style of the songs she is mocking is definitely a current trend. Here’s an NPR story with a songwriter talking about it. He also took six of them and mashed them up into one song to give an idea of how similar they all are.

http://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/376145745/you-know-exactly-what-these-six-country-songs-have-in-common

The song that really bothers me though is “God Made Girls”, which often gets played in the same block as Girl in a Country Song.