Why are we still playing that old country music?

[Fred Treece]

Brooks, it’s good to see how ridiculous it looks when somebody actually spells it out. Also a reminder of how bad some of “our” music was. I certainly remember listening to pop radio and suffering through 6 or 7 Songs Of Excessive Suckage before hearing a single Party On Excellent one.

[Jerry Overstreet]

'Cause it's g-o-o-o-o-o-d

[Andy DePaule]

Love that older stuff... The new so called country music on the radio is just pop sung with a southern accent.

Had a guy who wanted to play with our band. He asked if we had any original music.
I had to point out that it was all original music by someone.

I can't speak for others but I hardly heard anything worth a listen since Randy Travis came on the scene.
Sure hope he is doing better and regaining his health God willing, he deserves it.

[Dale Rottacker]

Perhaps for the same reason we still play/listen to Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and many many others. It still holds up. Good music will always be good music and hopefully always recognized as such.

[Joe Casey]

I think the answer to the Question is: Because there isn't any New Country Music to play.

[David Mason]

One reason old music sounds good is because the old bad music died and went away. Filtration through time is always on duty here, hey remember Beethoven's FOURTH Symphony? Hey me neither. Luddy-B wrote his First, Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Symphonies. Hmm.

And another big reason is that whatever you were listening to when you were fourteen years old is AUTOMATICALLY the Greatest Music Ever Played. It's like chemical or something, it can't be escaped.

I don't much like lyrics anyway, old or new - it's a selfish and greedy evil to do to something as wonderful as music - but I do know people write about their life experiences. And what is now the OVERWHELMINGLY biggest experience American Adults have?

A: They watch other people doing stuff on television. So the songwriters write about what's on TV, then the television writers write shows about what the stars are singing. Couldn't we at least hire a mule to kick these people once in a while?

[David DeLoach]

When I was studying jazz guitar at North Texas back in the last 70's one of my music professors ask us, "What makes music good?" We all gave our opinions, but I'll never forget his answer.

"Good music lasts - it endures thru time. While some music may be extremely popular - momentarily - it will soon be forgotten. But good music will last for years, decades, even centuries."

[Ian Rae]

I quite like Beethoven's 4th, but David Mason is right in principle. A better example is Tchaikovsky, who believed it his duty to get up every morning and churn out an incessant stream of minor works now mercifully forgotten. Thank goodness for those favourite greats he found time for.

The only test for deciding whether new music is any good involves hanging around for 50 years, then 100, then 200....

Something I've been meaning to say for a while is how refeshing it is that in America all music seems to occupy the same building. Over here there are classical, pop, jazz etc, ghettoes. I am fortunate that my mother liked Schubert songs and Bing Crosby ones the same, so I am not ghettoised but it persists.

[Jim Cooley]

Why?

1.) Because it is the music that introduced me to the steel guitar, the instrument that soon became and still is my favorite.

2.) Because I still love that old country music.

3.) Because I can.