The Forbidden Genre

From my perspective, country music has a bad reputation. It seems to be the one genre that nobody will listen to. To be honest, I was one of those people. However, this week I decided to give it a chance despite my bias against it.

The Beatles?

One of the reasons I got the idea to include country into my music diet this week is because of a more modern rendition of a Beatles song.

One of my favorite Beatles songs is Don’t Let Me Down. In 2013 John Mayer and Keith Urban performed their version of Don’t Let Me Down, and after discovering the performance it quickly became one of my favorite live performances of all time. It is one of the few live videos I go back and watch about once a month. When I first found the video, I was confused as to why a country artist was playing with John Mayer. To my surprise Keith’s playing blew me out of the water. He is obviously such a talented artist with a diverse skillset, so this week I decided to start with him.

Keith Urban

When listening to Keith Urban I actively sought out songs where he shows off on the guitar. Blue Ain’t Your Color is one I found where he plays a couple cool blues licks, but nothing really beyond that. I struggled to find anything close to what I saw in his performance with John Mayer. The song Brown Eyes Baby has some really tasteful playing as well, but it really just seems like he’s holding back now that I know what he is capable of.

Zac Brown Band

I asked my mom for recommendations before starting this week’s exploration because I know she is a fan of country. She told me to listen to an album called The Foundation by Zac Brown Band. Despite not really being a fan of country, this album admittedly has no bad songs.

This album offers everything. There are a couple songs with high energy and fantastic guitar solos, and also at least one song that made me cry. Different Kind of Fine has an amazing guitar solo that I immediately wanted to learn. However it took me almost 45 minutes just to get the first couple seconds using my ear. Another song called Sic em on a Chicken seemed super weird at first, but ended up having a super cool rock solo that came out of nowhere. My favorite song off of the album is Highway 20 Ride.

John Denver

John Denver is someone I kind of knew of before but hadn’t listen to a lot. His music reminds me of my grandpa because of his love for old country. This should honestly be its own genre due to its vastly different sound from the modern “pop country”. John Denver of course has the classic song Take Me Home Country Roads, but I found some other songs of his that I really enjoy such as Back Home Again, and This Old Guitar. I would definitely recommend him to anyone who hasn’t heard him before.

Rap?

DC The Don

I would be lying if I said that rap is a completely new genre for me. I used to listen to it a lot in early high school, but slowly fell out of touch with it as time went on. The only rapper I have consistently kept in touch with over all this time is DC The Don. I have been listening to DC The Don since 7th grade after my cousin introduced me to him. My friend from high school and current roommate recently started producing for DC, which has opened up opportunities for me to put guitar parts on beats that get sent his way. This is one of my favorite songs by him. Here is a clip of him performing my favorite song at a concert I attended last semester.

DC The Don

Other than DC, there hasn’t really been any rappers that I have been very consistent with. This week I went back and listened to some artists I used to listen to, and also discovered some new ones.

J Cole

One of my favorite artists that I “discovered” this week was J Cole. While I definitely know popular J Cole songs, I have never really dove into his discography before. J Cole really has a talent for storytelling, and his ability to translate that into rapping is amazing to me. One song where I think this is done especially well is Lost Ones. Throughout the entirety of this song I feel like I am part of the conversation between the two people he is rapping about. Another thing I love about his music is his ability to switch flows without disrupting the rhythm of the song. Sometimes when he switches flows he will start singing a melody, which is one of the coolest techniques in rap in my opinion.

Lil Baby

While exploring a variety of popular rappers, one thing stayed consistent across all of them. If Lil Baby was featured on it, the song was amazing. Lil Baby has a couple singles that I like, but his ability to elevate any song he is featured on is a skill not a lot of people have. The only artist I would say has comparable features is 21 Savage. The song Wants and Needs by Drake has the best Lil Baby feature in my opinion because of how he is able to keep the same feeling the song has through the first half of the feature but is able to increase his energy and make it his own in the second half.

Childish Gambino

Childish Gambino is someone who I knew about but never actually listened to. I listened to a lot of his album titled Because The Internet. The only song I knew before listening to him is Redbone, so I knew his music was unique. However I was not prepared for how diverse his voice, pacing, and beats would be. Some songs were incredibly dramatic and big while others were so melancholy. The diversity made exploring his music very interesting and exciting. Childish Gambino is someone I will continue to explore along with some of the other rappers mentioned.