There is a civil war brewing in the world of country music. Zack Brown recently made some controversial statements, about the sickening state of country music, calling out Luke Bryan's "That's My Kind of Night." Gary Allen seemingly drew the dividing line between country music and pop, when he said that crossover artist Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood were not real country. Now after facing the backlash, Allen has spoken out in defense of himself.
The whole thing started with Larry King when a clip from his recent interview with Allen started making the rounds. In it, King asks, “Is Taylor Swift country? Is Carrie Underwood country?
Gary responded: “I would say no. I would say they’re pop artists making a living in the country genre.”
Since the clips release, Allen has taken some hit for his apparent criticism of the country darlings.
Now Allen has taken to Facebook to defend himself. He makes the claim that his early comments were taken out of context, so here is a uncut portion of his posting:
"For the record, I always have and always will love country music. While our genre has evolved, I stand behind what I said in the interview, 'To me country is still about Monday through Friday, and pop is about what happens on the weekends. But it’s definitely changed.
It’s true. Country music has changed. During the interview I made it a point to say that my own music has changed over the years. I used to make very different music 10 – 15 years ago. As I also mentioned during the interview, I’m a country artist whose music leans towards rock, although I tend to love the more traditional sounding country of Haggard, Jones and Buck Owens.
When talking about country radio, I went on to say 'It’s very different. You used to be able to turn on the radio and you knew it instantly it was a country station just by listening to it. Now you've got to leave it there for a second to figure it out…and not that it’s a bad thing.' It’s not a bad thing. It’s just different than it used to be."
So what do you think, is country cannibalizing itself? Where is the dividing line between genres, and who gets decided?
