It's pretty hard to deny that there has been a pretty drastic change in the country music industry the past couple of years. The music on the radio seems more and more formulaic, and all we hear is about guys drinking with their friends and trying to get girls to climb up into their trucks. Artists like Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton's songs show more and more pop influence, while groups like Florida Georgia Line sound more like rock bands. You don't have to look very hard to find someone mourning the state of the country music industry while claiming that the genre's stars aren't even real country artists. The problem is those people are wrong, and here's why.
All types of music have to change and evolve in order to stay relevant. One musician creates a unique sound and that sound becomes popular, so other artists rush to imitate it. Eventually, people will get tired of that sound, so fewer and fewer artists stop imitating it. Sometimes the sound goes away completely, but more often than not it has an influence on the genre for a very long time. As "bro-country," the term for country music influenced by hip-hop, hard rock, and electronic music, became more popular, more artists made bro-country songs, and that has lead to its oversaturation in the genre today. However, the fact that artists like Chris Stapleton and Sturgill Simpson have found success shows that the pushback against bro-country has already begun. In a few more years, it's possible bro-country will have died out.
Other genres have gone through similar changes recently. Just look at rap music. Recently, artists that make heavy use of autotune Like Future and Designer have become extremely popular. They have a unique sound, and since its popular, more and more rappers will use autotune until people get tired of it.
Like music, all forms of entertainment need to evolve in order to capture the public's attention. Sports have changed drastically as well. Just look at basketball. The Golden State Warriors play five undersized, but deadly three point shooters at the same time. Just a few years ago this would never have worked, but now other teams are racing to copy their roster construction and imitate their style of play. In the NFL, defenses have had to turn to smaller, more versatile athletes to play linebacker instead of the traditional giant, terrifyingly strong athletes.
Just because something is new and different does not mean its bad. Brett Eldredge doesn't have to sound like Garth Brooks in order to be a "real" country artist. When you really think about if you can see how ridiculous the whole argument is. Is Kanye West a real rapper even though he doesn't sound like Notorious BIG? Of course, he is, so why doesn't the same logic apply to modern country music?
