>
> Anyone who writes this:
>
> >the Kentucky hills of Hank Williams.
>
> doesn't have much credibility when they write this:
>
> >...the crop of bimbos and bimbettes being churned out by Nashville...
>
> If this isn't an object lesson in the trendiness of dissing mainstream
> country music, I don't know what is.
>
That's Jon commenting on some joker's kneejerk comments about Nashville. Aside
from raising questions about gender (is 'bimbo' masculine, or reflective of
size?), those sort of comments don't in and of themselves nullify all the
justifiable criticism of mainstream country music. But as usual Jon
effectively points out the emptiness of much of the reflexive complaints
about HNC. Lord knows, there's enought to complain about, that's easily
justified, without resorting to catch-all, gratuitous insults of the
"bimbette" variety.
If there's three things I've learned since being on this list -- or, am still
learning -- it's: don't presume consensus on suckage, with regard to a
particular musical act or genre; don't pronounce suckage of the same
without trotting out some valid reasons; and, finally, don't confuse
differences in taste with actual justifiable criticism. The last thing has
been the toughest for me -- figuring out when my dislike of some performer
or musical trend is just a matter of personal taste, or, on the other
hand, some flaw in the music. The reflex to say so and so
"sucks" is always so much more tempting than settling for saying, "that's
not my cup of tea." -- Terry Smith
