[redbird]

I should clarify, I never meant that music has become more polarized, rather that there was a cultural polarization that maybe benefited a certain genre of music because that genre of music could be said to fulfill a certain social need (akin to more people attending church ... kind of ... ). The effect wouldn't have to be limited to artists who make explicit political statements in their music, it could've been a subtle spill-over thing.

But I was just tossing it out there as a possibility, not married to the idea.

I'm not at all opposed to things like small town values in and of themselves, I like variety, I just felt like songs were becoming statements of What Country Is/Who Country Listeners Are, even if (or maybe as a result of how) they were becoming poorly written. A song like "Time Marches On" by Tracy Lawrence, the lyrics of that song -- which isn't even that old -- seemed like genuine poetry to me, colloquial as it was, and comparing that to something like Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats", even though I can appreciate the sentiment and spirit, I don't think the lyrics can even compare in sophistication ... although I'm not saying "Before He Cheats" is especially politically or subculturally coded, I just can't recall the lyrics of songs I really dislike so that comes to mind. Even Toby Keith, whose politics I don't share much fwiw, I bought a CD of his back in the day and I genuinely adored songs like "Tired", but his newer songs seem far less artful (which I don't think has to happen just because the genre is country). My waning appreciation for mainstream country also happened along the same timeline that pop acts like Britney Spears and N'Sync started taking over the pop scene, which is an unpopular time for music for a lot of music critics/snobs/whatever outside of country, so I don't think it's isolated to country music or anything. Lots of things going on.