There's a lot going on in country music, with indie-label hipsters and underground bloggers arguing their interpretations of what country is, and pop-country stars defending themselves. That deserves to be poked fun at.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There's been a shift: Country music is popular music now. Every other genre wants to come over to our land.
I've never really gotten into the whole labels thing. There were times I would cover a pop song, and people would say 'You sound really country.' I gave up on that whole thing a long time ago.
Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There's a connection because there's a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.
Country music belongs to America.
I'm always kind of surprised how much I'm associated with country music.
One of my favourite things about country music is that, at least until recently, you could always count on a solid story, a punchline and a pun. I think it has that in common with hip hop, where they're not afraid of wordplay and I really appreciate that.
To me, country music tells a story about, and deals with, the way people live their lives and what they do.
People do look at it as an insult that I say I don't listen to country music, which cracks me up.
What we don't need in country music is divisiveness, public criticism of each other, and some arbitrary judgement of what belongs and what doesn't.
What is nice about country music today is that most artists are not trying to do something everybody else is doing. They really are trying to develop their own uniqueness.