1957 (Sales): Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On — Jerry Lee Lewis (Sun)
1957 (Disc Jockeys) (tie): Fraulein — Bobby Helms (Decca)
My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You — Ray Price (Columbia)
1967: My Elusive Dreams — David Houston & Tammy Wynette (Epic)
1977: Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue — Crystal Gayle (United Artists)
1987: Make No Mistake, She’s Mine — Kenny Rogers & Ronnie Milsap (RCA)
1997: She’s Got It All — Kenny Chesney (BNA)
2007: More Than a Memory — Garth Brooks (Big Machine/Pearl)
2017: Body Like a Back Road — Sam Hunt (MCA)
2017 (Airplay): Small Town Boy — Dustin Lynch (Broken Bow)
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My Kind of Country 
Mostly good songs until 2017. The 1957, 1967 and 1977 entries are absolute classics
How did things get so off the rails since 2007 ?
Sad, isn’t it?
For the most part authentic country music was extinct by the end of the 20th century. Although there are a handful of artists attempting to keep that flame alive today the rock/pop loving losers that control Music Row in Nashville & country radio – and – the shallow, mindless audience that they program to want no part of it. Traditional country music saw a revival in the late 1980’s because the gatekeepers allowed it to happen. That is not the case in the the 21st century as any movement toward tradition is immediately snuffed out. Thanks to the abundance of classic country music available on CD’s & internet radio there’s no reason to endure the current dreck perpetrated by Nashville.
Tastes and styles change. There’s not much Sinatra-style pop, Elvis-style Rock & Roll, Ella- or Louis-style jazz, or even Stones- and Who-type electric guitar rock in the mainstream today. You don’t have to like it–I sure as hell don’t like today’s mainstream “country,”–but spewing insults at today’s youth just makes you look like a “Get-off-my-lawn” old jerk.
There’s a big difference between music “evolving” and completely losing it’s essence. Pop music has always been changing and will continue to do so. The roots of pop music are very broad and encompass many styles. Pop music is only defined by what is currently popular – there is no specific sound or style or roots at it’s core. It has always been changing.
However country music has deep and specific roots. Although instrumentation evolved over the years incorporating many different styles and approaches it maintained it’s essence. Though some of the music was a bit left field at times there were always songs and artists that continued to perpetuate the core sound. However it ceased evolving around the end of the 1990’s when it was totally hijacked by the gatekeepers in the music and radio industry with an agenda to strip away the core and replace it with a sound THEY wanted. It included replacing honest meaningful lyrics about adult reality with shallow teenage oriented topics personified by Taylor Swift’s dreadful teen angst ditties. The annoying instrumentation that accompany the lyrics is nothing more than 1980’s & 90’s pop/rock. Even rap has been incorporated into some alleged “country” songs. What could be further from the essence than that? It was not an evolution but rather a revolution that has all but destroyed a vibrant American genre.
The head of a major Nashville country record label recently stated that his favorite genre of music is rock. Thank about that. A guy at the very center of creating today’s “country” music does not cite it as his first choice. At least he was honest about it as most of the other Nashville decision makers are probably of like mind but also include rap, hip-hop and other non-country styles in their main musical preferences. Further most of the people programming today’s country radio stations are carpetbaggers from other formats and HATE anything that sounds like traditional country music.
Sorry but I prefer to voice my displeasure with words and my wallet rather than to accept the current pathetic state of a genre that I have loved as long as I can remember. If you are looking for people to mindlessly accept the dreck that Nashville is releasing today and not criticize it you have come to the wrong website. Your conclusion regarding our comments could not be more wrong.