In the big rock candy mountains

Today, I am going to tell you about country music. Because the more I hear of it, the more I like it, and I think it is dreadfully underrepresented in my home country. And my sister thought it was a good post idea. Thanks (again) Marion!

Country music comes from the Appalachian mountains, and is a mix of folk music brought by Irish and Scottish immigrants, and other types of music like blues, polka etc. It has been mocked a lot, in France, for being typically white and conservative, old fashioned and dated, a music played only by stinky slobs in lonely dirty bars, deserted by all their friends but their out-of-tune guitar (damn, reader, I think I should write a country song myself!! I write rimes without even noticing, and I am a lonely slob...).

You want to sell a country album in France? Call it blue-grass, it's your only chance, because people don't know what it means.

And yet, look at me! I thought the same way too, until I went to the movies and saw O'Brother, the Joel and Ethan Cohen movie, and I really loved the soundtrack, which I subsequently got as a present. And then, I realised country could also have the cumulated charm of rock music and folk music and gospel. I think movie soundtracks are actually doing a great deal for the rehabilitation of country music in Europe, for example the "Elizabethtown" soundtrack, which made me discover Eastmountainsouth, which is really nice to listen to once in a while, or the "Walk the line" soundtrack, of course, without which I would never ever have listened to anything by Johnny Cash, if not at gun point.

Besides, the lyrics are often quite funny, and you do have country music for all your moods: You can cry to Alison Krauss, relax to Eastmountainsouth, be happy to Keith Urban, all your moods can be suited by country music, provided you know which artist to listen to.

Which, sadly enough, is not my case: I researched country music on Wikipedia, to have a little something to tell you which would not be just my opinion, and I found out that I did not know more than 2 of the listed artists. Isn't that sad, reader? How about you give me your suggestions? Maybe you're a country music fan, as well as a hockey-lover, what do I know??

Here are two links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhsO7LnwyBI

This one is a music video to a Keith Urban song. I personally think the video is lousy, but I really like the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SpD0TJZYas

This one is to an Eastmountainsouth song. The images have got nothing whatsoever to do with country music, it is a fan video for Alias, the TV serial. I enjoyed the pictures ;) but only the soundtrack is relevant to this article...