Country Music

Often regarded as one of the most hated music genres of all time, country music continues to take the world by storm–and not in a good way. Any time spent foraging in music related blogs will prove this much. Is it truly as trashy and unoriginal as bloggers and reviewers say? 

The root of the problem boils down to this: music is heavily subjective. Everyone’s music taste differs, and certain genres that sound appealing to one might not be someone else's' cup of tea. Take K-Pop for example. I do know of people who hate it, but do not voice those opinions loudly to people who are avid K-Pop fans. It is one thing to dislike something, and another thing to voice it. There is nothing wrong with expressing one’s opinions, however doing this in country music forums definitely results in heated debates and never ending back and forths.

While I personally do not listen to country music, I do think the bashing on this genre should be toned down. While others argue that it can mostly be summed up to “pop music trash” made solely for the purpose of money, there are definitely underground small artists who do make music with their whole heart, and it is quite easy to differentiate this from the crowd. Passion is often palpable through music–or any other art forms. Point being, there are outliers from the group of what others deem as “trashy and soulless music” with the title of “country music: slapped on it. 

A generation of people grew up on country music–maybe even you did!–and discrediting this due to one or two “bad” songs that fall under country music is shutting out a whole world of lovely songs made with passion. Furthermore, outright refusing to step out of your comfort zone simply because of one or two bad experiences or social media’s influence will seep into your personal life. While this is definitely an extreme, why not simply embrace the array of music genres out there instead of bashing on them? 

In retrospect, I’m of the strong opinion that we all should embrace country music and at least give it a listen before bashing on it. After all, you might just find your new favorite music genre!

Tio Chen Yi

Secondary 3 Faith

2025