Let me just go ahead and say this - I'm sorry

[underpants]

America I'm sorry. I knew things like this exist but unless it comes into your life you really aren't aware of it.

Just spent 2 hours at our new pool. Loud and I mean LOUD "New Country" for 2 hours. It was a true mental test. Brutal.

I looked up the songs I hadn't mentally erased to find the artists. Trace Adkins, Terri Clark, Toby Keith, and Diamond Rio. Near the end of this torture session the Trace Adkins song came on. It's called "Ladies Love Country Boys" and it opens with "This goes out to all the sophisticated ladies" and I both started laughing and let out a "Oh! my! God!!"

I went up to the front check-in station and asked "Do you only play country music?"
The guy and the girl there started laughing and he said "Want me dial up some classic jazz?"
I replied "As much as I hate most jazz that would be much better. Miles Davis please"
I asked why country/new country and was told that the mom's complain if any other genre is played because they all, every single one, were not appropriate around children. All of them. Uh-huh. I don't think the jazz would have gone over well either. It clearly wasn't about the songs' content.

[unblock]

1. Gotta keep everyone patriotic and depressed.

More susceptible to foxnews brainwashing that way.

[katmondoo]

2. Good Lord, why would you need or want music at a pool

[underpants]

7. It's pretty standard. Mostly familiar songs.

Beach Boys
Eagles
CCR
Chuck Berry - 50's rock n roll
Some new songs mixed in like "Safe and Sound" by Capital City

Mostly stuff we've all heard a hundred times.

[Squinch]

23. I'd raise holy hell if they tried to pump music into my swimming session. It's my chance

to unplug from all that shit for an hour.

[hlthe2b]

3. Five minutes would have been my limit

before going (figuratively) POSTAL.


Uggh

[Initech]

4. Honestly I'm not as bothered by that as when places play religious rock music.

I don't care if it's country, easy listening, alternative rock, top 40... but when they start playing the Jesus music, that is what sets me off. Other than that, I couldn't care less.

[underpants]

26. No smiles either

I didn't mention this before but there were no smiles. There was even a birthday party there.

[ismnotwasm]

5. My oldest daughter lives rurally

I heard "new" country blasting in what I like to call their company store. Now, I like country music and to a degree, I like it a lot. But shopping listening to that shit was torture. I literally bought less to get out of there faster

[Buckeye_Democrat]

6. Other music "not appropriate around children". Uh huh.

Country music has songs about extramarital affairs and all kinds of things that aren't very "family values" friendly.

It tends to promote superficial patriotism -- a "my country right or wrong" attitude -- and promotes white culture more than other music genres, and I think that's the main reason that many Republicans like it.

Republicans used to like Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" too, at least before they realized he supported Democrats. They must not have listened to those lyrics very carefully either.

[underpants]

11. Like I said it was about the content. Lord this stuff had no ambiguity

and very little singing. Mostly it was the singer talk AT me (not to me) about a girl. Not a story mind you they told me about her. There was no sense of "art" to it at all which my daughter observed - it was this happened then this happened etc. every listener gets the exact same impression. The lyrics really stand out in front of the music. It was like I was being yelled at.

Reagan went from "Born" by Springsteen (Vietnam) to "Little Pink Houses" by Mellencamp (poor people - income disparity). That campaign literally couldn't, as it turned out, picked two more wrong performers. My favorite GOP song mix up - there have been many - was McCain using Jackson Brown's "Running on Empty". Who the hell thought THAT was a message for a campaign??? Also, take one look at Jackson and then research his (very effective) No Nukes history and tell me you think he wants a Repub using his song. He kept his lawsuit going after the election too. He was PISSED.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

16. I wonder who owns most of the country music industry?

I'm not going to look it up because I'm not THAT curious, but it wouldn't surprise me if their largest music labels are owned by right-wingers.

They'd probably poo-poo a song like "Sixteen Tons" today.

[Worktodo]

8. I'm so sorry. No one should be subjected to that.

I had a similar run in not too long ago. I took the opportunity to use my phone to determine each song so I could mark them with "dislike". It's not that I don't like country or bluegrass-- it's specifically this newer pop country music that has a real "manufactured" quality to it.

[underpants]

12. Contrived. Unambiguous (not really "art"). Really condescending & it stereotypes it's own audience

I love country and folk this was just plain bad music.

[MiddleClass]

9. Old country played backwards

Probably heard this:

your dog comes back.

Your cow comes back.

Your spouse comes back.

Your job comes back,


that was before the Iraq war and boot up your ass with your little red cup

[underpants]

13. You realize...

with these self driving cars we are eventually going to get a country song about how his truck left him.


Saw that on Facebook.

[BumRushDaShow]

15. !!!!!

I didn't leave the truck,
the truck left me...
Or was it the repo man that done got thee?

[smirkymonkey]

10. I don't know how you endured it for two hours.

I absolutely HATE country music. My sister and her husband always play it when I am up visiting them (yes, they are republicans) and I have to ask them to change the music because I actually start feeling homicidal when I hear it. We compromise on classic/British rock.

[KT2000]

14. I think it's about

uniting the "tribe." The same memes are used in every song but the meaning comes through - they are more American, patriotic, god fearing, righteous than other people. Not music - propaganda.

[bluedigger]

17. "Our pool"?

What kind of socialist collective hell have you gotten yourself into?

[underpants]

18. It's bad

It's the YMCA

[bluedigger]

21. The sonic environment would be the last of my worries in a petri dish experiment like that.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

28. I've never heard music at my YMCA pools.

Never, at half-a-dozen area YMCAs.

But, I always finish swimming before 6:30am, so maybe that helps. Swimming is quiet, and uncrowded, at those hours.

I wouldn't mind hearing the sounds of Keith Jarrett while swimming.

[underpants]

32. This was an outdoor pool. Hanging around, sunbathing, swimming etc.

Not an indoor lap pool

[politicat]

19. I guess nobody's ever heard of music without lyrics.

Classical, heavy classical, light classical, Top 40 classical, baroque, ambient, scores, Windham world... there's a lot available. Hell, give them Rockabye Baby (Lullaby no vocal renditions of everything from the Doors to AC/DC to Black Sabbath to Beyoncé) or Vitamin String Quartet (similar, but string quartet). Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music all have these channels.

I think if I was in control, I might put an instrumental version of "Rains of Castamere" on repeat. But I'm evil, and have a list of people I'd really like to see as honored guests at a Red Wedding.

As management, I would probably select a group of channels in the non-vocal or non-English vocal range (I don't want to eliminate most world music) and the only choice complainers have is "music on" or "music off". Installing that button is pretty cheap, much cheaper than wasting my staff's time with whining. Don't like what's playing? Hit the mute button. Want some music? Unmute. You takes your chances. But I am evil and very tired of people who complain when they're exposed to anything even a millimeter out of their precise pleasure zone.

It's clear that a) those complaining moms have never listened to any lyrics, b) the kids don't actually care and it's all about Mama-titlement, and c) have the musical tastes of a cuttlefish.

[underpants]

20. Mama-titlement

I will use that.

[Different Drummer]

22. That's a little more than two hours longer than I could have taken it.

[Different Drummer]

24. BTW, I just read the lyrics to "Ladies Love Country Boys."

Reaching for the eye bleach now.

[underpants]

25. Yeah it's bad

Just bad music but they seem to sell a lot of it. I saw people singing along.

[dalton99a]

29. .

[Different Drummer]

30. ...

[hatrack]

33. Needz Moar Cigs/Chew

[RKP5637]

27. As one of my friends says much of it sounds like someone groaning sitting on the toilet constipated!

[hunter]

31. This is my opinion of all public "background" music:

Why do they play music in supermarkets, restaurants, at the YMCA, at work, in elevators... it just makes me want to leave.

I don't get it. If I wanted voices in my head I'd quit taking my meds.

I'm okay with neighbor's party music if they don't do it too often. I suspect they tolerate my ugly car for similar neighborly reasons.