Editorial note: Opinions expressed here are solely those of the blogger
There are multiple occasions when I’m reminded I’m getting older. Some are physical, like when I get out of bed each morning. Others are subtle, more cultural. Like when, on a Saturday evening, I’ll out of curiosity look to see who the SNL musical guest is. And then realize, as typically is the case, that I’ve never heard of them.
So it was quite a rarity last week when I realized that Country star Chris Stapleton was the musical guest. Now, mind you, I had never heard a single Chris Stapleton song and knew nothing about him. But I recalled that a couple of weeks earlier he had performed at Minneapolis’ U.S. Bank Stadium, where the Vikings play. Obviously, he was pretty popular.
My wife Wendy and I had a chance to catch Chris Stapleton on SNL and I have to say I was impressed, and a little surprised. For starters, Stapleton looked like he would have been right at home in a 1970’s-era band like The Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd. And the music he played was melodic, guitar based Rock. Sure, Chris Stapleton was wearing a cowboy hat. Beyond that, I couldn’t really ascertain what was Country about him.
I’ve spent my entire professional life working in marketing so realize I view things through a different lens. But I’m also a lifelong music geek and not surprisingly, everywhere I look in the music industry, I see branding and categorization: EDM, Hip Hop, Pop, R&B, Metal. Yet it seems like straightforward Rock – the music I grew up on, has largely fallen out of flavor.
And outside of sound, there’s good, old fashioned Rock Star behavior. A couple of days after Stapleton’s Minneapolis concert, Country star Morgan Wallen was arrested for throwing a chair off the roof of a Nashville bar owned by Eric Church, another Country star. I tend to be more cynical than the average person (my Marketing background again) and want to believe that Wallen thought trashing a hotel room or throwing a television of a balcony would be too cliché and sought a different approach.
I get it. Everything, as they say, is cyclical. Rock music, at some point, will come back in fashion. But for now, if you’re a Rock fan, I’d recommend seeing what Country artists are up to. You might just like what you find.
Chris Stapleton. Image credit: Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for CMA
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