Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 74: Trillbilly Deluxe (w/ special guests Shuja Haider & Tyler Mahan Coe)

Episode Date: October 19, 2018

We're joined by Popula's Shuja Haider (@shujaxhaider), and host of the Cocaine and Rhinestones podcast, Tyler Mahan Coe (@TylerMahanCoe) to discuss popular music criticism, Pitchfork, and country music in the 1980s. The amazing cover of Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" at the end of the episode is by friend of the show Erin Goudreau (@LeftOutWest) Shuja's brilliant essay can be found here: https://popula.com/2018/09/13/canon-fodder/ Check out Tyler's podcast: https://cocaineandrhinestones.com/ And please subscribe to our Patreon!!! www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

hell yeah well thanks for being with us shuja uh yeah it's my pleasure yeah nice to meet you i'm yeah we're just jumping in front of everybody yeah we're yeah this is uh terence this is tyler tyler co what's up there is a fourth person and hiding behind the computer screen. You're not allowed to see me. I'm Tom, and then the phantom voice is Matt. He's the wizard. He's like Hal, the computer. I think I can see his shadow. Oh, God.

In the window. Oh, yeah, that's fucking sweet. No, he's outside on the window cleaning. He's the Vindavappa. They wouldn't let me in because. Tyler, is that a champagne of beers you're drinking there? 32 ounces, baby. That's beautiful.

Hold on a second. I'll be right back. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I told you to tell him to go do some shots. He's going to go get a Miller High Life. Yeah. And that's exactly what happens. He's gonna go get a Miller High Life Yeah And that's exactly what happens Hell yeah baby

Cheers Cheers Well I've got a Nalgene of water I stole this from my roommate I did not ask his permission That's alright We'll work it out later Hell yeah

You live up to your screen name Damn Fuck yeah We'll work it out later. You live up to your screen name. Damn. Fuck yeah. Well, should we dive right in? Yeah, let's get into it. Okay. Welcome, everybody, to your premium Trillbillies for the week.

I am your host, Tom Sexton, joined by my right-hand man over here, Mr. Terrence Ray. And we have a very, very special show for you tonight, made even more special by our special guests here. First joining us via satellite from Brooklyn, New York City, he's an editor at both Popula and Viewpoint Magazines with bylines in the New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, and The Believer, one of our favorite writers on everything from music to politics. Wow, who the fuck is that?

That would be Mr. Shuja Hader, a.k.a. I don't want all your listeners Skyping. Yeah, don't. You're going to beep that out. Beep that out. We accidentally doxxed one of our Patreon subscribers last week, and we're on a hot streak.

Joining us in flesh, live from his home field in beautiful Nashville, Tennessee, he's the creator of Cocaine and Rhinestones, the history of 20th century country music, described by the New Yorker as sparkling. Oh, he is. He's also the co-host with Mark Mosley of your favorite band, Sucks, which just returned for its second season, Mr. Tyler Mahanco. Yeah, and your listeners will be thrilled to find out that your favorite band,

Sucks, recently received its first piece of media coverage and that was from the wall street journal oh yeah baby whoa the same newspaper that just published a brett kavanaugh op-ed listen i just want to say i'm real proud of you for uh tackling led zeppelin in the in the last episode thank you it took a lot of courage, I think, but I went there. Of all the favorite bands that suck, that's my number one. This is going to be fun as fuck. And you received death threats from BuzzFeed off of that one. Did I? Who did?

I'm just kidding. Listen, I think if it was Ghost, the Ghost of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters would get together and murder all the living members of Led Zeppelin. Quit stealing my material right now. And last but not least, following us up from sunny Wattsburg, Kentucky, he is the program director, at least for the next couple of days, of WMMT-FM, otherwise known as the Hip Hop Giant in the Mountains. Mr. Matthew Carr. Does that make me the headliner of the podcast episode?

Yeah, buddy. You're the franchise, baby. The disembodied voice. Yeah. I'm that ghost in the window. Right. Wait, are there going to be people seeing video of this at some point? No, probably not.

Why do you ask, Tyler? Because I don't have my pants on. That's why I thought. That's why I thought. Neither do I. Sweet. Well, why I thought. That's why I thought. Neither do I. Sweet. Well, welcome, everybody. I guess I should also point out, I'm usually, these are usually Terrence's duties.

And so I ask you just to bear with me a little bit. Which duties? I haven't seen anyone perform any duties. With actually quarterbacking the thing. Okay. I'm usually just the guy that just, you know, gets his little... Provides witty banter. His little punches in there, you know.

Now I'm Tom for today. So I'm getting grown right now. But thanks Shuja, Tyler, Matthew for being with us. And I asked you all here today because we wanted to talk about a certain type of music criticism an exclusionary variety that considers rap and country somehow day class and not worthy to be considered with other genres in terms of artistic merit unless it's consumed ironically or as kitsch or something like that and the most recent offender this is pitchfork's 200 best albums of the 80s list uh which conspicuously omits country

which prompted you tyler to point out on twitter not too long ago and this is made even more egregious by the fact that country is is it was the first or second high selling genre of the decade well yeah it's just silly but i mean yeah i tweeted something but shuja is the one who really got to work on it i mean he we're getting we're getting to that awesome piece all right i mean all i do is talk shit we have a we have a smart person here i mean i can sit here and run my mouth if you want to, but I would rather listen to a smart person talk. You pressed a couple of buttons on your computer, and he spent hours writing.

Well, here's going to be the difference between me and probably the rest of you is that I may have done a lot of research, but I'm actually a novice when it comes to country music. I wrote this piece, But I'm actually a novice when it comes to country music. You know, like I wrote this piece and, you know, a lot of people who were talking trash about me on social media were like, you know, you can tell this guy is basing everything on research and he's not like a true, authentic, you know, born and bred listener to country music. And I'm like, you know, no fucking shit. Like, did you see my byline like you know my family's not from kentucky they're from karachi you know like of course it's inauthentic and we

bleed the same color baby hey well the entire concept of authenticity and country music is one of my personal pet peeves i don't know if you know that about me but you hit that you you hit the mother load with that specific word it drives me batshit when anyone bases anything on what even the fuck is that supposed to be or mean authentic right that's that's what what i might look for uh when i'm looking for like food you know authentic mexican food cool i'll probably walk in there and you know get sour cream on a taco or some bullshit like that you know so that word doesn't really mean anything and the thing is all of them say authentic i know i'm the marquee you know from your list of 80s best country albums you're absolutely not a novice like you got some pretty heavy hitters well that's a hard list to make and i thought i thought you did a great job on that list by the

way and it's it's hard this is something that i've come to learn recently it's difficult to open your mouth and be like i think this about you know fill in the blank man because people are going to lose their minds on you no matter what you say especially right now yeah right like it's like i wrote a whole essay that was like listen lists are always going to be incomplete they're always going to be partly wrong yep i think my own list is wrong and still people were like hey where the fuck is x album and it's fun well i mean yeah yeah who cares i do see a serious lack of uh gary stewart's uh rose yeah we we're going to uh listen no listen i didn't know which gary stewart album from the

80s to put on there but if you you know if you know which one tell me that i'm gonna no i was listening i was just joking no you i mean you got you really nailed it i love because if i was it was 70s out of hand is obviously going to be top 10 at least. I thought it was really... I was really surprised and thought it was really curious your Randy Travis and Dwight Yoakam picks. I was pleasantly surprised

by that. That, like, I was probably wrong. Probably, if I was going to be objective, I would have picked the debut records by both of them. Gotta call bullshit on you, man. probably wrong like uh probably like if i was going to be objective i would have picked the uh no you know gotta call records by gotta call bullshit on you man like that those are both good picks oh yeah no they are it's a good list i think you like country music

just own it just went for my favorites you know like yeah because because it's you know it's it's you can never make the right choice ultimately when you're trying to make a definitive choice. It's always going to be influenced by your subjective preferences on the one hand and, you know, just the limitations of the process. I think as long as you're honest with everyone else and yourself about that, then everyone it i hope yeah yeah i want to live in that world and the thing is like arguing about it is is actually one of the one of the best parts if like if if you can have a discussion about it about how you disagree and uh you know uh multiple perspectives on it, that's great. That's what being a fan of music is all about. But it becomes kind of a problem when it becomes authoritative, when it becomes like setting the boundaries of the canon or of the official discourse on it that starts to, I don't know. know well this is what we're this is what we're

talking about man because this is kind of what is happening in music criticism right now is sort of the books being written you know and yeah there are chapters that are just like ah we'll write it later you know they're just blank pages How many pages do you think we'll need to cover this genre when we eventually get around to it? Who knows? Who cares? Yeah. Hell yeah. Well, so what we're talking about anyway is Shuja's essay

in Popula that appeared a few weeks back titled Cannon Fodder where you say, Shuja, that, and you could feel free to correct me here, but that Pitchfork, despite its best efforts to self-criticize and feature some of the best music

writing, still doesn't take a George Jones as seriously as an LCD sound system. And... That would be fair, yeah. You just broke my fucking mind, man. So in your opinion, Shuju, what is Pitchfork trying to say

with the country music snub? Are there class implications? What's going on there? The thing that's interesting about that list right away is that they open it with like an immediate apology which is because they already did this list of like their albums of the 80s i think it was like in 2000 2002 maybe it was it was many years ago when white people were allowed to just fucking you know run rampant basically yeah it was just like every every album was by a white person with a guitar and and and you know uh lyrics that were written with a thesaurus open but uh you know so so

i felt like i wasn't doing anything that they weren't already doing themselves with the way they talked about this list, but just expanding it to what was absent on the new list, which was there was one country album on there, which was the Lucinda Williams self-titled album, which is a great album. But the blurb they had for it, which is by actually the one guy who kind of writes about country music for them on the regular, Ed Well. But he kind of, and I imagine this was an editorial decision, but he kind of talked about it as though it's like, you know, it's not completely country. It's kind of rock. It's kind of indie. And that's why it's on this list. That's Americana, buddy. Yeah. It was a real setting of a frame why people confuse themselves yeah and they were like all right americana america we love america americana well you had you had you had you had a good uh what did you

say about lucinda williams well i mean you know a lot of the americana releases they throw it into that category when it's not twangy enough for country and it has too much percussion for folk music. So they throw an Americana label on it. And sometimes it is more country than others, but it might not have a chill guitar or something. We should definitely not get sidetracked by a what is Americana conversation. I would love to hear the rest of what Shujo was saying. I would love to hear the rest of what Shujo was saying. Yeah, so it's a territorial thing, right?

It's like setting out where, you know, the limits of what we're going to talk about and what they decided not to talk about was music that's on country radio. And as you mentioned before, that that tyler had tweeted about during that period in the 1980s you know uh country music was one of the dominant forms of music that was distributed through the main channel that music was played which was radio which was people in their cars listening to radio at home uh you know even in public spaces where radio was being played uh and the funny thing is that even today that's like one of the main ways people

listen to music uh the statistics tend to show that people listen to the radio even though it's kind of a not a cutting edge technology or whatever and people still listen to country radio a hell of a lot but uh you know if you leave that off your list you're making a statement and if you want to make a statement about like there's a certain type of music we cover that's one thing and that's that's okay but i think you should be able to articulate what that is and why that is. Because there's probably either a certain set of standards that you're applying or there's just like a set of subjective preferences. Either way, there's something that that you know establishes those boundaries and

when we don't know what it is especially when it's coming from kind of an authoritative source I mean at this point you know the print magazines on music are less and less prominent you know I think spin went to online only Rolling Stone at this point does like as much politics and so on m&a amanda the source with a series of freestyles rolling stone became obsolete when they when they went to a normal sized magazine format you remember how huge rolling stone magazines were they're like fucking gigantic once they took out all the cologne ads yeah well i love listening to people say things that i agree with and that was awesome listening to you say all of that stuff it really was um one thing that i will

say just i i'm not gonna do the i'm a white guy just to play devil's advocate thing but i've had a lot of ideas adjusted in my head in the last year or so of my life. I started making this podcast about country music. And when you listen to it, you can hear all the ideas that I had about the way things were when I made it. Because I am pretty forthcoming with my thought process. And you hear that and I explain myself as well as I can. and you hear that and I explain myself as well as I can. I started making that country music podcast because like we're talking about the exclusion on these lists,

the exclusion is everywhere. It's not just in music media. It's in, you know, all media. So if you go to any, if you went to any podcast app two years ago and typed in country music, I mean, you might get some results of people who are associated with country music, sitting down and talking to each other. Um, right. You know, just a bullshit conversation, no preparation, or maybe, maybe one of them, you know, like half-ass knows a story or something, but you're not going to hear anything of anyone taking it seriously. They're not talking exclusively about country music in an informed and educational and entertaining way.

Which is definitely what the genre deserves. And no one was even trying to do that. There wasn't even a bad version of that. So that was why I felt like I should start. Even if I didn't feel like I could start. I just made myself do it. And, um, one of the reasons why I, cause I thought, well, one of the reasons why I started was I was thinking, well, why is this the case? Why are there no shows about country music? Cause there are so many great stories here. You know,

why, why isn't this a thing yet? And cause I just wanted to listen to it. And, um, because I just wanted to listen to it. And one of the reasons is, well, first of all, just age. You know, I'm younger than most people who would know as much as I know about this stuff. And another reason is you're really asking for it. You know, if you open your mouth and start making noise about country music music because it's always been treated this way. It's always been pushed to the fringe of American culture and American society. And as a result, people have very strong feelings, anti or pro, about it.

And that's the way that it always is. But if you read any book about a country music entertainer which i read a lot of them you know if you read tammy wynette's autobiography in it she'll talk about how one of the only things that'll make her mad is if someone insults country music like she'll fucking throw up she'll throw a punch you know george jones same thing like one of the george jones very famous alcoholic drug addict you know one of the things that drove that addiction was his intense stage fright and intense fear that people were going to make fun of him just because he sang country music. You know, like he was terrified of the idea of going to New York City because he was a country music entertainer. You know, there are stories of country music singers who they take stage names and people think it's so they can have a cooler name.

And people think it's so they can have a cooler name. But there are actually cases of that happening because their family, like their dad sat them down and said, you're not going to sing country music with the family name. You know, like you're not going to do that. Well, fine, I'll change my name. So this is not, you know, like the source of a problem. It is very indicative of a problem. a problem it is very indicative of a problem and uh it's country music fans are very famously contentious no matter what you say about that me just saying that someone's gonna get pissed off you know like no matter what you say about music you're gonna get hate mail you're gonna get you know so that's one of the reasons why it's like

well fuck it let's just not write about it because we can either write about it or have a comment section on our website you know well this is what's what's interesting is that like uh the question is what what was george jones uh feeling about that you know i mean this is a very successful musician who's doing fine financially. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Almost never doing fine financially, actually. Really? Yeah.

Well, yeah. In terms of his kind of like success in terms of being heard. Yeah. Well, he also, well, he's a complicated case because he also had a lot of self-doubt. He started being referred to as the best country music singer of all time while he was still alive. So that's a lot of fucking pressure when you're just trying to show up and do your job every day. Did he refer to himself as that? He was one of those, like, I'm one of the baddest motherfuckers. I don't think so.

I think he would have told you that Hank Williams Sr. was the best. And then he would have told you that he was one of those like i'm one of the best motherfuckers i don't think no no no i don't think so i think he would have told you that hank williams senior was the best and then and then he would you know i think frank sinatra called him the second best white male singer of all time it was like the second best singer in america but i think he was being like a dick ironically on purpose you know when he said that i think that was kind of a joke yeah of course i saw that yeah that's what the uh the mac judge tells from the tour bus yeah let's not talk about that that's what i was gonna say but you know i was gonna well but in general though though the the point is like why does it hurt so bad for someone like george jones when when somebody talks trash or tammy why not when somebody talks trash about country music because it's insulting who you are because it's an establishment of a kind

of like status and you know a hierarchy in in the in terms of culture and in terms of like how people form communities and how they talk you know just at the level of literally how they talk well it's prejudice it's like the thing the mean dumb you know prejudice things that people say about country music hurt for the same reason that prejudice always hurts when you're

the subject of it you know yeah sorry to get serious and put everyone out damn damn this is something I bet you guys have talked about before, is the terminology that gets used, that's associated with country music. I mean, we think of them as much more mild slurs

than most racial slurs or whatever, but hillbilly, redneck, and so on. Redneck is the really interesting one because it has such a political history you know it's also color specific yeah like it's it's also color specific you know what do you mean well like hick is not necessarily color specific what what is what is the origins of the term redneck because i've heard like like the red bandanas with the mine wars in west virginia and then i've heard other things like there's like a lot well to my knowledge there's two different ways to talk about it that makes sense one is that

it was uh coal miners who were going on strike or who were involved in the union would wear those red bandanas around their necks uh and curly bill in the movie called rednecks the other one is more vague which is just that like if you're a laborer out in the fields in the sun and you're getting sunburned yeah that's the uh you know either way like what's the association it's with you know blue collar labor yeah it's with uh you know somebody who's uh uh not enjoying the spoils of uh polite society yeah so yeah yeah it's it's a it's a way of marking a a kind of uh status and a structure of inferiority and superiority. Well, this is, and this is also, it ties into the music too, the music and the culture. People always talk about rap and country in the same conversation,

even if they're excluding stuff. I like everything except rap and country. I like that, that Shuju opened the essay up. Yeah. With that classic. Yeah. I can classic. Yeah. I can't tell you. I mean, I don't know if this is still a thing that people say or not.

I know that it wasn't a thing that people said, you know, when I was first alive. And then at a certain point, people started saying this thing. And then it kind of went away, I feel like. But yeah, for a long time, if you weren't there, when you ask someone one of the first three questions that you asked them, which is what kind of music do you like? Yeah. Cause that lets you know everything you need to know about a person. Uh,

a common answer was, you know, everything except rap and country. Yeah, totally. Well, I mean that, that was kind of the void that at the time.

And also, by the way, I only listened to rap and country the whole time that everyone was saying that. That was probably most people in America were mostly listening to rap and country, at least in the late 80s, early 90s. Cool. You don't like to go to parties. I get it. get it when pitchfork started it was like pretty explicitly in order to fill a gap between those things to like kind of create a not not just a genre but like a set of genres that uh didn't have to be associated with either one of those poles uh and and you know i think that that they kind of acknowledge this in their new list. For whatever reason, they chose to include a lot of rap, but not. Because it got cool.

Like culturally, hip hop broke through in a way that country never did. Like country almost did several times break through. You know, one of the biggest ones would have been Urban Cowboy, you know, in the 80ss which a lot of hardcore uh you know real country music fans hate that whole era but newsflash that shit's also great uh looking for love by johnny lee is a fantastic song and if you don't like it you're very wrong um yeah like it we it almost broke through there and also by the way it almost broke broke through during the era when all these, you know, country music traditionalism is so awesome. People love the most is the outlaw era. Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.

These are some of the most famous people that ever happened in country music because that was like popular as fuck. You know, that's pop country. Like these are the people who are like like i don't like pop country you know like i like country but i don't like pop country do you like george jones george jones pretty much exclusively made pop country yeah yeah on the same albums that the rolling stones were trying to do disco they were also trying to do country like listen to some girls far away eyes that song makes me very angry it's got the most ridiculous fake southern it's offensive as fuck it's offensive as fuck to me in my opinion i'm sorry i'm sorry i know

that it's like i'm about i'm not doing all lives matter right now but that song makes me very, very fucking mad. No, I mean, it's absolutely like a completely stereotypical, you know, impersonation vaudeville routine. What about ACDC's Let There Be Rock? Bon Scott goes, and you can hear them, fingers picking. I don't know. I think Australians get a pass right yeah first of all that entire continent is country as right they are they're definitely all we also uh hillbillies and Australians alike both say Rick and uh-huh they're the only that's true. You know, with the redneck term, there's polarity to it. People use it as a way to offend people, but then there's 5,000.

You go to any small town festival and there's 5,000 shirts and flags and shit that say redneck and proud. Well, that's the very famous thing is that you can't racially insult a white person. Like if you call me a cracker I'm gonna laugh at you. It's like dude like how did you even like what old person told you that that was a word that you could say to me because clearly you heard that

from an old person. What are the worst white slurs you can think of? Let's go. Let's get fucking real right now. Anyone? I don't know I mean What are the worst white slurs you can think of? Let's go. Let's get fucking real right now. Anyone. I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's really been reclaimed the way Redneck has or Hillbilly. Yeah.

Yeah. That's never really been a thing in country music. Incorporate that. Peckerwood. Peckerwood would be. Peckerwood's a good one. Terrence has one he's not saying. Because all he's said since I said everyone say him is, oh, man.

Well, you know, generally, as a podcast producer, any time you go down the road of listing slurs, you're going to, it doesn't matter. It's a slippery slope. It's a slippery slope. They're pouring grease down it. We can do it for, listen, if you guys, I'll just say them.

No, I'm white. I can say any white person slur that we want to. I'll say anyone, like write it down, like write it down and show it to the camera if you know one that you don't want to say i'll say all of them tom get us back okay

so shuja in the essay this idea of canonization is sort of the central theme and can you say more about that in the context of like like cultural, like in this era of listicles and content aggregation as like cultural criticism? Yeah, I mean, you know, the kind of authority that's conveyed through canonization. I mean, originally it comes because it is a religious concept you know it's saints are what are what who originally canonized but uh you know then we we get it in in the the history of english literature primarily uh or european literature in general um and i think we start to have that applied to popular culture uh in the 20th century in two ways. One is through, you know, auteur theory and talking about cinema.

And the other is through the moment in the history of rock music when they started when rock criticism emerged and they started to apply the way of talking about literature to rock, when Bob Dylan and the Beatles started to adopt certain characteristics of modern literature. So you had people talking about it in the way you'd talk about Shakespeare and so on. Just as an aside real quick, where did you land on the whole Bob Dylan getting the Nobel Prize for literature thing? Listen, I got to tell you, I'm not a Bob Dylan fan. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

I love that. I'm with you, man. I'm supporting you. No, I love that. I love that. I'm with you, man. I'm supporting you. No, I love that. Listen, I mean, did you guys read his, it was not the Nobel speech, which apparently was plagiarized from the Sparknotes or Moby Dick. Yeah, he did that on purpose. Holy shit.

You're talking about the Music Cares speech with the Tom T. Hall thing? Well, I think it was at the American Association of Retired People. I don't think you're supposed to say that word anymore what retired yeah oh shit was that a was that a white people racial story you're not supposed to say retired anymore i think so anyway look look he gave this speech and he he made a point of trash talking merle haggard in that speech yeah that's the same Tom T. Hall speech. The Music Cares Person of the Year Award is what he got. And he makes fun of Tom T. Hall. And, yeah, I cannot believe.

First of all, Merle Haggard is a better songwriter than Bob Dylan is, for sure. And a better singer. 101%. And a way better guitar player. And a much better guitar player and a much better guitar player I mean like any so here's something shoot you go like this here's something I always say is there have been more bad books written about Bob Dylan than there have been good books written about the entire genre of country music anyone in the genre of country music there

have been more bad books written about Bob Dylan in the entire fucking library of country music anyone in the genre of country music there have been more bad books written about bob dylan in the entire fucking library of country music that's a statistical fact it's true it's not even i'm not even just quantified yeah real marcus wrote a whole book about one bob dylan song a whole book about like a rolling stone he wrote two huge books that i'm gonna have to read someday about Elvis Presley. I don't know how many words it is. It's like 10,000 pages or something on Elvis Presley. That's nuts, man.

For basically a covers artist. Sweet, dude. Way to shake your ass and sing black people music. And pretend to play the guitar. I'm an Elvis ap apologist oh my god wow i don't know you know the only thing that the only uh um redeeming quality of elvis is that he probably did more drugs than most human beings ever will i love how much of a fan of good music he was i love how much of a fan of great music he was and i wish that his fame translated into more fame for the artist who originally

did what he was doing and I do realize that he did I mean well first I respect his adoration of great music and I do feel like he was probably genuinely mostly a decent person which is is fucking rare for someone as successful in this industry as Elvis Presley was. That's very rare to be a decent person. Oftentimes fame will transform a decent person. There's a documentary about

Chuck Berry called Hail Hail Rock and Roll. Not a decent person. Yeah, Chuck Berry's actually kind of a piece of shit the mid-80s there's a scene where where little richard and beau diddly are talking about elvis and they basically say like you know we we loved elvis he was doing the same kind of shit we were doing but also what the fuck you know yeah that uh that he was elevated to this place and you know we were uh not seeing a dime well what what i what that that's actually what i did want to say about elvis is that he did result in a lot of money if he recorded someone's

songs like if you had if you had writer's credit on a song that Elvis cut, you're set. You literally could retire just because Elvis recorded your song. And that's awesome, especially now when we live in 2018, where it's damn near impossible to support yourself as just a career songwriter. Also compared to fucking Led Zeppelin, who just took the credit for writing those songs. Do you want to go there with me right now? Where they used the Howlin' Wolf riffs. Not only all the bluesmen that he ripped off, there's so many obscure rock and roll bands of the same era

that they just completely, completely stole their songs and never gave them any credit. It's insane. Plug. They were like the Walmart of rock bands at the time, and they just closed all the small business. We got to plug all the little bar bands. They just ran all the small business tower and said, how the mom and pop story.

Dude, we just layered like several tangents on top of each other. What I think is beautiful is the most recent podcast of, or the most recent episode of my other podcast that I make, it's called Your Favorite Band Sucks, which is, you can find it at YFBSpod.com. The most recent episode is on how much Led Zeppelin sucks very specifically for doing what all y'all just started joking about. So, by the way, if you're a fan of music, I think you would love this podcast because it's just like a bunch of music nerds just sitting around talking shit, much like this conversation you're already listening to. Right. So, yeah, thank you. So, Shujit, you write in the essay that growing up, you thought of country music as the absolute worst the culture had to offer. It was just not sophisticated.

There was more to life, I thought, than pickup trucks and cheap beer. Well, there's more to country music than pickup trucks and cheap beer. But the first layer of skin you get to is pickup trucks and cheap beer. Well, I think this is something that you wrote, though, right, Susan? Like, this is just... Yeah, but once within an ivory tower face to face with the heights of insularity and elitism i felt differently would you just say a little bit more about that suju yeah no so i i mean i do think that when you're uh you know an impressionable

youth you're very affected by uh you know, social boundaries. And for me, you know, as a young, you know, child of immigrants growing up in a majority white, you know, town, I felt generally alienated from the local culture. generally uh alienated from the local culture but um eventually i think i think what happened was that i was always a music fan i was mostly a rock music fan and i started to realize that all the stuff that i really like in rock music uh when you added them up those characteristics like uh that weren't weren't pervasive in rock music. They were just, like, kind of, like,

the stuff that I really liked would have them. That stuff is, like, literally added up, and that describes country music. Can we get some examples? It's, like, the kind of, like, the sound of twang, you know? Like, that's just one intuitive thing. Like the Eagles? You big Eagles fan?

No. Then what are we talking about? No, I was a huge fan of like, for example, like the Kinks, a lot of Power Pop, Big Star and shit like that. Do you like the DBs? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it was like when I heard what you could call twang i always gravitated towards that that's a subjective thing but there's also like things that are more uh uh

you know uh kind of things that have more depth like i think uh just the the aspect of narrative in song the the emphasis on wordplay and the ambiguity of language. Like I was really, you know, connected to that. And literally that's what you turn to country music for. I don't know of any genre of popular song as in like music and lyrics that like kind of expects you to listen to the lyrics as much you know if if you're a listener to like uh i don't know my bloody valentine or whatever you may not even know what the words are i don't know what the words are and i like those records yeah oh they're great yeah but yeah you're not supposed to know what they're saying

we're very specifically attacking one of the favorite bands of the one person in this room that doesn't have a microphone, by the way. I'm not even attacking them. I'm just saying that's not, you know, it's not the main thing. But like when, when you listen to George Jones, you're, you know, you're listening to his incredible voice, but you're also listening to like, what is the story he's telling? And I don't know, that was really meaningful for me. Most of the stories that you hear of musicians that you would primarily associate with blues or even jazz music, there are stories that you'll hear of these people.

Like Charlie Parker is one, you know, he goes over to a jukebox, pumps a bunch of quarters. with blues or even jazz music there are stories that you'll hear of these people like charlie parker is one you know he goes over to a jukebox pumps a bunch of quarters in there and dials up exclusively country music and someone's like bird what the fuck like why and he's like listen to the stories man like this is this is good shit you know yeah well let me ask you that tyler because obviously you grew up the son of one of the biggest figures in the genre hank williams hank talking to hank williams four right yeah we got four baby what was that what was that you seeing how the sausage is made what was your formative experiences like with that uh well it's really crazy we talked

a little bit earlier about uh the pop or one of the popular takes on the urban cowboy era of country music is that it did it wasn't good you know but um a lot of people who would say that would also say that my father made the some of the best country music albums ever and these would be people who like you know real country music man I like the the hardcore traditional stuff which sidebar here that's always funny to me I have a lot of books about country music and in one of them it's like the Encyclopedia of country music or something like that there's a list in the back of you know it's sort of trying to classify different country artists and there's one list in the back of you know it's sort of trying to classify

different country artists and there's one list the heading of it is progressive country and everyone in it it's a list of everyone that now all all the only word you see with them is traditional like Guy Clark like progressive country Guy Clark David Allen Coe you knowve earl you know this is progressive country because at the time it was wild and crazy because if you go back and listen to waylon jennings if you if you say the word outlaw country to someone there's no unified sound if you say waylon jennings to someone well half his shit sounds like soul music to me you know and all of it has like way too much phaser on the guitar it's well i mean my dad

did that a lot too but that's what i was gonna say is my dad's out my dad's albums were produced by billy sheryl and billy sheryl is a person who these same that's not real country music i don't like it people they would say that he ruined country music and but that's fucking dumb because this guy produced take this job and shove it billy cheryl produced take this job and shove it which is like one of the top three songs of this entire subgenre and it's also straight up just stripped down bar country like it's that's everyone has their own country buddy that's country as i know i know that we're not supposed to mention uh the tales from the tour bus but i kind of got a little misty-eyed when Johnny Paycheck showed up

with the Harlan County Minors and just hit the take this job. Oh, yeah. That was fucking sweet. That was pretty badass. Strong moment. Hey, but you're on the other end. Did any of you see, there's this documentary that I saw it on YouTube. I don't know if it's still up there, but of the country album country album that elvis costello did oh buddy produced by billy yeah let's talk about that right

now damn i didn't know about this because that shit is incredible because you can see him immediately regretting they fucking hate each other yeah they fucking hate each other you can tell because it's like these these four british guys who are just like completely on talentless paranoid out of their head talentless billy cheryl just fucking with their heads word go and they cannot handle it my favorite part of that whole documentary is when the crew who obviously can see what's happening they have they're out on a boat with Billy Sherrill because that's what Billy Sherrill did.

When you're white trash and you get money, you buy a boat. That's true. So Billy Sherrill spent a lot of time out on a boat. And so the crew's out there with him on the boat. And by the way, Billy would always tell the story of like, yeah, he obviously hated working on this album and he would talk about it.

And he was like, yeah, I couldn't wait to get out on my boat and sure enough i get on the boat and i look over and who do i see elvis costello also on a boat on the lake with me you know but but yeah so they have the cameras on the lake with him and that's when they're asking him so billy do you think this album's gonna be good which also that's not a fucking question that comes up in a normal documentary no one would ever ever ask anyone that do you think this album's going to be good like no i'm just gonna i'm just gonna like wasting all of my time and shit to make a shitty album the only reason you would ask that question is if you know the person you're asking if they were honest that the answer would be no. And you just want to see what the fuck they come up with to lie.

And so, yeah. So Billy Sherrill is like, well, it depends. I mean, people have different definitions of the word good, you know. He goes full Bill Clinton on it. Depends on what your definition of the word is is. Yeah, that's right. Full Bill Clinton. The word is is. Yeah, that's right. Full Bill Clinton.

I was actually, that reminds me, I was going to ask if any of you had seen, because actually, Tyler, you mentioned in your Okie from Muskogee episode when Bill Maher talks about that song. Yeah, he's a fucking idiot, right? When Merle Haggard was on bill maher's show yeah i never knew that when did that happen i don't know what it was years ago but it was so weird because because they uh clearly have such different ideas about what's gonna happen like bill maher is ready to like have some you know culture war shit happening and like shame merle for being like you know so

voting against his own interests yeah but listen listen merle comes on and he says and you can tell like he rehearsed this like he was planning to come on and say this and he says hello friends and conservatives and then he cracks up just to himself so So he had decided to come on and announce to everybody, I am not a conservative. And Bill Maher just purely doesn't get it and just goes into his kind of canned culture war routine. Yeah, he's a cock. Yeah.

Yeah, just another example of like people deciding for Merle what he thought no he's a shit cool go ahead sorry we were talking I was asking if they regularly praise Bill Maher on this podcast or something I didn't know if I was just

like shit talking he's gonna be on the next episode no you're good. You're good. Season three opener. Damn, well, we've got about an hour of audio here. Well, let's, to put a bow on it here, Shruji, and to close out the essay, you had this list, and we kind of got a little ahead of ourselves at the first, and we're like rattling off some picks on there. So was i just for the uninitiated out there that might have listened to this could you kind of touch on maybe some of your favorites there and then tyler maybe you could uh

can i see the list plug in a couple that uh well um the first thing for me that comes to mind uh for 80s countries actually for me it's george straight because he put out like an album practically every year and they were all good uh and he did such a range of styles from like uh you know 50s style honky tonk to like you know 30s 40s style western swing. And even like kind of like pop crossover stuff that's actually pretty good, in my opinion. That's what Terrence said yesterday at lunch when we were preparing for this. He was like, George Strait kind of ran the 80s a little bit.

But then what was your criticism of the slide guitar? It had a lot of chorus on it. Oh, I mean, that's just an 80s thing in every genre. We're getting pretty granular here. They put a lot of chorus on it. They were trying to throw some post-punk influence on there to hopefully get on this list one day. Okay, so you got George Strait who put out a bunch of great shit,

and then you have the the first like i think three three randy travis albums that i had trouble choosing from you have the first three or four dwight yokum albums i also had trouble choosing one uh there's several uh rosanne cash albums that are all good by the way a lot of these people that you're talking about i mean if we're being honest some of these artists would have multiple albums in the best oh absolutely you know totally i just said you're trying to be you're trying to be inclusive and i fully understand that i mean i'm looking at this and i can't i mean i guarantee you there is someone that like i could go home and look at my record collection but off the top of my head i'm looking at this and i'm just like yeah this dude gets it you know

let's talk about some maybe more unusual ones actually cause one that I would name that I know you guys have noticed is the Keith Whitley record which came out the one I chose came out after he died

and it's one of the first albums to feature Brent Mason as a guitar player uh who uh went on to play with Alan Jackson and then probably literally everyone in the 1990s yeah super important musician yeah one of the people who defined the sound of country music in that era uh another one is uh Joe Ellie's live album that I picked Which was It's Joe Ely Oh man Joe Ely sorry yeah Joe Ely's a hometown hero of Lubbock Texas Where I was born

Lubbock Texas Hell yeah That was when he was That was when he was on tour opening for The Clash Wow And so he is going like as hard as he can on that one I'm looking at my own list here and trying to decode it but uh but before we get too far away from keith whitley i just want to insert yeah my favorite little

piece of uh did you have any alabama on here no oh buddy is that 80s or is that 90s a little 90s so i'm bad at i I mean, people think I'm like a walking, I can cite dates and names and everything, and I'm not. I have to look everything I say up. Alabama might be 90s. Well, between the two of y'all, y'all might be able to shed some light. Have you ever heard that

Keith Whitley III is actually, or excuse me, that Keith Whitley Jr. is actually. Yeah, let me just go on record right now as definitively saying, I have no idea what you're talking about. You know, I thought the Dwight Yoakam pick

was really cool. I mean, you just straight up picked your favorite one out of that because Hillbilly Deluxe is a perfect album. Yeah, it should be on there. You do kind of have to go. If there was a top 500 album. I like that because because hillbilly deluxe is a perfect yeah it should be on you do kind of have to go if there was a top 500 hillbilly deluxe because most people said guitar is cadillacs but i love hillbilly deluxe that one's got hillbilly some very class-conscious songs on them reading right in route 23 and and pete anderson's uh guitar playing it's like a master class in the most tasteful guitar solo of country solo.

Oh, Pete Anderson. Yeah. So another thing that that reminds me of is the Rosie Flores self-titled album, which is Pete Anderson produced. She's fantastic. It has this incredible song that I mentioned in the piece by Harlan Howard and somebody else whose name I should be able to remember, but I can't. But yeah, that's a great record. Very much in the same mold of kind of like rockabilly country kind of middle ground. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, do you guys have a, did you read the list and think of anything?

I honestly, well, like people think that i enjoy sitting around and like arguing about like you should like this more than you like that you you you actually do but i i don't give a fuck about like if you like clearly no it's for real like i look at this list and i'm like dude me and this guy could get drunk you know i'm looking at this yeah yeah well that's why that's why we know? I'm looking at this list. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Well, that's why we're here. Yeah. I looked at this list.

I was like, fuck yeah, I'll talk to that guy. They're like, do you want to talk to him? Oh, yeah. Yes, exactly. You know, my problem with it is, okay, so you can include pretty much every fucking 80s Metallica album and every Smiths album, one of them being a fucking compilation album, but you can't put Hibbley Deluxe or some other classic masterwork. Just some small... Like the George Jones I Am One Album.

I don't even... First of all, at this point, the only reason to publish a list of anything is just to get clicks, man. Right. You're probably trying to make everyone mad. Absolutely. And if country music fans are the ones that are easiest to make mad, how do you make them mad?

Just fucking don't even talk about them. Look at what we're doing right now. I can't believe there was this. This is how Donald Trump became president, folks. I can't believe this symphony's album wasn't on there. It was top 10 list. No, I mean, people sitting around and complaining about him you know Pitchfork knows what the fuck they're doing I'm gonna I'm gonna make two points one is that you know this this is actually

something that I pointed out in the piece was was that when Pitchfork kind of emerged it always seemed to be more about uh establishing a consensus than it was about sharing new information or trying to expose you to an artist you hadn't heard before it was about kind of figuring out like what do we collectively think those of us who have good taste what should we say about this music well pitchfork wasn't pitchfork isn't just music criticism and i mean i should say i mean like pitchfork wrote an article about my country music podcast i talked to steven dusner he was fantastic pitchfork i mean i i have nothing you know actually negative to say about pitchfork you know but it should be said that in this conversation that it's not just straight-up music criticism it's music criticism plus you know it's music

criticism plus personality you know music criticism plus here's a hot button you know to push or whatever like dude we were talking about this before we recorded I recently found for something else I had to do. I found a review of a Stone Temple Pilots album by the founder of Pitchfork. And it was, it was on, it was for Pitchfork and it was a guy who founded the website Pitchfork. And this review of an STP album ends with the founder of Pitchfork telling Scott Weiland how relaxing and nice and just relieving and get rid of all the stress it would be

for him to intentionally overdose and die. And this was late 90s, early 2000s. First of all, that's way over the line, folks. That's not what music criticism is for. We're not here to tell people to kill themselves, especially when they're fucking drug addicts. That's not what music criticism is for. We're not here to tell people to kill themselves. Your album sucks, but you can remain alive.

Especially when they're fucking drug addicts. Especially when they're drug addicts. We are not here to tell them to kill themselves. Imagine if someone did that to Amy Winehouse. I'll make an exception for the essay where Lester Bangs told James Taylor to kill himself. I'm going to let him off the hook for that one. Find me a review where someone tells Amy Winehouse while she was alive

that they would love it if she killed if she intentionally overdosed and died find me that review but this is this is that website this is the voice that that website was founded on you know people also forget how Vice was founded by the way I mean it's a super respectable thing now but Jesus

well they both moved away from that I mean Pitchfork at this point I think is owned by Conde Nast it's a super respectable thing now, but Jesus. Well, they both moved away from that. I mean, Pitchfork at this point, I think, is owned by Condé Nast. It's a very established institutional publication, and that's why they have a lot of good shit there. Tell that to Action Bronson. The best writers, you know? I don't know. They reviewed those Thrumack albums,

and I had a little bit of trouble seeing CCR's Cosmos Factory get an 8.8. It should have at least got a 9.5. Well, I'm going to shout out, I think it was John Lingen who wrote that, who just wrote a great book about country music called Homeplace. The review is great. But I don't think the writers get to choose those scores. Yeah, no, the review is great. On Twitter, he said that, yeah, the writers don't get to choose the scores.

I guess the editors choose them. But it was, like, the way he described it, it did sound like he wanted it to have been a 10. Yeah, yeah. It should have been a 10 or a 9. I mean, you know, well, whatever. Yeah, I like that. Shout out to John. I like John.

Shout out to John. Yeah, John's coming to our first live show in Wattsburg. And John just released a book called Homeplace that I have and have not read yet. Well, actually, I reviewed that book for Book Forum, and I loved it. Nice. So you can check that out. I'm just going to say this. This was my thing that I didn't want to forget was that if you're someone who likes the albums on that pitchfork list and are curious about country

music, I would say start with, with the Mekons, uh, who I put the album fear and whiskey on my list. There's also one called honky Tonkin where they cover a John Anderson song. Uh, you know, I mean, there's, there's a country music has influences in a lot of that music that still gets covered in those places. And that kind of angle may not be that visible, but it's there. So, you know, you can still find a channel to it. Hell yeah. Dude, you and me are friends now. Do you have social media stuff?

What's your social media? Let me follow you. Yeah, I just follow you on Twitter. Okay. Are you on Instagram? Yes. Please leave this in the episode, guys. Say your fucking screen name to people, dude.

For real. Shuja X Hater. It's my name with an X in the middle. Hell yeah. Well, we're at about time. Before we close out, do you guys have anything you'd like to plug really quick? I'm going to plug season two of Cocaine and Rhinestones. really quick that i'm gonna plug season two of cocaine and rhinestones uh and i'm not gonna ask when it's coming out because i feel like you refuse to answer that question but well it'll

just be oh i already follow you on twitter sweet um no it's yeah it's gonna be a little while i gotta write it still i mean it'll be a couple few months it'll be fucking worth it though i mean i'm just gonna say you know you know cocaine and rhinestones is the only podcast I've ever heard that cites its sources out loud. Isn't that such an important thing that people don't do not not for hours This is scholarly. Okay. Yeah Why just I think it's bullshit to say well, there are so many things like let me tell you a story It's like okay motherfucker who told you that? you a story well it's like it's like okay who told you that story

ira glass cite your sources i'm serious i wouldn't know like well because well my relationship with media my relationship coming from the country music world i mean neil fucking strauss published johnny rebel lyrics in the new york times and told the english-speaking world that my dad wrote them so that's been my life oh jesus yeah so so yeah when reporters want to like interview me and shit i'm just like cool what do you want to talk about and you know i'm sure that's what they want to talk like let's let's clear some questions first real fast you know i mean let's just some shit like this where i just know y'all are fine and everything but i've been i've had a very i would say distrustful relationship with the media for most of my life because i just assume that they want

to make fun of me or find something crazy about me to tell everyone about. Look at this fucking shit. And you're like forced in the spotlight without any decision. Well, my dad did that. Well, no, I mean, but regardless, you know, he was... My dad put my baby pictures

on his album covers, man. Right. That has got to be pretty fucking weird. Yeah. You know, even if you weren't... That's a different episode. We don't have time

to get into that well hell yeah well thanks so much guys thanks shuja for uh for giving us uh more than we even signed you up for yeah man this was awesome thank you so much oh yeah thanks for having pleasure my friend thanks for helping us set up here in beautiful nashville tennessee i don't know how much longer we'll be able to do this kind of shit but yeah anytime you want me around i'll be there hell yeah well thanks guys and uh let's do it again sometime soon for sure all right yeah see you soon thanks man see ya tumble out of bed and i stumble to the kitchen pour myself a cup of ambition and Shooting, yawning, stretching Trying to come to life

Jump in the shower And the blood starts pumping out on the street Traffic starts jumping with folks like me On the job from nine to five Working nine to five What a way to make a living, barely getting by. It's all taken and no giving, they just use your mind and they never give you credit. It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it.

95 for service and devotion. You would think that I would deserve a fair promotion. Wanna move ahead, but the boss won't seem to let me. ahead but the boss won't seem to let me i swear sometimes that man is out to get me they let you dream just to watch him shatter you just a step on the boss man's ladder but you've got dreams they'll never take away you're in the same boat as a lot of your friends waiting for the day a ship will come in and the tide's going to turn and it's all going to roll your way. I'm working nine to five. What a way to make a living. I'm barely getting by.

It's all taken and no giving They just use my mind And they never give me credit It's enough to drive me crazy If I let it 95 for service and devotion You would think that I would deserve a fair promotion

Wanna move ahead, but the boss won't seem to let me I swear sometimes that man is out to get me Nine to five, what a way to make a living Barely getting by It's all taken and no giving They just use your mind And they never give you credit It's enough to drive you crazy If you let it

Nine to five Yeah, they got you where they want you There's a better life And you think about it, don't you? It's a rich man's game No matter what they call it And you spend your whole life Putting money in his wallet