'I'll Have The Vanilla, Please'

By Scott Coner

Country Artist

         Yesterday (35 years ago), music had depth. It always seemed, to me at least, to be taking us somewhere different. Today, I find myself less taken back with most of it. The other day I heard Adele's new release, "Hello", and it touched a deeper chord. Last summer, Eric Church caught my attention with "Wrecking Ball", and a year ago, Alt-J blew me away with "Left Hand Free". The trouble is, I have listened to an awful lot of music in between. A while back, I talked about really liking the newest double album by Warren Haynes, but you probably won't hear his material on the radio, and the radio is what I'm really talking about. If you get off the beaten path, you can still find some things of value.

         I find myself wondering why radio has settled for such normalcy. I read quite a lot about the business, its artists, and music history, and it always hasn't been this way. Even though I was just a small child in the '60s, I still remember music from that moment. I just wasn't old enough to attempt to grasp what was actually happening in that moment. The '60s obviously got off to an amazing start with The Beatles, and I wonder what it must have felt like to have heard their sound for the first time. There were so many artists just blowing the doors open I couldn't begin to list. Glen Campbell was one of those people, one of those sounds that I have grown up with that always seems classy and fresh. Herb Alpert is another. Consider George Jones or even Willie Nelson. "The Red Headed Stranger" was truly a gift if you ask me. 

Country artist Scott Coner works on his Indiana farm (Photo by Cyndi Coner)

         Maybe, today's radio releases only mirror society's drab, unexciting culture. The investors in radio, the people that purchase ad time, are looking for sheep, not out-of-the-box thinkers. They want their radio ads to target car buyers with bad credit. Ad purchasers want to promote their products to a "C" curve of our society instead of a smaller listening crowd that enjoy Lucinda Williams or Chris Knight. As with everything, our culture is driven by the dollar bill. Radio is a perfect example.

         I suppose what I am hoping you will do is to look around a little bit. I don't know how or where you should look, but you found me didn't you? By the way, I wonder how you found me?  I challenge you to take control of the music you listen to and step away from the vanilla flavor of our current world. The low-information crowd must be willing to eat whatever they are given and like it, but that doesn't mean we have to. If we dig deep, we can find music that we can identify with. It just shouldn't require so much energy to find music with power and depth. And if you find something that really shakes your world, let me know because I'm bored to death.

         Scott Coner is a country artist who has recorded with legendary country artists such as Tanya Tucker, T. Graham Brown and Charlie Daniels. You can learn more about him and hear his music at www.ScottConer.com, www.Facebook.com/ScottConerMusic, or www.YouTube.com/user/ScottConer.

Scott Coner: 'I Have Always Thought of Country Music as a Self-Cleaning Oven'

By Scott Coner
Country Artist

         When I was a kid, I remember a lot of people complained about the condition of country music. Some people, my mom included, thought some artists seemed to emphasize a honky-tonk, alcoholic, divorce-fused landscape called country music.

         Country music was simpler back then, and so was the world. The early 1970s country music market was primarily driven by AM radio, 8-track tapes, and "Hee-Haw". I remember riding with my dad to Kentucky in our new black, Ford LTD listening to Tom T. Hall sing about old dogs and children on an 8-track tape. I remember hearing Tammy Wynette sing about D-I-V-O-R-C-E. I remember Barbi Benton on "Hee-Haw", and I think maybe she sang, but I'm not sure. I was kind of taken back by her attributes. (I was a true fan.)

         The whole Outlaw movement had come to life by this time, but there was more to it than that. By then, I was into Firefall, CDB, Marshall Tucker, Skynyrd, Hank Jr., and so many others. Music was special back then because the artists all had their own sound. That sound was special then and still is today, but that was my world. My very simple, little, small-town world. Things change.

         These days, I hear a lot of people putting down today's country music. I can't say that I love everything on the radio, but I certainly don't hate it. As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don't like Eric Church's "Wrecking Ball", then you must be a little bit stupid. Music changes with the times, and it always has. I'm a little bit older now, and maybe the whole bro-country thing doesn't apply to me, but sometimes when nobody is looking, I like to sing along with Nelly: "Baby you a song, you make me want to roll my windows down and cruise."

         I guess what I'm trying to say is that if there is a real problem in country music, it's just that we don't have enough radio formats to meet all of our musical pallets. So many of the older country music legends that I have heard complaining about today's radio format during interviews used to dominate the airwaves, and they weren't complaining then. 

         Country music will, and is, beginning to change. I have always thought of country music as a self-cleaning oven. It just kind of shifts back and forth in its own rhythm. The truth is, there is no problem here. Country music is still the king where I live and always will be.

(To learn more about country artist Scott Coner, visit www.ScottConer.com. You can like his Facebook page at ScottConerMusic and follow him on Twitter @ScottConer.)