Kids and their damn country music

It's been a while since I've picked up a CD, so I thought, given the fact nothing of interest has caught my attention over the airwaves, I'd run down to my local Target and see what the "new release" rack had to offer. I do this on a regular basis, actually, but I thought I'd begin this rant by painting you a picture with my elegant words. I hope they were poetic enough to do the trick.

Anyway, after laughing at the latest offerings from Garth Brooks, Godsmack (celebrating ten years? Way to cash in on four mediocre CDs, boys) and the like, I decided it was high time I complain about something that's been ticking me off longer than Godsmack's apparently epic career. Given the recent videogame review debacle, the topic of authenticity weighs heavy on my mind as of late. This is something lacking in music in general.

Let's begin with the boy bands. Now that the N'Sync and BSB craze has died down, what I find most entertaining are these prefab groups coming out nowadays using the exact same tactics, only now they target a completely different audience. The genius of this is the fact those emo/goth kids who pretended to vomit every time "Bye Bye Bye" came on are now the ones locked away in their dark rooms with Fallout Boy posters on the walls, quietly weeping because, gosh darn it, these guys are so real and truly get what they, such a unique and troubled teen, are going through.

I'm not knocking the goth/emo lifestyles here but...Okay, yes I am. But again, that's for another post.

Now on to rap and country and we'll call it quits for the night. You've got rugged model rejects from New York belting out fake southern drawls about life on the range and drinking sweet tea with Peggy Sue to crappy soft rock hooks (a little fiddle in the background makes it authentic, it turns out) and no-talent gangsta' wannabes talking about smackin' hoes and shootin' some bitches when they have no idea what it's like to grow up on the streets, much less what it's like to have a gun pulled on them. The only crime they've ever been guilty of is writing lyrics that don't make sense to even themselves and then conning folks into believing that, when combined with the latest boom-chickie-boom-boom beat they ripped from some other artist, it passes as legitimate music. "Let's get retarded in here" says it best.

I could go on for hours about the silly hairstyles that destroy depth perception, the gold freaking grills and the Corona "cowboy" hats, but there's no way anyone would want to listen to me for that long. What about you guys? Any music trends pissing you off?