Modern Country Music: What is shit and what isn't?

I'll begin by being very straightforward. These country artists are for the most part complete shit:

Luke Bryan

Thomas Rhett

Florida Georgia Line

Tim McGraw (he is the better singer though)

Sam Hunt

Blake Shelton

Jason Aldean

Overblown commercial production, auto-tuned vocals, crappy lyrics about drinking, partying, getting laid, wearing blue jeans, and being heartbroken, but in a cheesy way and borderline unintelligent way, if that makes sense. Also, these country artists do not write their own songs, for the most part.

These are artists that are in between shit and good:

Dierks Bentley

Keith Urban
Frankie Ballard

Brad Paisley

Little Big Town

Songs are decent, although they do succumb to the production style of mainstream production, but they are not that bad. Dierks Bentley also has great credibility from working with the Del McCoury Band, and he does co-write many of his songs. Brad Paisley is a great guitarist and his songs are very cheeky, in a good way, MOST of the time. Keith Ubran is also a great guitarist, and his ballads are good, while not the most lyrically interesting, are still heartfelt enough in the performance for the listener to get something out of it. Little Big Town and Frankie Ballard do not succumb so much to the mainstream country overproduction, but the music is good and while the song subjects are kind of cliche, the choice of words makes it more subtle, leaving plenty of breathing 

Now here are the modern country artists that are the REAL DEAL:

Kacey Musgraves

Chris Stapleton

Eric Church

Ashley Monroe

The Band Perry

Andrew Combs

Great musicians that write great songs. Eric Church is definitely the most commercial sounding of the bunch, but his songs have substance and are very heartfelt, and he is singing about more real life subject matters, general everyday life things and emotions everybody experiences. This also applies to Kacey Musgraves, although on a much more down to earth level. Here songs are funny, clever, heartfelt, and genuine. 

Chris Stapleton is another fine example, although he writes about different things, but he does in an interesting way and he is also a phenomenal singer. Ashley Monroe is Vince Gill's protege, and it really shows. She's a great singer that writes really good songs with plenty of heart and substance. 

I'm going to skip over the Band Perry and talk about a brand new up and coming country/Americana artist Andrew Combs. I check out some of his stuff on youtube and it's absolutely fantastic. Great songs, great voice, great sound. You must check him out. I'll post a few links below:

"Nothing To Lose"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-glNfzYm7Q

"Emily"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seI62ppjSmg

"She's The Only"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZtB9RQx1IU

"Suwannee County"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwiHtYcd2r8

To conclude this rant, I have to say that 2015 has been a very good year for country music, and I mean REAL country music. I've never been very enthusiastic about any current country artists, but the artists in this past year have really caught my attention. The truly best country artists have been very successful in album sales, gaining great recognition from critics, and developing a great fan base follow form the public. I guess one more thing I would like to address is why are artists like Chris Stapleton and Kacey Musgraves so great compared to the bigger mainstream hitmakers. And when I think about it, it really comes down to one word:

SUBSTANCE

Substance exist on two levels. The first the content of the song: the subject matter, the lyrics overall, and the musical style. Musical style also relates to the second level which is for lack of better words, where you come from: musical influences, the way you were brought up, approach to songwriting and being an artist and a human being in general. For the country artists that are SHIT, you can tell they do it to make a BIG living, to sell records, to make money, to play the big stadiums, the fame and glory in general. The Real Deal country artists make the music they make not to make money, but simply for the love of playing music and writing songs that resonate with audiences on deeper levels. They write from the heart all the way down to their sleeves, to their instruments, to the microphone, on stage, to their audience. They are communicating emotions and thoughts that everyone, or most people, have gone through and can relate to, either directly or indirectly. And that is what true country music is all about: letting out the emotions that every day people experience, the good times, the tragedies, and everything in between, simply, life.