Nine Hours of Country Music = RANT

Dealing with a small stack of paper work should be expected when starting a new job. This is usually taken care of on the first day of work, but mine was on the seventh (yesterday). I read through the typical forms--the company policies, the work duties, the sexual harassment forms, etc, and it was during this time that I found out it was a requirement that music be softly played through the store's intercom system during all open business hours. Yes, it is an official company policy to have music playing. That was interesting, but not as interesting as the selection of music I have heard thus far during my pawn shop career.

The day's genre seems to be decided by spinning a wheel because there is no coherent theme or tone I have yet been able to detect in the store's music. There has been Top 40 Hits, rock that I probably would not have played in a work place (Rob Zombie songs with long stretches of sex noises in them), traditional Irish music, but today I was subjected to nine hours of country music.

My parents listen to nothing but country, so I've had a lot of exposure to it growing up, and I have respect for a lot of country artists. And even though I don't purposefully listen to country music, there is a very little, hardly worth mentioning, microscopic swelling in my heart when George Straight, Garth Brooks, or Reba McEntire infiltrate my eardrums. That small group of singers aside, I find the majority of country to be so bad that it's almost physically painful to listen to. The most offensive kinds of country music are the pop/rock/country cross-genre and the overly sentimental songs. Rascal Flatts can go to hell and I don't want to hear about how where you come from rain is a good thing because it makes whiskey producing corn that ultimately gets your woman drunk and feeling a little frisky. I don't want to hear about how much you loved learning how to drive with your father, and I sure as hell don't want to put up with country singers who are delusional enough to think they're rockstars. There are some very good country songs out there, but the majority are too wrapped up in either feeling sorry about something, being sentimental to the point where most normal people should want to vomit, or trying to make their music appeal to wider audiences so they can make more money (cough--Taylor Swift--cough). Of course, this all is just my opinion and personal taste in music, but I hope there will not be another country music day for a long time. I'm not sure I could take it.