“Country music is boring and all the same,” a student said. In general, it seems the main belief at SDA is that country music is bad.

The strangest thing is that most students who  were asked why they didn’t like country music simply did not know. Is there a natural westernized prejudice against country? Or is our idea of what this genre is just wrong?

Katin Kruckenberg, freshman, said, “Country music sucks. I’m not interested in girlfriends, trucks, or beer and that is what country music is all about.” One of her favorite artists at the moment is The Weeknd. Because of The Weeknd’s prevalence in the genre, does this make R&B solely about sex, drugs, and comparing sex to drugs?

A lot of people hate country. But how many of them have given it a fair shot? Country music is definitely stigmatized where we live. Victoria Stewlee, freshman, doesn’t like it. However, she added that she has never listened to more than a snippet.

A common stereotype of country music is that in some songs, it sings about incest, or how good your sister looks at the honky tonk. Lil Yachty fans, stop calling the kettle black. In one of his recent song, he raps, “Cause she get wet and she suck me like a insect / She my step sister, so I guess that’s incest / I could not stop lookin’ at those big breasts”.

My brother Dylan, a senior, opened my eyes to the world of country. He listens to it on the way to or home from school. At first, I complained. I just hated country because everyone else does. Now, I really like country; it tells stories of hardships and happiness, love and heartbreak, and just life. So if you’ve never tried country before, listen to a few songs from a few different artists. If it’s not for you, what can you do? But if you end up liking it, you have a whole new genre to explore.