Was This The One?
Or, How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Drum Loop
Something that is fascinating to the observer of country music culture is the incessant arguments over the precise boundary lines of the genre. Throughout history disputes of this nature have cropped up in most genres, but country music is replete with these over the top debates since just about the beginnings of the genre. Other genres occasionally battle over the lines. Country music relishes in the argumentation. Many underlying explanations come to mind. This article is not about that. Instead, the aims are to assess one specific “foreign” intrusion and come to an understanding of both how and why some additions fit well within the country sound.
Just to get this clarifying bit out of the way. I, as much as anyone, have my strong opinions about the boundaries of the genre. However, the effects of my held options on my reviews is quite little. The goal of reviews is to assess the scene as a whole. In order to do that properly, my biases about what ought to be considered properly country necessarily need to get shifted to the side as much as humanly possible.
I don't think that Maggie Rose's previous album from last year was particularly country nor do I think that anything Koe Wetzel has ever put out qualifies either. However, Rose’s project was really good. Wetzel’s not as much. The countriness doesn’t really matter. Each of these artists aimed to present a distinctive vision of art and messaging. Either it works or it doesn’t. Genre plays only a small role in presentation. The same general discourse applies for some significant portion of Sam Hunt's discography, but nonetheless, because these are considered to be country by some critical mass, and especially the industry, they are in the review tent and I will assess them based on individual merit. My personal opinions on genre don't entirely matter, excepting for the occasional persnickety moment, or if I am controlling the aux cord in the car.
Granting the wild variety of existent opinion, most agree on some essential elements. Hank was real country. Fiddle is country. So on and so forth. Certain instruments are definitively country, at least in most of their contexts. Even though Beethoven had copious amounts of violin, no one is suggesting that his music is country simply because it has fiddle. However, in the contemporary music scene, if a song has mandolin, fiddle, steel guitar and the like, it is most likely a country song. At bare minimum, it will be broadly considered to have strong country elements.
It is what makes this current Noah Kahan led discussion involving modern pop-folk music so difficult for people to comprehend. Folk as a genre has heavy ties with country. They both utilize a similar palette of ingredients. At times they look like siblings and even at their furthest moments apart still are kissing cousins.
But if we are being fair, so much of the music these days has an essentially similar core. 4/4 rhythms and a guitar led approach describe country, folk, rock and many pop songs. This lends itself to amorphous crossover material. Take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and you’ll end up with some recognizable and reasonable blends. Strip the country instruments from a song, replace them with electric guitar, and you end up with a southern rock song. Change even more and the genre will change completely. The amount of change can matter a great deal when it comes to changing the overall genre.
This sets up a question. Can a single changed element be enough to cause a genre change?
To test out this question, let’s select the most likely element. I would suggest that drum loops are the perfect test subject. The most profound difference between modern country and its historical counterparts is clearly the emergence of drum loops. Essentially, every other trend in modern country has a basis in older material. Country rock has been a mainstay since just about the beginnings of rock. But electronic drum loops are a more recent technological innovation.
If you listen to artists nowadays, they will tell you that electronic drum loops are now perfectly standard in Nashvillian country. Jon Pardi was interviewed by Grady Smith a couple years ago and he credited Florida Georgia Line with mainstreaming loops in country music. This change was so stark, that Pardi, who up until fairly recently was presenting himself as this utmost traditional artist with a bit of pop flair and fun on the side, was perfectly open towards using them even if initially he was a little suspicious, as would be expected by a traditionally leaning artist.
A few years back, I was very firmly against the use of drum loops. The attraction of country music for me was the organic vitality contained within country and folk music. Pop music and modern rock just lacked that natural relatability. Taking this genre rooted in thematic organics and natural sounds and basing such a foundational element like the rhythm on a synthetic metronomic drum loop stripped away so much of the appeal to my ears, that I felt it was utterly incompatible with country music.
I have since partially turned the corner on this. Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age. Unsurprisingly, it is because of a song. That song is by the underrated Gary Allan. It was released in 2001 and it is called "The One".
That early date may seem surprising. Something interesting to note about drum loop usage in country is that contrary to Mr. Pardi's interpretation, drum loop usage was slipping into Nashville really since the beginning of the 2000s, if not even the late 90s. Keith Urban is the main suspect for the mainstreaming of loops, but a subtler influence is important to note. Using metronomes and basic drum tracks is standard operating procedure when assembling songwriting demos. The exact tone and style of the drums don't really matter, the primary focus is to give a sense of timing for the writers and production teams. Artists are very accustomed to using drum loops as part of the process even if they will use actual drums in the studio. Take this reality then add in the ever shrinking line between a drum loop and actual drumming that gets edited with pro tools. Computerized programs will take and adjust the drum tempos to make them match perfectly, the thin line shrinks down to the point where the creative teams don't feel a substantial difference exists. As a consumer, I guess it was I ly a matter of time that adjustment would occur. This breakdown of my formerly binary understanding is exactly what the Gary Allan song demonstrated to me.
Let's break down the song. I am not entirely familiar with most of Gary Allan’s work. His commercial moment really peaked before I was listening to country music, although I have heard a handful of songs. This is one of his earlier hits. The One is a fairly typical country ballad setup. It features genuine country instrumentation with little bit of a pop sheen. Allan’s vocal tone is smoothed down and not as raspy and granular as it is on his bigger hits.
I really enjoyed it and this was in spite of the fact that it had a drum loop. Listening to the song, I thought the loop added a little bit of texture but otherwise it was pretty innocuous and similar to what a typical drumming track would have provided. The only wrinkle to the programmed beat that strayed from the expectations I would have had from a live studio session was a pleasant background texture. This was news to me. It was the first time that a drum loop wasn't just a pale simulacra of "real drums" but instead was an additive element to an otherwise natural and organics country sing.
This is when my feelings on drum loops as being wholly inappropriate for the country genre shifted. A realization occured. My previous feelings in drum loops were not indicative of all forms of implementation. My feeling only accurately reflected a particular kind of drum loop and its relationship to rhythm.
Rhythm is very important to country music as it is to most other genres, but the emphasis of the drum loop in contemporary pop and hip-hop music is a distinctly different approach to rhythm. The beat drives the song. It defines the song. If the beat played and everything else was stripped from the song, the song is still recognizable. This is just not the role of rhythm in country and folk. Aside from stomp and holler, this idea just hasn't taken off.
Country music at times has eschewed even basic drums. Famously, they were not allowed on the Grand Ol Opry stage for a decent amount of time after drums became tolerated on radio. Rhythm was, and is, understood purely as a backing element to the song. It is there to enhance. Country has a structure. Melody is straightforward, presentation is storytelling forward. The accompaniment of delicate instruments like acoustic guitar, fiddle, steel guitar etc..are crucial for the soundscape. Those can often be washed out by heavy driving drums. And so, when Allan did a drum loop in his song, the insertion of the drum took into consideration the format of country music. The result was balance. The rhythm was enhancing the mix, not defining it. It fit very nicely with the country music archetype, whereas some of Keith Urban's later material, significant chunks of bro and boyfriend country, just plain misunderstood it.
It turns out what really rankled my chain was not the drum loop per se. Rather, it was the execution. I still find it done improperly more often than not, and even when done gracefully, I still might have preferred a genuine player, but I have come to terms with it. So in other words, I guess I am a pop country sellout now ;)
Managed to squeeze this in under the January deadline. Got some big stuff brewing in the background. Will see what impact it has on the publication schedule.
In other news, the second annual Letters To The Editor mailbag will happen soon! Submit your questions via the Substack DM option or via email to today i heard blog at gmail dot com. I welcome all kinds of questions, but ideally music related. If you want a general picture of what to expect, please peruse the archive and take a look at last years two parter. It was great fun and I'm happy to bring it back for this year!
Thanks for reading!
-Joe