re: #356 makeitstop
The stuff that’s popular with the youngs nowadays is more about trucks and beer and girls than patriotism (with exceptions - a guy named Brantley Gilbert is making a career of songs about badass soldiers in addition to the beer/trucks/girls content).
Just like ‘bro-country’ took the production values of rock, they also took the time-honored content template for rock, specifically the 80s metal subject matter.
There was always Bakersfield Country and Rebel Country, and of course Grateful Dead/Country Joe/Flying Burrito Brothers country out there along with hippie bluegrass like Old and in the Way and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. That is what got me into country.