If you had the power to eliminate country or rap music forever, which would you choose and why?

Rap would go.
I just don’t get it.
It gives me a headache.

Wilma, most rap people are not singers. they could not carry a tune in a bucket, if they had to sing a song, like Over The Rainbow. i would love to see this.

Country because the voices just annoy me, and sometimes I really can’t understand what they are saying. I like some rap songs, but not very many at all. I don’t like any country music though

I would get rid of country music…..I would rather listen to nails on a blackboard

I’d get rid of Rap. I can find at least a few examples of country music that I do enjoy (I’m a Johnny Cash fan), but I’ve yet to find any rap “song” that I can bear to listen to for more than a minute.

I put “song” in quotes because rapping isn’t singing. It’s reading poetry to a backbeat.

Hands down country music.

I’d have to go with Rap.
Country music encourages people to put a bullet in their heads.
Rap encourages people to put one in someone else’s.

Rap would go because I said so.
That’s my rap and I’m sticking to it ;)

Worriedguy, good answer. i never really thought of it this way, but you are correct. i have always thought that country music was suicide music. give a guy 6 pack of beer and watch him cry in it.

Rap for sure. Country music covers a wide spectrum and some of the best guitarists I have ever heard play country. Throw in Vassar Clements on fiddle and we have a red-hot jam session!

Rap may be urban poetry, but it is not music. And much of the music that appears in the genre is sampled ( an enabler way of saying “stolen” ) from another source.
So, to answer the question, keep the country. At least it has a melody.

That’s a toughy. Rap is equally as bad a country music, but in very different ways. Good question…em, because of some painfull childhood memories connected with country music, I’ll have to go with it. My god it’s so monotonous!

Can I pick Top-40 rap and country as a whole?

I love old country music like Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Chet Atkins, and so on, and there is a lot of older rap and underground rap that is actually quite enjoyable.

Most mainstream top 40 rap and country is absolutely dildos though.

I’d get rid of rap. Definitely. I cannot frakkin’ handle 99% of rap music.

Country can be annoying at times, when it’s really twangy or the new pop country, but I lovelovelove me some Johnny Cash.

Are we saying what we don’t like (country) or would people actually want the offending music to disappear? There’s a lot of music, besides country, that I don’t like, including some rap, but I would never want to ban it. Music experiments with all kinds of things, and most of it probably offends someone, somewhere.

What have people hated over the years? The Charleston. Jazz. Swing. Rock. And oh so many more. I’m sure most Westerners would hate traditional Vietnamese and Laotion music. Middle Eastern music? Call of the Muezzins? Tibetan music?

Personally, I think it’s possible to avoid hearing a kind of music for the most part. Having said that, I do, occasionally, let the kids listen to Rap in the car.

I like country, country and western and some rap. I like some hick hop, especially Kid Rock, Colt Ford and Mikel Knight. Not Cowboy Troy though. I say preserve them all.

Kinda both, cunt….sorry, country & crap….make that rap, actually no, do make that crap music I mostly detest…...mostly.

I wouldn’t (I like old country).

for me country would have to go. I listened to rap as a young teenager, so sometimes it is nostalgic for me. Since I matured, I listen mostly to rock now, and some orchestral, but country is a genre I can live a long and happy life without listening to.

Hick hop? Is that a thing? What is this world coming to?

I would go with country music.

I would say rap too but in the recent years I’ve learned that not all rap is garbage, just the shit that tends to get played on commercial radio. There is a lot of really great intellectual rap out there that touches on serious issues instead of just bitches and hoes.

Cant say ive found the good country music yet…

Country, because I wasn’t raised in that culture so I’m biased lol…..

Rap music would have to go. I have found that I cannot bear any of it that I have heard. (This is all radio exposure, so that may be why.) It makes me want to slam my head against a wall until I pass out and can’t hear it any more. Luckily, I can alleviate the problem by changing the radio station. Country music I can ignore. And real country I like. Not this pop-country stuff that keeps coming out. Blech.

Rap would have to go.

I have heard a bluegrass banjo player pull off Bach on his instrument (I kid the not). Heck, come to think of it Willie Nelson did some great work with Peter Tosh. He even had a hit song with Julio Iglesias (and that ain’t easy to do). However, I have never heard a rapper do anything more than rap.

As my dearly departed mom once said: “They rhyme three and tree and think they are geniuses”.

country. they both have their place but if I had to choose it would be country, definitely I love eminem

Country music would go. Older rap music, as well as some present day underground rap (basically much of the non-corporate stuff) can actually be rather good. No country is good.

I love country music (Loreena McKinnet, Suzy Bogguss, Shania Twain, The Judds, Leanne Rimes, Martina McBride, KD Lang, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Glenn Campbell, Johnny Cash, Alan Jackson, Buck Owens, Chet Atkins, The Desert Rose Band, Hank Williams, John Denver etc.) Some I like because of their song writing, some I like because of their guitar playing and some I like because of their singing.

A lot of country music has influenced rock music bands like Lynrd Skynrd, Black Oak Arkansas, The Allman Bros Band, The Eagles, America and even The Beatles and of course, Elvis.

I don’t like rap at all, but I guess I’m glad that it exists (to a point) so that the good music sounds great in comparison.

meaningful rap /hip-hop

Not to evade the question, but even if I had that power, I would never eliminate any kind of music, regardless of how I personally felt about it. Different kinds of music speak to different kinds of people. It’s perhaps the purest and most universal form of communication.

Uncomfortable idea, destroying music. It’s silly to claim an entire genre is deficient or less valid than any other. But, for the sake of the question, I’m going to do it anyway and say that I have never in my life heard an interesting country song. That means lyrically and that means musically, except for maybe Johnny Cash. Does Phil Ochs count? John Denver? I don’t know, but these guys are genre-bending anyway. Maybe my exposure to country is minimal, but I’ve found most country to be incredibly boring, banal, mostly meaningless and irrelevant to me.

I’d have to get rid of country. I am very fond of rap and hip-hop. (Each of which qualifies as music, by the way, no doubt.)

@absalom, guess it depends to some degree on the kind of music one grows up with. I grew up with country music, and I never thought I liked it. Sounded all alike to me. But in recent years I’ve heard lots of c&w songs whose melodies and lyrics I’ve found quite moving. Rap, I don’t get, but as a friend once said to me—I’m not the audience.

@absalom You might try Mary Chapin Carpenter. One of the best albums I’ve ever heard (of any genre) is called Stones in the Road. All the songs on this album are amazing and have very intelligent, poignant lyrics. The title song, Stones in the Road is something that really moved me when I first heard it, prompting me to buy the album.

You can read the lyrics to Stones In the Road here. It’s about growing up in America. You can see and hear the video here

Also listen to Smoke Rings in the Dark by Gary Allan. You can read the lyrics here. This guy has an un-comparable voice and the music is haunting. This song speaks to anyone who has ever loved someone and lost them. You can hear Smoke Rings in the Dark here. 2 other great songs from this album are Sorry (from a straying woman’s point of view, bluesy sounding) and Cowboy Blues (very bluesy, not so twangy). Give it a try.

I would have to go with country music like most of the people. I think most of the songs are boring.

I like a lot of country music, especially the more modern country rock type stuff.

I actually like the concept of rap, I just hate the content in most cases, I intensely dislike the anti female, anti cops, anti just about everything mentality of it. Can’t we have some positive rap, like ditch the mob, get a job or something like that!!!

In all seriousness, I’m with @Austinlad on this one.

Destroy RAP, reason, just put a ‘C’ in front of it…..

Keep country, reason, Johnny Cash!! the man’s a god! IMO….. :-/

I don’t get this question at all.
I’m no fan of country music, but saying that you would get rid of an entire genre of music just because you don’t like it is kinda dumb. Saying that you would just delete an entire type of music, an entire culture for many people (think LA hip-hop, old Harlem culture, etc.) just really doesn’t sit well with me. I wouldn’t destroy either. In order for music to move forward past this current top 40 material, there has to be variation and freedom in music, and just blanking a genre because “they just talk” or “sample and steal”. Listen to this and tell me samples are “stolen” material and songs made out of them not your own intellectual property.

And getting rid of rap music also removes a large software and hardware. What if I told you Pete Townshend made his music on the same software as Busta Rhymes and Kanye West? (Source)

So perhaps I have a stick up my ass, but I think the idea of getting rid of a certain genre of music is stupid. Rap has so many roots in electronic music, country has so many roots in rock music, and both are a large part of Urban and Southern culture, respectively, that getting rid of one would certainly do a lot more than make your ride to school more enjoyable.

This reminds me of the Onion’s Who Would You Kill segment.

@dverhey country has roots in rock?

It’s interesting that you pose this question, because, despite their superficial differences, popular country and rap music share many of the same themes in common (i.e. violence, chauvinism, and the objectification of women). Given the choice, I think I’d choose to keep rap music because, although much of it glorifies violence, at least it does so openly, whereas country music (at least country music from the ‘90’s and beyond) attempts to hide its seediness behind a prim veneer. There’s also a strong thread of jingoism running through country music that isn’t present in rap. For that reason, I would choose to get rid of country.

@tedibear That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all night!

@lonelydragon – Thanks. I try. Just as I try to avoid banging my head on anything. ;)

@dverhey – Did you mean to say that rock music has some of its roots in country? That would be correct. Unless you meant the “country” that is coming out now which sounds more like 70’s pop/rock than it does country.

@tedibear @bkcunningham I think that’s what I meant. I’m not entirely sure.

I am truly amazed at some of the answers posted here. it appears that the vote is almost 50–50, to equally delete rap and country music from the music scene. country music, appears to be a little ahead.

Lonelydragon has given a really good answer.

”... country music (at least country music from the ‘90’s and beyond) attempts to hide its seediness behind a prim veneer.”

Seediness? That’s quite a generalization, @lonelydragon. I’m not a huge fan of country, but I’ve heard plenty of it that has touched my heart with melody and lyrics. I can’t say that about Rap, but then, as I said in my previous post, I’m really not the audience for it.

@Austinlad click both the links I posted above.

@Austinlad To be fair, my exposure to country music has been limited to radio, and I will admit that country before the ‘90’s isn’t without its merits, but if you listen to a lot of popular country music on the radio today, much of it appeals to prurient interests. Songs with titles like “I Want to Check You For Ticks” do not touch my heart.

I would rid the world of RAP.
Music and singing are like a mantra. You repeat these words to yourself constantly.
Now, the choice would be between someone reciting a mantra of killing cops and smacking bitches and dealing drugs, or someone drinking too much, and getting left by their girl, or driving trucks.
Ya, rap gotta go.

@filmfann not all of it though

I’d get rid of both! Indie music ftw!