The Great Southern Bandwagon

Now don't get me wrong - I don't hate Southern rock. A couple of Lynyrd Skynyrd albums can be found in my music collection. I like The Cadillac Three, Blackberry Smoke, Whiskey Myers, and Black Stone Cherry etc. OK, I realise the latter band ain't strictly 'Southern' but you know what I mean. But for several years now Planet Rock have been going a bit OTT in hyping all these bands, and with their constant (over)playing by the station all these bands start to sound the same after a while. They are all excellent musicians and have written some great songs, but it's all starting to sound a bit 'Southern-rock-by-numbers' to me - with songs being deliberately written to a formula for commercial rather than artistic reasons. It's like there is some sort of rulebook they all have to follow; You have to mention 'Southern' or 'the South' in every song - just to emphasise how really Southern you are - just in case anybody didn't notice.

Now it really seems to be getting to the stage of blatant bandwagon jumping. A singer from a well known screamy metalcore band leaves to front a more 'classic rock' sounding band, and then dumps them too and goes solo. He puts on a fake Southern USA accent and issues a country rock single about 'Driving his ass to Mexico' and drinking ice cold bottles of Bud. He was born and grew up in a village in Yorkshire. That's not even Southern England - it's in the North! Sorry - zero credibility there. How about 'Driving my arse to Cleethorpes' and 'Drinking a nice cold can of Sam Smiths'?

"Got my aviators and my cigarette lighter, my leather jacket, I'm a jet fighter"