The very first time this occurred to me was some years ago when the Shania Twain song, Honey I’m Home came on the radio. Please take a listen. At 1:08 in the song, you’ll hear a backing vocal that sounds AMAZINGLY like a background part from a Def Leppard record, circa 1985. And, of course, Def Leppard producer Mutt Lang was the mastermind behind Shania. I thought, “DAMN that sounds like Pour Some Sugar on Me.”

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Over the years the evidence began to build: Big Choruses, Power Ballads, Rock Beats, and records that, essentially, have nothing to do with country music. Most obviously the music began to gain a sheen. Any sense of real performance was beaten out of it as it was polished and perfected to an astounding degree.

There is precedence with country music moving to mimic another musical genre.

In the late 1950’s country music went through an evolution as guys like Chet Atkins helped create a more pop sounding brand of country. The old fashioned hillbilly style of country wasn’t selling records anymore, and in an attempt to revive the genre the conventional wisdom was to make it sound very similar to pop music – with string arrangements and sophisticated crooners like Eddie Arnold.

But what I was hearing with modern country artists like Shania Twain, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, and Rascal Flatts wasn’t an attempt to sound like a more a current genre, but an attempt to sound like a style of music that is so passé as to be extinct. 1980’s rock has become a laughing stock. The style was pulverized by Grunge in the early 90’s and it never really came back. Sure, we all still love some of the 80’s rock songs, and many of those tunes by bands like Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Cinderella, and Slaughter and are really great. But the 80’s rock style – the exploding drum sounds, the wheedly wheedly wee guitar solos, the crazy reverb…seems pretty silly now.

If country was going to mimic a successful genre I suppose they would turn to hip hop, (And that has happened with some embarrassing results.) but mostly Nashville country sounds like watered-down 80’s rock music. Why?

For years I bumped up against this – and it was finally a long road trip conversation with sometime supermodel John Ramey when it all fell together. The audience that was 18 when 80’s rock was big and making an impact are 40 now…and they consume COUNTRY MUSIC. Their tastes and preferences were honed in a world ruled by Warrant, Motley Crue, and Poison. If the country music business wants to sell records (or downloads) to these people the best way is to make the music sound similar but softer to account for the years. This is just what has happened.

There are notable exceptions. Kenny Chesney has modeled himself after Jimmy Buffet with great success. Toby Keith is doing a kind of Hank Williams, Jr. take, and female singers, like Carrie Underwood are really just pop stars…but Modern Country and 80’s Rock are linked at the hip.

You need any more proof… here’s a video of Taylor Swift singing Photograph with Def Leppard. RAWK!!!