Taylor Swift is just the tip of the iceberg IMO. The music mavens have taken everything that had value out of country music, and replaced it with the same old tired, cookie cutter pop that has taken over the airwaves just about world wide.
She's got an decent voice, and good stage presence, but if that's country music I'm Mahatma Ghandi. True country is ROOTS music. The same as Celtic, African, Bluegrass etc... Country music comes from certain, select instruments, played in a particular way, and it tells a story in a way that other music types don't. You can bend the rules some, but go too far and (for good or bad) it ceases to be country music. Just because it's sung with a southern accent, mentions a pickup truck or a trailer park, or has a fiddle line, it doesn't automatically qualify as country. I'm not saying it's good or bad music (although there's very little of it I like) it's just not country.
I've said this a hundred times in private, but I'm happy to say it here as well. When money becomes the sole object of the enterprise, then the money people will only accept a homogenized product. They want something they can sell to the largest group of people possible, and true country music doesn't appeal to the whole damn world. True country music speaks to a particular audience, one that is not large enough to satisfy the bean counters.
The folks in Nashville can call what they're peddling country all they like, but as my Grandmother was fond of saying; "Just because a cat has kittens in the stove, don't make 'em biscuits".
