Stereotypes Associated with Country Music by Sami Ahrens

The big stereotype associated with country music is that it's just about heartbreak or love. People assume that this type of music is just "sappy" and/or depressing or uninteresting. Therefore, they don't give it a chance. I'm going to show that not all country music fits the stereotype.

A lot of early country music did start out about being about love or heartbreak. For example, Something Like That by Tim McGraw is a song about being in love in the summer time. People who believe in the stereotypes probably wouldn't want to listen to that song. They also wouldn't want to listen to any of Taylor Swift's first album.

Now I am going to "debunk the myth" by giving examples of songs that don't fit the stereotype about country music. My first example is Red Camaro by Rascal Flatts. This song is just about looking back on the good times and enjoying the memories. Lots of other genres of music have songs about that type of stuff. My next example is I Will Always Love You by Dolly Parton. A lot of people do not know that Dolly Parton was the original writer/singer of the famous Whitney Houston song. This proves that country music can be interesting sometimes.

I don't really listen to a lot of country music, but I hope that this blog post has made people look at this genre of music as not just "sappy and boring". Country music isn't just about heartbreak or love.

R&B Stereotypes By Adam Jacob

One of the misconceptions about R&B music is that it is solely based around sex and feelings. R&B has always been my go to genre of music because the songs are soulful and I feel that I can easily connect to the music. People do not give R&B a chance because they feel it is “ghetto.” They probably do not know all of the history behind the genre.

R&B has been known to go hand in hand with rap. These genres started because of the hardships African American individuals went through.  They would express themselves though music, called soul music. Soul music is where R&B is derived from. A good example of powerful soul music is A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke. From this era of soul music came what we consider R&B.

With all the history that comes with R&B, it puts me in an instant “feel good” mood. I love to just drive around in my car blasting this music. If I have friends over and we are just chilling, we are always listening to some type of R&B. Some of my favorite artists include Drake, Chris Brown, Jeremiah and K CAMP.

So now I am going to break down the stereotypes. Don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of R&B songs that could be considered baby making music. However, there is a broader spectrum to the genre. There are songs like Show Me, See You Again, and Ride Out. The genre of R&B is broad. There is a powerful song for any type of mood you are in.

People would never look at me and think that I listen to this type of movie. They associate R&B with individuals who are emotional. There is a strong stereotype where people think African American people are the only people who listen to this genre. This makes me upset because that is just like saying only country people can listen to country music.

With this blog post, I hope I was able to shed some light on R&B music. I encourage all of you to go onto iTunes and look up different R&B songs. You might be surprised what you find.