Chet Atkins - To me his the kind of sophisticated in Nashville! But I think its not so much about the songs, it is just as much about the generations of artists.

The songs always have to work with the artist, and since the 90ies it has become a lot more about concepts and artist identities. Identity is the premise of interpretation and judgements about taste and good/bad.

Consequently songs will work well for one artist and will be regarded a poor song for another. So some artists are a bit light, and can't pull the great songs off, but 'lighter' songs work well enough for them to have a career.

But others need the great songs for their career. I think this is also a reason why the strain on songwriters have been harder, because more people can write the 'lighter' tunes, and they really don't need songwriters to do them.

Making the competition hard, because we are only fighting about the artists who does the great songs, and this is a lot smaller (and perhaps also less commercial) market.

Capitalism has that effect in general, that when things are made to fit a market, they will become more and more standarized (alike). In time this means that diversity is excluded, and thereby also what we usually think of the quality of the 'unique'.

I definitely think there is tendencies of this, also in country. So I can understand the voices that promote the story of modern country being of less 'quality' than before, allthough I still hear great country songs out there, like Kevin.

On problem I think is valid, is that since the 90ies the market has run out of voices who are caring about the diversity. In Europe we have thought of these as 'cultural' institutions, securing diversity and a broad representation of tastes. Like national radio has aimed to do here in Scandinavia. In Europe these cultural institutions has transformed more and more into media institutions, working more and more on the premise of 'markets' (whatever those are) and securing their own business, loosing the interest of the broad 'cultural' agenda.

In Europe this is due to a change in the way capitalism work, to a way 'harder' and more 'cynical' version. Not sure about the states, but I think this could explain developments in the US music industry as well, including country music.

Still, I can name loads of great artists and songs right now. None mentioned, none forgotten :-)