Is There A Lane? If So, Do You Have To Stay In It?

If you were around in 1968/69, the Top 40 music world was the definition of diversity. From Hendrix's "Crosstown Traffic" to Paul Mauriat's "Love Is Blue," Herb Alpert to Cream, it was crazy and it worked!  

Country music used to be "I know it when I hear it." Not anymore. Can you really say you know what Country sounds like? That's both a good and bad thing, probably.

So much talent from so many places, walks of life, geography, education and experience. Just this week, look at Carrie Underwood's new touring show. She sings Guns N' Roses, she flies through the air and does an arena rock drum solo. She's a rock chick at her core, but an established, superstar Country singer. Blurring the lines for sure. Not complaining, just know that a few years ago Country music fans and older gatekeepers would have gone crazy!

Country music seems to be every kind of music style. Right when you think there's a path to follow, boom, then it's gone. Look at this new song by Katy Perry and Thomas Rhett, "Where We Started."  Is it Country? What is Country? I love it. Watched it twice on YouTube.

Is Walker Hayes and Ciara's "Y'all Life" Country? It's Florida Georgia Line hit songs kind of Country, sort of from the recent Bro era of Country. Now a holdover or a standard?

Taylor Swift is nominated twice at this year's American Music Awards in the Country categories. Is that right?

I loved the variety of music played in the late '60s pop radio. Somehow back then it worked.

Is that where Country music is today? Sure seems that way. From Jimmie Allen to George Strait and everybody in between. Maren Morris to Morgan Wallen (did he just say that?). A huge tent! Is there any room in this big tent for the Ken Burns look at Country music history and its story?

Does this cultivated, curated audience care about the past? As with everything in our society, lots of questions and short on answers. We are like a pilotless plane zooming through the sky, until it's not.

Blake Shelton leaving "The Voice," Carrie singing Guns N' Roses, Alabama losing to Tennessee, the script to this story is a real page-turner. How does it end?

Extra: Should the Country Music Hall of Fame medallion ceremony be a private party? Feels wrong, as it has always felt wrong.

Should the Grand Ole Opry be live on some kind of TV every Saturday night simulcast with radio, or streamed live? Taped Opry just doesn't seem like a must find.

Is there a backlash to the success down on lower Broadway, with some not happy about it being a drunk bachelorette crawl several nights a week? And a two billion dollar football-only domed stadium with a new 200 million dollar soccer stadium two miles away.

Bad traffic, crime, no affordable housing, no parking downtown, etc, etc. A billion dollar convention center? How's that going?

No judgments, just Rumbles. Questions that need answers.

A fascinating time in Music City history. It's still Music City, right?