"How I Got To Be This Way"

I'm surprised to be saying this, but "How I Got To Be This Way" is actually kind of a great song. It's on VEVO's "On The Rise: Country" playlist, but Southern drawl and the rural flavor are pretty much all that make it country. I'd class it, rather, with what is sometimes called power pop. It might not be all that original, but that's not the point: it's tight and catchy and chock full of heart.

Far East Movement: "Like a G6"

I kind of like this song, or at least the opening chorus.

"Poppin' bottles in the ice...like a blizzard/When we drink, we do it right, gettin' slizzered/sippin' sizzurp in my ride, in my ride, like three-six/Now I'm feelin' so fly, like a G6."

That's not bad, although I doubt anyone in the video is sippin' sizzurp in anyone's ride, unless by "sizzurp" you mean "Malibu" and by "ride" you mean "drunk driving is dangerous." And admittedly the thing goes from decent to horrible as soon as those scrubby dudes show up and start rapping. But these days, 38 seconds of decent music should be enough for anyone.

Carney

aka Johnny Depp: The Band.

Brendan James

More mainstream hipsterdom: skinny jeans, skinny tie, plaid flannel, stubble, discreet tattoo, army jacket, hat with brim, horizontal stripes, etc.

Jessie James

The Band Perry must have picked up on all the VEVO Country fans who were alienated by this one. (or this one.)

The Band Perry

(No relation to Katy Perry.) They sound like Taylor Swift; they look like a cross between Interpol and the Decemberists; they write lyrics like Evanescence; they are shaped like Cripple Creek. They are a girl singing and her two brothers playing guitar or bass or mandolin or accordion.

You do realize, of course, that "If I Die Young" means "If I Die A Virgin." If you disagree, you clearly haven't listened to the lyrics: "I've never felt the love of a man/but it sure felt nice when he was holdin' my hand." And this is right after "I'll be wearin' white/when I come into Your kingdom."

Maybe you should read the previous paragraph again, and spend some time thinking about how fucked-up this song is. The song is about dying a virgin. This is a song for girls who would rather die than have sex, or maybe for parents and brothers who would rather see their little girl dead than in the carnal embrace of a man, as long as she dies quietly and leaves behind a peaceful-looking corpse. No one even seems that upset. They're just relieved that she never had to lose her virginity. "I had just enough time," she says. Maybe you should read that lyric again.

You might read the end as a reenactment of the Resurrection, but this band is Christian in rhetoric only, and the miraculous reversal at the end is just a typical Hollywood ending. The lyrics express nothing more than a desperate reluctance to relinquish childhood innocence. Christian kids these days seem especially slow to put away childish things, maybe because they get their Christianity from C.S. Lewis instead of St. Paul.

Note as well that, when her loyal brothers send her pretend-dead body Boromir-style into the river, instead of a sword she is clasping to her bosom book whose cover reads: "POETRY: TENNYSON." This is the band for quiet, literary, Christian girls. That demographic was previously only tapped indirectly by Taylor Swift, who clearly paid good attention in 9th grade English class; now it has been colonized.

(addendum: At first I said Taylor Swift, but I actually think they sound more like Alison Krauss.)

Justin Moore: "How I Got To Be This Way"

My favorite part is when the camera shifts focus between Justin Moore today and pictures of Justin Moore as a kid, as though he hadn't made his point clearly enough in the lyrics.

(addendum: The law of ontogeny-recapitulates-phylogeny is deep-rooted enough in the essential tendencies of mind to let us imagine that this song might possibly convert a few creationists.)