I haven't even heard it, but based on Jody Rosen's description, I want this record to be successful. How many of us are sick to death of the muddy river of cornpone melodrama mixed with ignorant-hearted redneck lowest common denominator anthems that has become the blighted landscape of mainstream country radio? I'm sick enough for ten of you.

The thing is, I love real country. I enjoy my alt-country stuff, like Ryan Adams, the Jayhawks, etc., but they sometimes seem to try too hard to make sure you know that they're not quite country, but instead, some sort of folk/rock/country hybrid that is way cooler than all that Nashvegas schlock. I can't say I blame them, but are you telling me that they're cooler than Cash or Haggard? Not a chance.

Even the Texas Country guys that I thought would be C & W's salvation are mostly just uninspired country rockers these days.

We need country that is rooted in tradition but aware of the world we live in now. We need guys like the Jayhawks and Robbie Fulkerson to be recognized as country by the mainstream cats. We need country to be cool again, because it hasn't been for a long time now.

1. Alt-country is hipster schlock with no actual relevance to the world in which real people live.

2. Jamey Johnson is a manufactured personality, who, again, misses on what made country music great to begin with (emotional authenticity).

Modern country is mostly a drag (a friend of mine once made the not quite correct - but not totally indefensible - argument that country stopped being relevant oh about Jan. 1, 1953), and most of the interesting artists in contemporary country (Dwight Yoakam and Randy Travis) haven't had a genuine hit in ages, but the answer is not phony indie bullshit in appropriated cowboy boots.

With regard to point #1, I don't like "hipster" country, but who's to say it's not relevant to the hipster crowd? Point #2 kinda opens up a can of worms, Planetary. What is authenticity? What is a manufactured personality? Most artists adopt a persona in their songs - do they have to have lived what they sing about for it to be authentic? Johnny Cash never killed a man just to watch him die, after all. And Waylon sang a lot about killing people but didn't really mention his massive coke habit too much (one song that I know of, and a second one that kind of makes oblique reference to it).

What makes Jamey Johnston manufactured? I think the record company is trying to play up his non-mainstream image a little too much - kinda like "bad boy lite." But the songs speak for themselves. I like his voice, I like the fact that his songs aren't all sunshine and roses, and I like that he covered some old school songs (even if they're not as good as the originals). I prefer the old Outlaw country, but I'll also take Jamey Johnston on his worst day over Rascal Flatts on their best any day of the week.

With regard to point #1, I don't like "hipster" country, but who's to say it's not relevant to the hipster crowd?

The hipster crowd is fake and inauthentic, and anything relevant to their lives is inherently fake, inauthentic and artistically void. Country music is about a working class experience which hipsters - the children of privilege - appropriate because they have no experience of their own. Fuck that and fuck them, and fuck anyone who caters to that kind of bullshit.

What is a manufactured personality?

I'd say any creative persona that is radically different from the actual persona and experience of the performer. Jamey Johnson isn't an outsider bucking the industry, he's a Nashville insider who is an integral part of the mainstream hit machine. He's selling a character who not only doesn't exist in detail, but doesn't exist in essence, either. All artistic personas are, to some degree, exaggerations, but there's a difference between an exaggeration (Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Sr., Randy Travis) and an outright fabrication (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Jamey Johnson)

Well, I prefer to deal with each artist as an individual, rather than lump all alt country into the hipster bullshit category. And I don't think it makes a damn bit of difference whether Johnny Cash ever really killed a man to watch him die. I do think that the darkness of some of his music accurately reflected some of the darkness in his heart, but what do I know. I never met the man myself. But I like a lot of his records.

The Jayhawks write some great songs and have recorded some songs that that I find really moving, and among the most tuneful since the Beatles. Whether they belong to some privileged wanna be blue collar subcategory beloved of black jean wearing urbanites doesn't mean shit to me. I judge music based on the song and the way it is sung and played.

But the real point in my book, Planetary, is that you don't get to decide who's fake, real, good, bad or corny for me. And I don't get to decide for you.

And that's a damn good thing, in my book.