>>127485369
Indie country existed in the past but used to be extremely niche and had no commercial clout whatsoever, so all anyone ever heard was mainstream radio country whether it was good or not. For people who didn't like country it validated everything they hated about it, but it also closed off a lot of average country listeners (who aren't usually the hipster music-nerd type to begin with) to anything outside of that bubble. Plus most people's initial experience with the genre, whether they're fans or not, tends to be very nostalgic and family oriented so they tend to idolize the country singers they grew up with and ignore anything knew, which a lot of people are already unwilling to seek out. So not only does country radio not play a lot of good stuff, but since the whole industry is still oriented around radio hits it's conditioned most people to think country music doesn't even exist outside of country radio. I remember a while back some top Nashville exec caught a lot of heat for saying in essence "if you're not on country radio you don't exist". It's a weird, weird, anachronistic industry, man. The commerce side of country hasn't really evolved at all since it started in the Tin Pan Alley days.
