Corporate Avenger is a group that I recommend you all listen to.

As far as rap is concerned, I like old school stuff, but the modern shit is just that.  Country has always been a joke with the exception of Johnny Cash who even the hardest metal heads like myself can't argue with how cool he was. 

Artists that sell their records based on their ideological views tend to be geared towards people that take themselves way too seriously or have more of an inflated ego/love affair with their beliefs than their target audience.  Therefore, screw "atheist" or "christian" bands/groups/a capella formations/all-boys choirs/etc. 

Oh, and whoever listens to ABBA on a regular basis should probably check and see if mental illness runs in their family.

I thought most rappers were atheist, or at least not religious. Ghost BC is atheist too... but so is 99% of the genre.

That twangy bullshit in nearly every country song has created a stinging pain in my ear drums every time I hear it along with every annoying drawl country singers have.  Topped off with "my pick up truck died, my sister gets beat, feed me whiskey until jesus calls me home" lyrics, you got a perfect storm of hatred on my end that no amount of justification can bring back from the brink, my friend.  You can keep your Jennings and Haggard because I would rather pull out my toe nails with rusty pliers while lighting my dick on fire than ever listen to any of their songs or songs like theirs.

which make up virtually none of the lyrical content in the vast catalogs of pretty much every artist i mentioned.

really?  and which songs of theirs do you have a problem with, exactly?  because i'm willing to bet your whole knowledge of waylon extends to the dukes of hazzard theme, which he admits was shamelessly done for money when his finances were at an ebb (sort of like metallica peddling something years ago--i can't remember what exactly, but i remember in the commercial they were stuck in a semi trailer), and your whole knowledge of haggard "okie from muskogee," which was written as a joke and which only the idiot nixonites took seriously.

you don't like the sound, that's fine, but calling country a joke is something that can't be taken seriously.  any talented, serious musician i've ever met who plays any style of music, including metal, even if they never play country in any shape or form, has expressed admiration for country and cited at least one or two country artists as influences.  i'm willing to bet if you dig deep enough on any of the great metal musicians you admire, you're going to read them praising hank williams or jimmie rodgers or someone like that.  in fact, any musician (not man on the street, mind you, but musician) who tells me they hate country automatically makes their proficiency suspect in my mind, and so far i've been proved right everytime--they've always been technically terrible musicians.

"townes van zandt deadpanning his way through "nothin'" with just an acoustic guitar and fingerpicks makes "until it sleeps" sound like "accentuate the positive.""

Metallica was already dead by the time they released Load.

   As an afterthought, I forgot to mention that I recently bypassed my normal aversion to anything  sounding like C&W by mentioning to my brother that I heard a song ( "Highway Patrol" ) by some guy named Junior Brown.  My brother burned me a CD and I listened to it and, paradoxically, liked it.  Junior Brown also seems to have achieved some cross over into the tattooed, biker, rock-a-billy crowd as well.  Anyway I enjoyed the CD ( surprisingly )

Lol, says the person who just spent several posts bitching about an entire genre of music. Am I wrong? Is there some huge popular uprising of bible thumping rap?  

You were a lot smarter when you were just posting gibberish.

Those are my feelings on the matter 100%. While I have a tendency to despise these celebs that will say something like: "Oh I like--and then spout a bunch of eclectic shit." I will have to say that I do like a lot of different styles of music.

With the exception of rap, there is pretty much a little bit of everything that finds its way into my headphones.

However, I have heard plenty of people say the stereotypical : "I hate country but Johnny Cash was the man." kind of lines and those irritate me to no end.

However, I will say that I was NOT a fan of Johnny Cash, love metal, and love country.

I have noticed (and not for the sexual reasons) but the women of country make their way into my players the most. Loretta, Reba, Emmylou, Tammy Wynette, Patsy Cline, Patty Loveless, and dozens of others.

I even like some of that mid 90s country (with the exception of that dickhead Garth Brooks) and this modern day pop country that everyone hates. Sorry, but it is true.  I PRETENDED to only tolerate the sounds of Taylor Swift when my teenage niece first played her. But, I would be a total liar if I said that I did not tap my foot to it.

      I was never actually a fan of Johnny Cash and his music but I was a fan of Johnny Cash the man.   Even back in the late 60's when he hosted his TV show he brought on musical guests who were not actually part of the "hard core" country music genre, like Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, even the Monkees.   I thought that was pretty cool of him to allow some of the musicians who were part of the counterculture of that time to get on stage before an audience who I presume may not have been the most appreciative.

      The only song by Cash that I really enjoyed was his cover of Nine Inch Nail's "Hurt" which he recorded shortly before his death in 2003.  Hate to admit it but it actually brought a tear to my eye the first time I watched it .   www.youtube.com/watch?v=l95D7leeU3w

I enjoyed his version of that song with the video and the realization of old age. The clips of him as a younger man along with the clips of him now are quite emotional.

But I did like the NIN version just as much.

I know that people often will argue about which version is better, but to me, they both stand on their own and are actually different songs.

Johnny Cash's version seems to hint more at old age, passing time, and death.

Reznor's seems to hint more at the hells of addiction, ruined lives and death.

Either version, my favorite line of the song is : "If I could start again. A million miles away, I would keep myself. I would find a way."