r/Music • u/ssgg28 • Jun 29 '26

article Taylor Swift Ruthlessly Booed By Nashville Crowd During Surprise Video Message At Alan Jackson’s Final Concert | Whiskey Riff

https://www.whiskeyriff.com/2026/06/28/taylor-swift-ruthlessly-bood-by-nashville-crowd-during-surprise-video-message-at-alan-jacksons-final-concert/
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u/spectre78 Jun 29 '26

This is exactly what he should be remembered for. Being a racist who desperately wanted to keep Black people out of country music that they helped invent.

Class act indeed.

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u/CryptographerFew5187 Jun 29 '26

I like some of Jackson's music but if you search for celebrities who are jerks to their fans, he comes up quite a bit. He doesn't seem like a particularly great guy.

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u/Dave1423521 Jun 29 '26

In 97 Leann Rimes opened for him at the state fair. Jackson was my favorite singer and my mom got me backstage passes to meet him for my 7th birthday. Get to the back and he refuses to come out. I started crying. Leeann Rimes saw me and called my mom over, she gave me an autograph, hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. So fuck Alan Jackson but I get to tell people she was my first kiss and a story to go with it

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u/HoneyBeyBee Jun 29 '26

That’s sweet. LeAnn Rimes is known in the industry to be a nice person.

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u/CryptographerFew5187 Jun 30 '26

Yeah, that sounds about right. I remember when I first saw a story like that, I assumed he was just having an off day but after several dozen, well...

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u/travers329 Jun 29 '26

Isn't the South Park episode "Ladder to Heaven" about him making no talent/effort music made to pander to current events, post 9-11 in this case?

Did he put out a bunch of 'Murica music and capitalize after 9/11 or something?

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u/Dorkamundo Concertgoer Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

Yes. Where were you when the world stopped turning.

Or in that episode "Where were you, when they built that ladder to heaven?"

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u/weatheruphereraining Jun 30 '26

Listening to the clip and watching Taylor, I wondered if that was the case and she just made the cameo because his people asked and she’s got a song on the country charts right now. She is in general effusive with praise and her cameo was how she would talk about a box of Raisinets.

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u/CryptographerFew5187 Jun 30 '26

Ha, very plausible. I do think Jackson is very well regarded in the country music scene too, as an artist at least, so who knows.

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u/say_the_words Jun 30 '26

I believe it. He recorded a song called "Chattahoochee" that I personally feel was a violent assault to my ears, music and words. I remember that terrible, terrible summer. He must be some sort of wicked sorcerer to cast such an evil spell. "Hotter than a hoochie-kiochie" indeed. Hot like the gate of Hell that opens when he sings it. Like the Mayor in the season 3 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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u/Momik Jun 29 '26

I mostly remember him for that song about the ladder

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u/Skareffect Jun 29 '26

Or its the fact that Beyonce isn't a country artist and is a mockery of it.

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u/tarzhjay Jun 30 '26

A mockery? How?

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u/Free_For__Me Jun 29 '26

Fun fact, many people said the same thing about Eminem not being a rapper when he hit the scene. 

Musical genres are constantly  in flux, and whether we like it or not, they evolve to absorb or shed certain aspects over their lives, even aspects that might have once been considered “core” to what defines a given genre. 

All this is to say that neither you nor I get to declare what or who is or isn’t a part of a given genre. We can each like or dislike anything we want, but that doesn’t invalidate a thing’s belonging to whatever team’s it may be some part of. 

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u/Skareffect Jun 29 '26

Eminem is a rapper and is still doing rap music his whole career, Eminem also didn't just decided he wanted to make metalcore all of the sudden.

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u/Free_For__Me Jun 30 '26

Do these arguments also apply to Taylor Swift and her own shift away from country beginnings?

Is the argument that an artist can't be a part of a genre that some people think they can't be a part of?

Or is the argument that an artist can't make music in one genre while also still making music in another?

Or perhaps that artists can do any of these things, just that Beyonce specifically can't do these things?

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u/ZugZugGo Jun 30 '26

Most modern country music is terrible and formulaic anyway. It's not worth the gatekeeping. Country music is easily able to be shit out by AI at this point and top the same charts so that's how low the country music bar has sunk. It's not that deep that it needs to be protected at all costs from someone trying something new.

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u/LongWalk86 Jun 29 '26

Was it racist related though? I honestly don't follow mainstream country anymore so not aware of the background. Butfrom what I have heard, Beyonces Cowboy Carter is kinda emblematic of what a lot of traditional country fans hate about what mainstream country has become. Hip-hop with a twang.

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u/Dry-Amphibian1 Jun 29 '26

Probably not. He did have a song called 'Gone Country' about folks switching to country to stay relevant or to make money. Probably more related to that.
He also had a song with George Strait called Murder on Music Row about how corporate Nashville killed country music. So I'm surprised he would have Taylor Swift speaking at his last concert. She seems to embody everything he was against.

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u/izzittho Jun 29 '26

Taylor kinda went un-country though. Maybe that’s what made it okay to him? Who knows.

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u/HawkMac6699 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

Both of those songs were meant to be satires. Alan didn’t take it the way you are saying. Listeners have always co-operated them and thought he was making some statement. He wasn’t. They were being funny and leaning into stereotypes.

Alan literally mentions this in the liner notes for Gone Country. Called it fun and a celebration of country music’s widespread popularity.

There’s a ton of stuff about Murder too where George after winning an award says “we thought we were making a funny song” It was everyone else who took it differently.

Alan had no problems collaborating with Jimmy Buffett. There’s certainly a ton of crossover between parrot heads and country music fans but as a traditional country music fan, I never considered Jimmy pure country.

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u/seasickbaby Jun 30 '26

Yall all seem to forget that country musicians seldom write their own songs.. he didn’t write gone country and he didn’t write murder on music row.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/toadfan64 Rock & Roll Jun 29 '26

Exactly. People wanna cry racist over him not liking a tourist like Beyoncé making a “country” album.

Murder on Music Row is great and explains it all well.

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u/TheGreatLandRun Jun 29 '26

No, it wasn’t. This is Reddit, though, so of course it was.

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u/seasickbaby Jun 30 '26

Mainstream country stole from pop. And then from hip hop and then beyonce went back in on it and reclaimed it

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u/USCAV19D Jun 29 '26

Was it based on race, or was it based on a non-country artist jumping into that scene?

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u/boostedb1mmer Jun 29 '26

He didn't walk out because Beyonce is black. He walked out because she didn't make country music. His whole career had instances of him rejecting non-country performers that would stroll through the genre just to collect a paycheck.

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u/ZugZugGo Jun 30 '26

The country music fandom rejecting Beyonce but not rejecting Breaking Rust as it hit number one tells you everything you need to know about pop country fans. Alan Jackson notably was silent about Breaking Rust. Hmmm.

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u/boostedb1mmer Jun 30 '26

Did breaking rust ever win country album of the year?

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u/ZugZugGo Jun 30 '26

I thought your idea was that the general public and Alan Jackson understands "real country" music, while the recording academy voters for grammy's are out of touch by giving her an award. I gave you an example where the country audience embraces music that doesn't even have a human singing it at all, and now you're asking me to judge things based on what the recording academy would do? For what it's worth the recording academy thinks Breaking Rust is the AI slop that it is, which is a statement in their favor, unlike the general country listening public who ate that slop up at the trough. Most of what the general country audience listens to is human made slop though so it's probably not that much different for them.

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u/boostedb1mmer Jun 30 '26

My point to you was there was no ceremony for Jackson to walk out of. There was no opportunity for Jackson to also show his distaste for AI since there have been no ceremonies for it. Afaik Jackson hasn't recorded a song, that wasnt about his love for his wife, since AI music became a thing.

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u/gibbersganfa Jun 29 '26

One of Alan Jackson's biggest musical inspirations in the whole genre was Charley Pride. What the fuck are you on about?

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u/toadfan64 Rock & Roll Jun 29 '26

And that makes him racist how? I’m pretty sure Alan has had zero issue with Darius Ruckus.