Country Music (乡村音乐, 컨트리 음악)

Of the 3 Asian languages I translate to, 2 of them didn't even have a reciprocal word for country music, as American country music is kind of a genre of its own, unreplicated by other country's music. In Chinese it's translated into "village music" evoking images of the countryside, small villages, and farmers, country bumpkins, not city folks. Which country music kind of is, but recently it's gone more mainstream, as evidenced by the ultimate validation, becoming its own category on Jeopardy. And me not getting it, kind of like the "drinking songs" category today....I got the hardest clue about "whiskey shot and a vodka shot" as Tubthumping by Chumbawumba, but 3 of the other ones were just "stare at the screen clues" about day drinking, Brad Paisley, and Little Big Town. As a kid on road trips I remember thumbing through the FM channels and hearing a bunch of country music, but instantly changing the dial as I knew my parents didn't like it and it didn't ring out to me. Nowadays I appreciate a mainstream country hit like "Fast Car" remixed by Luke Combs, or Texas Hold'em by Beyonce (apparently she's a country artist now, with her Emmy-winning album Cowboy Carter) but back then every country song sounded the same to me, with the singer always with a southern accent and signing about alcohol, women, or lost love. Or gambling, like in Kenny Rogers's the Gambler, which gave me the impression every country song was set in a bar, a saloon, a gambling hall, or a combination of all 3. Also a big fan of the hit "Austin" by Dasha, a song whose first comment on Youtube goes, "Where there's a will, there's a way and I'm damn sure you lost it." Yea we've all been disappointed by people, but maybe not prophesizing that "in 40 years they'll still be here drunk." The banjo (apparently required instrument in Texas country songs) and guitar features prominently in country songs, and I might learn to appreciate it more if and when I learn how to play at a later age. Watching re-runs of the Weakest Link, I have to lament that one of the most fun trivia formats is not pitting contestants at each other like Jeopardy does on a nightly basis (and sometimes more often when Masters or Celebrity are on - Season 3 of Masters coming up this week, right after Celebrity Jeopardy just ended), but as a cooperative exercise to build as much cash up as possible. The Chase utilizes that kind of team play pretty well as well as the contestants have to work together to beat a "chaser," but Weakest Link has the best buildup of building a long chain because if someone on your team gets it wrong and is literally "The Weakest link," the whole chain breaks apart. Oh and the questions are easier......it's a great show with funny hosts, Jane Lynch being the latest American one, but as with all good trivia shows in the US, it doesn't get good enough ratings, and often faces cancellation, episodes air sporadically, it's on at 9PM ET on Friday nights, etc.... and oh yea network television is going the way of the newspaper and fading as a media platform. Maybe Amazon Prime will pick it up after seeing the success (I hope?) of Pop Culture Jeopardy? Weakest Link is already pretty pop cultur-ey to get as many views as possible so it'd be a smooth transition and it's kind of the watered down version of Jeopardy but still challenging enough sometimes to give a real trivia player his jollies. Oh and it's like the closest thing a Survivor fan like me could get to actually being on a reality show- the contestants vote each other off after every round of play based on how good each player is but sometimes on the opposite criteria like "how likely is it that I beat this other player." Simple concept, good questions, buildup of drama. Renew! Put some country music questions in there to get the country music demographic, make the show popular and Make America watch Quiz Shows again!