Sometimes you wonder where country music is going. As a genre, it seems to have gotten a bit confused. The mainstream stuff so heavily promoted by the major record companies is little different from AOR (average, ordinary rock to the uninitiated, what did you think that term meant?). Then there is the roots side of things where fiddles and such like survive. And then there is the good time music that you enjoy with your Friday night beer or even while driving in your pickup truck to the office.
An example of the latter sub genre is Reckless Kelly's album "Bulletproof". Their songs have both blue collar and white collar appeal. "Love in Your Eyes", for example, would make a perfect soundtrack to the daily traffic lights grand prix. Likewise, "A Guy like Me" echoes Joe South's "Down in the Boondocks" even if it is in a Barbara Mandrell kind of way. Willy Braun's vocals never let the side down, however, and make for a large part of this band's appeal. They sound like ordinary guys out for a good time on a weekend. Beer and blondes, hangovers and heartache - they're all in their somewhere. Even some liberal (in the American sense) sentiments get an airing in "American Blood". All the bases covered, really.
You can't really argue with music like this. Its commercial and it undoubtedly has wide appeal all the way from a trucker on the lonesome highway to an urban cowboy. It is just that you get the feeling that they could try just a bit harder and then they would blow the roof right off.