Odie-I'm not Gerald, but I would like to weigh in with my 2 cents on that question. I have always loved old school, real country music, from the outlaw stuff of Waylon, Willie, David Allan Coe and Merle to Johhny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Marty Robbins, Patsy Cline and Reba McEntire, "The Possum" George Jones, and too many more to mention. But probably the last country musicians I liked were 90's guys like Dwight Yoakam and Brad Paisley, both super-talented performers. I like Garth Brooks, too, but his immense popularity took country music out of smoky bars and put it into stadiums for the 1st time in its history. I guess the record industry saw the enormous potential to make the same level of money as they had with the big rock acts like Led Zeppelin and others.
And then the marketing people took over...
Most of what is called country now is just really bad pop. Fake country accents and formulaic songs that all have to contain the same elements. The women all have to be super-model gorgeous after Shania Twain (not that there's anything wrong with that, but not sure Loretta Lynn would have been able to get a recording contract nowadays).
Now if you go looking for some alt-country music, you can find some real talent: Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, etc. But that has often been the case with rock acts too. There is a lot of talent out there that doesn't fit the mainstream mold.