Country music and rivet counters

Visit any discussion forum, click into any thread about a new kit, and you'll find a tangential conversation -- often heated -- about the value of nitpicking inaccuracies. Some of the so-called "rivet counters" are extremely vocal about their disappointment with a handful of the manufacturers who seem to consistently release models with inaccuracies. This rivet counting annoys more than a few modelers.

For what it's worth, this dichotomy is not unique to scale modeling.

I love music. I'll listen to anything -- pop, rock, rap, classical, country. Earlier this years I found Saving Country Music, a blog devoted to critiquing, sometimes in very harsh terms, the country music we hear on the radio. The webmaster, Kyle “The Triggerman” Coroneos, believes that the current crop of artists (Florida Georgia Line, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood) has twisted country music into a genre that sounds more like pop, and he's not happy about that at all.

For his ongoing critique of the industry, Trigger has come under fire by readers who ask why its necessary to criticize bad music. I'll let you read his full response, but some of his comments are applicable to our hobby.

"Professional criticism is something every artist should crave, and helps
maintain a healthy music environment that invites discussion on quality."

I have to believe that the manufacturers in our hobby are thick-skinned enough to read and accept criticism, and we have reason to believe they listen. For example, I wonder if the less prominent rivets on Trumpeter's latest releases is one example of a manufacturer listening to its customers.

"Criticism can also be an important tool to the music listener, especially
as the music world becomes evermore crowded with choice."

To this point, those of us who've been in the hobby for 20 year or more know there are thousands more products available today than ever before, and even if you've been building models for one year, no one has to tell you that prices on many of many kits are quite high. (I'll write more about that latter point in the future.) Most of us buy kits on a limited budget, so it's important that we know what we're buying. The rivet counters make us smarter consumers. I'd rather go into my LHS, or onto a favorite online shop, knowing more about the models I intend to buy than less. And for that I have the Triggers and the rivet counters of the world to thank.

P.S. For the record, I kinda like Blake Shelton's "Boys 'Round Here."