The 9513» Your Take

Your Take: Matchmaker, Matchmaker

Karlie Justus — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:00:21 +0000

In Thursday’s News Roundup, Brody included news that Lee Ann Womack will join country music heavyweights George Strait and Reba McEntire on tour next year.

The Tennessean reports:

One of country music’s biggest touring bills just got even better. George Strait has invited Lee Ann Womack to join him and Reba McEntire on their 2010 tour, which will make its way through the U.S. from January to April.

“I can’t imagine a better tour to be on than George Strait and Reba McEntire — and now I’m not imagining,” Womack said in a release.

“I’m trying to figure out what to wear, ’cause you can’t out-starch George and you sure can’t out-spangle Reba!”

The tour kicks off on January 22 in Baltimore and ends its sporadic run on April 10 in Des Moines.

If you could play matchmaker, who would be on the bill of your dream tour? Dead or alive, young or old, regardless of genre – which groups or artists would you choose and why? Are there particular songs by one of the artists you’d be interested in hearing them sing together?

Your Take: Pretty, Pretty Ponies

Karlie Justus — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:00:22 +0000

Although Blake’s review of Play, Carrie Underwood’s latest album, didn’t receive much attention last week (insert sarcasm here), there was an interesting question brought up in the comments section by the reviewer himself that got lost in a sea of proclamations of pop boundaries and visions of a country music apocalypse.

Blake pondered on a shift in our country artists’ images and the way country fans want them to be:

On a roll now. To me, it seems there’s been a gentle turn in how fans view their country singers. While the top stars used to be a representation of who they are, the top stars, now more mainstream than ever in nearly every capacity, seem to exist now as who they want to be, whether that be a beautiful, hockey star/NFL quarterback-dating college grad, an SNL-hosting phenomenon or other celeb-culture supernova (Lady A hangin’ with Katherine Heigl! OMG! Brad and Kimberly at a Hollywood premiere! Swoon!) The newfound fame of Nashville’s biggest, well, it taps into the fantasies of many Middle Americans (Visions of 30 Rock dance in my head. Anyone?). It’s a thesis I’ve been tossing around in my head for a while, and since a 200-comment thread just ain’t enough, I’d figure I’d throw it out there. I think there’s a sizable portion of the hardcore country listening audience that’s turned off by the (petty?) problems of this new mainstream brigade and will never connect to the dramas presented in their songs, regardless of how “country” it sounds. Is everybody too popular now? Is everybody too pretty?

Celebrity worship has always been around in Hollywood and beyond, but the country genre has always lauded itself to be “real music for real people.”

Do you think there has been a shift in the celebrity images of country stars? Do you prefer your favorite singer to be a a representation of yourself (with a few extra dollars) or an extension of that?

Also, to address Blake last question: Do you think there’s a group within country music – whether we call them traditionalists, Americana fans or something else – who are more turned off by the current reigning mainstream singers’ “dramas” than their music? To quote Blake: “Is everybody too popular now? Is everyone too pretty?”

Your Take: Polite Company

Karlie Justus — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:00:23 +0000

Sammy Kershaw once sang that there are three topics he’d just rather not get into: “Politics, Religion and Her.”

However, Kershaw may be in the minority, considering the recent string of country songs and news items that don’t necessarily fall into the conversation outlines for polite company.

On Halloween, Q Notes published “City bans Country performer after anti-gay lyrics,” recounting controversial lyrical additions singer Matt Boswell and the Hillbilly Blues Band made to a Merle Haggard song during a city-sponsored concert in Reidsville, North Carolina:

In his rendition of Haggard’s “Are the Good Times Really Over for Good?”, Boswell sang, “Well you’ll never take my guns, and I’ll pray anywhere that I please/My daddy always told me, if you were able, and didn’t work then you don’t eat/All you Wall Street bankers, as far as I’m concerned, you can all go to Hell/And you can’t get married, you stupid gays and queers, so why don’t you go somewhere else?”

On a different note, Jim reviewed Lee Ann Womack’s new single “There is a God” this week, which some readers disliked not for its content, but its presentation. Commenter Noeller said:

Yep – as much as I love Country music, I can’t stand the Christian overtones in a lot of it, and this song really really rubs me the wrong way. It’s just too preachy and too “in my face”. I’m sure there’s a lot of people who will eat it up, but I just can’t see it getting a lot of spin up north of the 49th.

Historically, country music (and its roots in Southern traditions and beliefs) has been built upon conservative and religious foundations. About a year and a half ago, we had a Your Take that focused on mixing politics and country music, so this time around we want to hear from you on a slightly different question: Despite the examples above, do you think country music, as a genre, is unfairly stereotyped as being bigoted, backwards and preachy?

Thanks to That Nashville Sound’s Ken Morton, Jr. for his suggestions on this week’s Your Take subject.

Your Take: Version 2.0

Karlie Justus — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:00:01 +0000

In Thursday’s News Roundup, Brody included a link to a Billboard feature on Taylor Swift’s new platinum edition release of her album Fearless, which hit stores on Monday.

The CD/DVD set will have a variety of new content, with six new songs and video extras including her video collaboration with T-Pain on “Thug Story” and exclusive new behind-the-scenes photos shot by Taylor’s brother, Austin K. Swift.

In the interview, Swift explains her reasoning for re-releasing the album, and in the official news release, Big Machine’s Scott Borchetta offered his take:

“Taylor’s fans have an incredible appetite for her new music and her ongoing life experiences. The two million-plus fans who bought Fearless within weeks of release last year are screaming for new Taylor music and Taylor has delivered,” says Scott Borchetta, President/CEO of the Big Machine Label Group. “There are six new songs, over fifty new photographs from the Fearless Tour 2009, a beautiful new collector cover, all of the videos from all of the hit singles and tons of new Taylor video footage. Taylor is all about engagement and staying engaged – the fans are going to love this.”

Commenters on the news roundup had mixed reactions to the new edition, including Sam:

Yes, Lucas, I stick with that even if the average fan is 12 years old. Even if the kid doesn’t know a “deluxe edition” is likely to come out in 8 months, there is hardly any significant trickery involved. (I imagine that even if many of these fans were told that a deluxe edition would come out in eight months, they would buy the initial edition the week of its release, anyhow, and still buy the deluxe one later).

Products of all sorts are updated from time to time, and even though some buyers may be unaware of said updates, this hardly seems like a deceitful practice to me. The product is put on the shelf, it is priced, and if the consumer gets what he or she thought he was getting, I just don’t see any trickery. Maybe there would be some if the label said, “We absolutely promise that we won’t release a deluxe edition next Christmas, so there’s no need to wait to purchase” and then it did release such an edition. But otherwise, I don’t see any significant trickery.

I don’t think its “trickery” for Craig Morgan to rerelease his current CD with the “Bonfire” track either, nor do I think its trickery for a group to release a version of a CD with “exclusive bonus content” to one retailer only.

I can understand that some fans may not like the practice. They may want to own “everything” that Swift releases and be a bit peeved because, to own “everything” they essentially have to buy what is almost the same product two times. But if they do decide to buy twice, I don’t think they have been tricked.

Of course, this practice certainly isn’t unique to Swift. What do you think about album re-releases that, as Sam puts it, essentially require you to buy the same product twice in order to own new music by the artist? Which artists’ re-releases have you bought (or considered buying) to get your hands on bonus tracks? Was it worth it, or did you feel manipulated?

Your Take: Recycled Songs

Karlie Justus — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:00:26 +0000

In Thursday’s review of Trent Tomlinson’s new single “Angels Like Her,” we learned that although the song is set to appear on his upcoming sophomore album A Guy Like Me, it originally appeared on his debut album Country Is My Rock.

Commenter Jordan Stacey noticed this is the latest song in a string of singles to pull that trick:

I’m also a fan of the song from the original album, but I’m getting tired of releasing songs from previous albums, it seems like everybody’s doing it. “Eight Second Ride” – Jake Owen, Kellie Pickler’s “Didn’t You Know How Much I Loved You”, Brad Paisley – “Waitin’ On A Woman”, Keith Urban’s “You Look Good In My Shirt”, etc.

To Jodan’s comment, Jim Malec and Waynoe both replied:

Jim: I also attribute it to the fact that great songs are now commonly passed over for songs that test well at a given point in time and within a given demographic. “Waitin’ on a Woman,” “Didn’t You Know How Much I Loved You” and “Angels Like Her” were all among the top two or three strongest songs on their respective albums. Not releasing them as singles the first go-round was criminal. There has to be some residual pressure there, when looking at potential material for the next project.

Wayneo: Jim, A good observation. The “testing” of songs is the driving force. It more used to be that the songs could cut or create the path in the wilderness; now the path is already cut due to demographics and other criteria and it’s simply finding a song to fit the already prescribed mold.

What do you think of releasing songs from previous albums as singles, even though they didn’t “cut it” the first go-round? Are you glad deserving songs get their chances at radio airplay, or do you think artists should promote current material?

Your Take: Teen Sensations

Karlie Justus — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:00:03 +0000

Brody included Craig Shelburne’s CMT article “Fifteen Teens Who Found Country Music Success Before Taylor Swift” in Monday’s News Roundup. On the heels of Swift’s nearly unstoppable rise into country royalty, Shelburne took the opportunity to look back on other teen sensations in the genre:

Taylor Swift is undeniably country music’s most popular teenager today. At age 18, she spent six weeks at No. 1 with “Our Song” — which she wrote for a school talent show. By the time she turns 20 in December, she’ll have sold 10 million albums, sold out an arena tour, graced countless magazine covers and solidified her spot as one of the most popular musicians of the decade.

However, she’s certainly not the first fresh-faced youngster to make a name for herself in Nashville. Here are 15 more whippersnappers who ultimately found brilliant careers in country music.

Shelburne went on to list some of Swift’s teen predecessors, including Lynn Anderson, The Everly Brothers, Crystal Gayle, Alison Krauss, Brenda Lee, Barbara Mandrell, Dolly Parton, LeAnn Rimes, Jean Shepard, Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Marty Stuart, Tanya Tucker, Hank Williams Jr. and Wynonna.

Here are a few of the highlights:

The Everly Brothers
Phil Everly was 18 when “Bye Bye Love” and “Wake Up Little Susie” spent a combined 15 weeks atop the country chart in 1957. (Don Everly had turned 20 earlier that year.) Highly respected for their wholesome harmonies, as well as keeping their business affairs in Nashville, they were elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.

Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley
These two friends put a bluegrass band together at age 15, and when Ralph Stanley heard them play, he hired them both within a year. The young Kentuckians eventually found their way to Nashville, collectively notching 16 No. 1 hits. Skaggs remains a Grammy favorite, and Whitley is often cited as a key influence among the generation that followed.

Hank Williams Jr.
The family tradition was strongly encouraged by his mother, Audrey. Thus, his first single charted in 1964 when the 14-year-old took his father’s “Long Gone Lonesome Blues” to No. 5. He duplicated that feat at 17 with his own “Standing in the Shadows.” Today, at 60, he remains a popular live draw and an apparent shoo-in to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Who is your favorite artist to get an early taste of success in country music? Have you followed them their entire careers, or did you catch on later in their lives? If you’ve followed them the whole way, do you prefer their earlier performances, or their more seasoned offerings?

Your Take: Sentiment vs. Sentimentality

Karlie Justus — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:00:47 +0000

Craig Bickhardt recently touched on the pitfalls of excessive emotion in songwriting on his Ninety Mile Wind blog post “Cold Eye, Warm Heart”:

The world was like a distant storm
I could feel it on the breeze
But it made so little difference here
Just a whisper in the trees
Mending fence for room and board
Was mostly all I’d done
For I was still a prisoner here
In nineteen-sixty-one
The sucker rod on the windmill creaks
Now and then you hear a car
There’s thunderheads across the southern sky
But they won’t get this far
(“Six-Year Drought” by James McMurtry)

Sentimentality is wrung out of this and left to evaporate on the parched earth. McMurty’s lines are as hard and pitiless as the Texas plains, and yet they still touch something pulsating with life inside. I bet he sees his struggling ants and sheds no tears for them.

While I hold McMurtry’s standard in the highest esteem and wouldn’t change a word of it, I suppose I’m just a sucker. I’ve flirted with sentimentality all of my writing life, and maybe I’ve even crossed the line sometimes. The truth is it’s damn hard not to cross it if you feel any pity at all for the world.

Softer art for harder times? Probably won’t fly. Yet we must feel something in order to be human. There must be emotion when it is warranted, and there is indeed a perceptible difference between emotion and sentimentality even though it sometimes takes a microscope to see it. After all, it’s our compassion that keeps the human race going, and we don’t want to lose that.

In the writing we can err both ways. On either side of the good, observant narrative there are pitfalls; effusiveness or stolidity. The line between is walked with a cold eye and a warm heart.

The line between sentiment and sentimentality can be a fine one, and it doesn’t take much for a song to take you from feeling moved to feeling manipulated. Songs with strong emotional ties such as Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning),” BOMSHEL’s “Fight Like a Girl,” Rascal Flatt’s recent single “Why” and George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today” all toe that line, with a million different results individual to millions of different listeners.

What’s your take? Are you a sucker for sentimentality? Give us an example of a song that you think effectively evokes appropriate emotions in a way that you appreciate most.

Your Take: Aging Country Legends

Karlie Justus — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:00:34 +0000

Earlier this week, Kris Kristofferson released his latest album Closer to the Bone. Juli reviewed the album on Wednesday, giving it four out of five stars:

Like Guy Clark’s recent release Somedays the Song Writes You, Closer to the Bone occasionally drags. Kristofferson plods through “Let the Walls Come Down,” and so-so closing track “The Wonder” ends the album with a whimper, not a bang. But after nearly 40 years as a singer-songwriter, Kris Kristofferson is still making records that burn with stark honesty and simple beauty. He may be in the twilight of his career, but his pen is still as sharp as ever.

On the heels of the legendary songwriter/singer/actor’s latest offering, The 9513 contributor Stephen Deusner compared the release to previous aging country stars’ final albums in one of our staff discussions:

I just reviewed Closer to the Bone for the Richmond paper, and I found it so grim that I couldn’t even enjoy it. It sounds like a man putting his affairs in order and getting ready to die — i.e., it sounds just like This Old Road. I love Kristofferson as both a musician and an actor, and it pains me to see him go out this way — so solemn, so resigned, so… acoustic. It’s been bothering me a lot lately, mainly because it seems like Johnny Cash’s American Recordings series has become the template for how a country star should age. Is anyone else tired of this trend in country music, or see it as a potentially bad thing, or as a possible cop-out?

Do you agree with Stephen? Do you see this type of recording by county legends as a frustrating trend, or are these albums from country music luminaries such as Kristofferson, Cash and Porter Wagoner simply reflections of the point they are or were in their lives?

Your Take: Starstruck

Karlie Justus — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:00:20 +0000

In Wednesday’s News Roundup, Brody included a blurb on the ACM Honors’ star-studded tribute to a collection of country legends.

Miranda Lambert was on hand to perform “(I Don’t Have) Anymore Love Songs” to honor an absent Hank Williams Jr., but it was another one of the night’s honorees–a guy by the name of Merle Haggard–that made a lasting impression on the singer, who tweeted:

@Miranda_Lambert: Tonight was the biggest night of my life… I kissed Merle on the cheek. Wow.

And over on Juli’s interview with legend George Jones, commenter Lucas had a similar (hypothetical) reaction to meeting one of Haggard’s contemporaries:

Lucas: I’d like to congratulate Juli on this interview… my interview would be more like this….
“Y-y-y-your.. G-g-geo-geor-george J-j-j-jones”

Musical artists serve a unique role in the world of famous people, as the songs they perform often get tangled up in our lives’ events and the lyrics they write weaved into our thoughts in a way that actors sometimes can’t match. If you could meet your favorite country artist, what would you say to him or her? And if you have met that person, how did the interaction go?

Your Take: Regional vs. Mainstream

Karlie Justus — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:00:05 +0000

I reviewed Texas honky-tonker Kevin Fowler’s new single “Beer Season” this week, and the comments section brought up some interesting points on the pluses and minuses of being a regional artist.

Fowler is a mainstay in the Texas country music scene, but the only songs he’s written that have reached mainstream success have been recorded by artists such as Sammy Kershaw, Mark Chesnutt and, most recently, Montgomery Gentry. But is that necessarily a bad thing?

In the comments of the review, Kelly made this point:

People (not you Karlie) tend to forget that when an artist reaches the level that Fowler has reached here in Texas and regionally, they are likely making more money and enjoying far more creative freedom than your typical up and coming mainstream artist. Not everyone in Texas wants or needs to be Jack Ingram or Pat Green.

Admittedly, Texas country is basically its own sub-genre of country music. However, bands such as The Avett Brothers and Darius Rucker’s old gig Hootie and the Blowfish first got record deals after gaining large regional followings. On the flip side, artists such as Corey Smith have chosen to stay on the independent, regional route.

Do you think an artist’s goal should be to garner national success, or do some artists actually benefit from staying tuned into a certain geographical niche?

Do you have a favorite regional artist? If so, if he or she made a targeted effort at mainstream success do you think it would help or hinder that artist’s music?