I went to one of his shows this year, expecting to be as bored as I was with Rascal Flatts. Instead, I was knocked out with the talent of him and his band. Talent in putting on a show and entertaining as well as with his musical talent.

He writes the songs he writes and country music fans are who buys his music. Should he be blamed for that?

I also appreciate the explanation of the music you like, all of which I like, too. I still think Flippo is a sincere writer and saying what he feels. I think it’s possible to write for corporations with a vested interest in a topic and still create honest and worthwhile journalism. If I was judged by every boss or corporation I’ve accepted money from, I’d have a lot of shit to scrape off my shoes.

To me, though, t’s too easy to brush off opinions or point of views you don’t agree with as being bought or being insincere. Viacom hired Flippo because he’s considered a writer of integrity, and not just because of his resume. There are plenty of old Rolling Stone writers who lost touch along the way, but I don’t view Chet as one of them. He often makes it clear he still loves older music, and music outside the radio mainstream, but he also looks for music within the format that he enjoys. As he should.

I also still feel that it’s possible for a knowledgeable and passionate music critic to realize that just because he or she doesn’t like certain artists or trends, it doesn’t mean those who enjoy the work of those artists and trends have bad taste or even less developed or informed tastes. I’m not just saying that because I like artists you find lacking or mediocre, but also because I respect the differences of opinion I have with those who enjoy music I can’t stomach and find artistically or intellectually lacking.

Each of us has distinct cultural signifiers that leads us to like what we do, and I don’t believe it means one person’s tastes is automatically better than another’s. It’s just that they respond to something for entirely different reasons than I do.

I may not find anything valuable in Rascal Flatts and Rush, or Alabama and Air Supply, and I may think there are artists I find over-rated, from Ryan Adams to Eddy Arnold to Dale Watson, but that doesn’t mean I think those who get immense pleasure from those artists suck. I just think they’re coming at it from a different angle than I am. I also realize there’s music I enjoy that is amateurish or excessively polished, but there’s something in it I like. As much as consensus counts, among critics just as among fans, it’s the individual response to something I find most interesting.

I’m all for strongly stated opinions. But the more strongly you state them, the more room there is for disagreement. That’s one of the reasons I like coming here and like reading what you write, even when I disagree enough to respond.

I couldn’t agree more that Ashton Shepherd and James Otto aren’t up to snuff with the genre’s best yet, but since when has the onus been on emerging artists to establish themselves as champions of the genre right out of the gate? Sure, some have managed it – Randy Travis is a great example – but many take much longer to find their artistic groove or commercial breakthrough. Reba, for example. Flippo is rewarding potential here. He is looking for the silver lining, as he noted early on in the piece. Whether or not that silver lining is as thick as it has been in past years (I agree it is not) is scarcely implicated in his writing, so I don’t think it’s fair to blugeon him for trying to pass “tolerable mediocrities” as gleaming musical apexes in the genre’s history.

that was certainly a well reasoned and restrained response to what was admittedly an aggressive comment from me and I applaud your graciousness..

but I think you’ve got me wrong right up front.
“Sounds to me that you like a portion of the popular country music of a particular era, and it’s not this one. Jones and Haggard grew up in a specific culture with shared influences, and their music showed it. Someone at the time could have said they were watered down Lefty, Hank, Acuff, Wills and Monroe”

You make it seem like I’m some kind of 60’s honky tonk purist, which is not the case. It’s true that what I really dig is a portion of the popular country music from an earlier era, but the era is roughly 1940-1990. I know that whenever someone claims they don’t like country music today it’s easy to respond that “well you don’t like Big and Rich, some people didn’t think Johnny Cash was traditional enough” but I think it’d be pretty tough to say I have a restrictive view of country music.

Some people may have thought Jones and Haggard were watered down Hank and Lefty, but I celebrate both pairs of artists equally. I dig Gram Parsons and the Louvin Brothers. Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakam, and Lyle Lovett. Johnny Paycheck and Waylon Jennings. Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. Hank III and Moot Davis. It’s not about the sounding strictly like 60’s honky-tonk or the amount of strings on the record, or whether a fiddle is used. It’s about the ethic of country music songwriting, which I think has been foregone.

also
As for Flippo, disagreeing with his tastes and comments is fine, and you can use whatever term you want to denigrate him. But I don’t doubt his sincerity in naming current acts he likes today, and I don’t think he’s in any way a corporate shill.

again, I appreciate your graciousness, and I get that saying “Chet Flippo sucks” is impolite, but I’ll stand by it and I’ll tell you why.

In his role as editorial director for CMT.com, Chet Flippo is perpetuating the myth that this “slump” that country music is experiencing is a normal part of it’s history rather than an unprecedented event.

He may be sincere in his appraisal, but if that’s the case than (in my opinion) he is an untalented music critic, and sucks. Harsh? I guess, but as the writer who helped bring Willie and Waylon to the mainstream, he should know better than anyone how far off-track top 40 country music is today.

The other option is that he is insincere, that as editorial director for CMT.com, he needs to pretend that his employer viacom is not cannibalizing country music and to do so he needs to pretend that some portion of mainstream country music is equally as good as the best of mainstream country music in earlier days. By claiming there is nothing wrong, and by asserting that we should be happy with Ashton Shepherd and James Otto as stand-in’s for Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, or Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle, or Patsy Cline and Buck Owens, or whoever (my point is that there was no real scarcity of great artists), Chet Flippo is lying in order to make it seem like he is not part of the problem. That would make him suck.

And also, I know there’s a sense of “well he has to feed his family too ya’know”. That may be so, but he doesn’t have to do it by being a music critic. I don’t think that art critics should lie in order to feed their families. If they can’t feed their families by being as honest and uncompromising as the art their should be praising, then they need to get another profession.

Also, I’m not crazy about the fact that Flippo doesn’t allow comments on his blogs or accept emails. As probably the highest profile country music critic out there he should be more confident than any of us in dealing with feedback and criticism.

You seem to believe that the only people with good tastes are those who share YOUR tastes. I’ll refrain from saying that sucks, but it’s a pretty limited view of people who aren’t you.

yes and no. Obviously I think I have good taste and that I know what I’m talking about. Otherwise I’d really have no business writing reviews or articles on country music. Also, naturally I don’t think that everyone has good taste in music and I allow for the fact that a lot of people have bad taste. Does that make me suck? I don’t think so but you are welcome to your opinion.

but as far as demanding people share my taste, I don’t think that’s fair. I know some people who live and breathe honky-tonk and if it’s not Buck or Wynn or Faron playing a shuffle it’s not their cup of tea, but I don’t think they have bad taste. Some people don’t care for Townes or Billy Joe, they don’t think they are good enough singers and they don’t like their progressive songwriting, it’s not their thing. I’ve never been a big bluegrass guy, but I don’t think people who like bluegrass have bad taste.

But yes, I think that the people who think that Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban and Brad Paisley deserve their spots as the biggest country music artists walking the earth today have bad taste, but its not because it’s not my taste (which is to say I have no arbitrary prejudice against them), it’s because, for multiple reasons, I think overall their music fails as country music, and that it does so rather spectacularly.

Sounds to me that you like a portion of the popular country music of a particular era, and it’s not this one. Jones and Haggard grew up in a specific culture with shared influences, and their music showed it. Someone at the time could have said they were watered down Lefty, Hank, Acuff, Wills and Monroe, and Jones especially got blasted regularly back in the ’70s and ’80s for modern production touches (especially on albums he made with Billy Sherrill, which I happen to love). There were plenty of fans in the ’60s and ’70s who thought all the country music of that time sucked compared to that of the ’40s and ’50s, and so it goes. I’ve come across comments from the ’30s and ’40s where someone argued that anything with vocals on it wasn’t country music. Things evolve, you know, and there will always be people who don’t like the direction they go.

As for Flippo, disagreeing with his tastes and comments is fine, and you can use whatever term you want to denigrate him. But I don’t doubt his sincerity in naming current acts he likes today, and I don’t think he’s in any way a corporate shill. Does he know what his boundaries are at the job he’s been given? Sure he does. But I think he’s genuine about what he says within those boundaries.

Personally, I agree with him a lot more often than I don’t. I like a lot of what Sugarland does, too, just as I like a list of other current acts you may not, including James Otto and Jamey Johnson (I like some songs on his upcoming album ore than “In Color,” but that’s not really the point.) I’m not going to give up my collections of Jones and Haggard, and I’m pretty close to a completist on them, except for some of what Jones has done in the last 18 years or so. But I think “Drive” and “All My Ex’s Live In Texas” are as good as “Mama Tried” and “The Race Is On,” and I play my mixtape CDs of Jackson and Strait as often as I do those I’ve made of Haggard and Jones, etc. No one’s paying me to say that, and I don’t think Flippo would alter his opinion to fit some idea of what he thinks his bosses want him to say, either. You seem to believe that the only people with good tastes are those who share YOUR tastes. I’ll refrain from saying that sucks, but it’s a pretty limited view of people who aren’t you.

Sugarland (Jennifer and Kristian) both grew up in the 1980s so that’s why the sound is there.

how does it feel standing in the middle of the shop surrounded by tons of broken china and realising a few things had better not been smashed?

If you haven’t heard full versions of some of the new Sugarland songs yet: Here’s: Joey, Take Me As I Am, Wishing and It Happens.

http://www.us957.com/cc-common/mfeatures/

For the first two: Hello Bryan Adams. Actually, there’s a definite 80’s sound to a lot of Sugarland’s work. I wonder if that is just the era in which they picked up their influences.