Kenny Chesney Debuts Video On MySpace

…also glad to see that the Phosphorescent/Willie disc is still getting talked about, cuz it will be in my top few at the end of the year, for sure…

As usual, Chet’s right on; key graf: “Country music is about a lot more than mainstream country radio. Look at all the varieties of country presented on the different stages at the Stagecoach festival in California: alt-county, Western swing, cowpunk, bluegrass, country rock and cowboy storytelling.” As Eddie Stubbs would say, any questions?

Also as usual, a fine playlist from Craig Shelburne; as I mentioned a couple of days ago, the entire NewFound Road album is very strong, and so is Jeremy Garrett’s.

Speaking of Jeremy, I went down to the Belcourt last night for the Infamous Stringdusters show, which was outstanding, and attracted an unusually high number of fellow musicians, who don’t usually go out much. Ran into Casey Driessen, out with his wife and brand new baby; Bryn Davies (currently a member of Darrell Scott’s bluegrass band); Cody Kilby (the unnamed lead guitarist with Kentucky Thunder mentioned in Ben’s Stagecoach piece); Jennifer Strickland (Alecia Nugent Band and writer of the most excellent “I Can Go Back Anytime” that’s currently topping Bluegrass Unlimited’s chart); hot singer/songwriter Sarah Siskind, who’s married to the ‘dusters’ bass player, Travis Book; Tyler Grant (Drew Emmitt Band, and recent winner of the Merlefest guitar competition) and too many more to remember. I’m hoping that maybe Pierce or some other 9513 Nashvillain was there for review purposes.

And sorry, Razor X, but I thought the My Kind of Country piece on Whitley was inaccurate, myopic and lacking in insight; you coulda done better, dude.

Jon: Look at all the varieties of country presented on the different stages at the Stagecoach festival in California: alt-county, Western swing, cowpunk, bluegrass, country rock and cowboy storytelling.” As Eddie Stubbs would say, any questions?

Why is it that I’ve got to hunt and research and generally go out of my way to hear any of those genres? Why does the Nashville country establishment and Clear Channel country stations want to pretend that these genres don’t exist? Why does underground music have to be so damned underground when I can turn on my local country radio station and hear Rascal Flatts played a dozen times a day? Would the country music industry fall apart completely if radio stations threw in a little Dale Watson or the Legendary Shack*Shakers into their playlists?

Honestly, I wouldn’t be so down on country music if it truly embraced its diversity.

SamG – Imagine how deep people had to dig before the internet? We arent having to dig that deep when you can basically go down any decent blog’s blogroll and be introduced to a diverse group of excellent albums/artists on a daily basis.

Who cares whats being played on the radio, when there are so many other ways to actually listen to the exact music you want to, thanks to the internet?

I failed to heed your warning, Brody, and now I know what it would be like if Kenny were to guest star on The Hills.

What are they going to title that Bryan Adams / Jason Aldean episode of Crossroads, “Clone Wars”?

Now I really wish I would have won a copy of Dale Watson’s new album! Hey PaulaW, do you want to trade some music? (lol)

The country music genre choke point is mainstream country radio. Very few people percentage wise have satellite radio to listen to stations like XM-14 “Willie’s Place”, and cars aren’t yet equipped to get music off the internet via wireless feeds. Listening to terrestial radio while in vehicles and everywhere else is still convenient and free, so its the dominant country music distribution network. Anyone who wants to discover any music from artists and styles not featured on Top 40 stations will have to find them through word of mouth, blogs, MySpace sites, etc. I truly appreciate what all you blog operators that participate here do! Well, except for Kelly as he has such poor taste in country music…. (blame Brody for getting me in a “let’s bag on Kelly” mood…)

Reba McEntire on her new album: “I think that my song selections are a little more hip,” she says. “I know they’re more uptempo. They’re funky, they’re sassy, they’ve got attitude.”

Reba is secretly auditioning to play Norma Desmond on Broadway isn’t she?

Thanks Guy, now I know whats wrong with me.

And why did he choose to castigate the writer of the article again, after he already did it three weeks ago?

I was wondering the same thing.

So he did choose to write in regards to a print version. That’s all well and good, but he had access to the web version and didn’t even mention it, which presents problems with his argument.

It offered no insight and the rebuttals he did offer were pretty lame and didn’t even make a counter-point.

Like Jim C. mentioned, Flippo can only offer up Jamey Johnson as someone making “genuine, baptized-in-the-blood” country music, but goes a little far when he says Johnson is coming close to living his music the way George Jones did. Johnson has released more music than That Lonesome Song and it was much less autobiographical and not nearly as good. Even then, Johnson has said the particulars of “High Cost of Living” aren’t true.

The Newsweek article was narrow in its scope, but so to is what’s presented as country by radio and the multiple awards shows, but where they embrace the pop/rock leanings of the mainstream, the Newsweek author rejects them. They’re pretty much two sides of the same coin, so to rip one, you have to admit the failings of the other.

It’s fairly obvious that the author is aware Rodney Atkins’ hit doesn’t represent the entirety of country music and that he’s misdirected his ire at the genre rather than the commercial entities (radio, major labels, big media, awards shows) that only present mainstream fluff as the sole definition of country music. But even then, he’s making the same judgment of country music as millions of people who purchase the music they discover through these outlets. Without a doubt, mainstream country is being pushed as the definition of country and the subsets that Flippo listed aren’t represented.

And he goes on to say “perception truly becomes reality.” Give me a break. Ask the majority of the people buying Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts records about alt-county, Western swing, bluegrass, country rock, and cowboy songs and you’re likely to get blank stares.

It’s disingenuous to claim that country music encompasses more than what radio plays and then offer up the argument that the other subsets got a little tent at a music festival.

Then Flippo brings Southerner’s into the argument out of left field. It’s like he’s just making stuff up to rail against.

His argument then boils down to “it’s Newsweek for crying out loud.” The author of that article mentioned the Bristol sessions, Ray Charles, the Urban Cowboy era, Outlaw music, the folk scare, bluegrass and Garth Brooks and all Flippo can say is that they lack perspective and country music grounding. Just because he says it doesn’t make it so.

“Today’s country, writes Newsweek, is a ’strange, alien country-awards show that honors bubblegum pop stars like Taylor Swift, most of whose songs aren’t really country, even using the stretchiest definition.’”

Despite Flippo misrepresenting what was actually said in the web version with the prepended phrase, he doesn’t offer up a counterpoint, he just goes on to say that he appreciates Swift’s songwriting skills and career smarts and her audience appeal, but doesn’t say a single word about whether or not her music is country. Nice rebuttal. All the same things were probably said about Eminem at some point in time, but does that make him country?

And as the author concedes that the spit and polish in contemporary country music isn’t the end of the world, he ends the piece with this sentence about George Jones, “In the so-called good old days, he might not have shown up at all.” I dunno if the “so-called” phrase wound up in the print version, but that line comes off as pretty facetious to me and not saying that a drunken George Jones is what country music should be all about.

But if Flippo wants to call that a cliche, the cyclical argument is getting pretty cliche these days as well and doesn’t hold much water as country moves further and further from it’s roots with no hints of returning. Perhaps Flippo is the one that needs to try a little harder next time.

But don’t take my word for any of this, I’m just a blogger and can’t compare to the experts.

A problem Flippo had with Tuttle’s article is that he purposefully narrowed the scope of contemporary country music in order to make his point, but Flippo did the same thing by choosing to ignore the web version. There’s not a problem with that?

I did take issue with that, but it wasn’t the bulk of my argument. Anyhow, I wasn’t planning on convincing you of anything. The argument is there for anyone to read and make up their own mind.

Oh great Weisberger’s here. Well, see ya ’round the ranch, I’m outta here. I need his nitpicking obnoxiousness like I need a fork in my eye.

I’d like to nominate this for the 9513’s coveted Most Pointless Argument Ever prize.