We've already discussed traditional country music's murky future in Steve Tuttle's hilarious essay and the attendant photo gallery. By Steve's lights, "something gritty and real has been lost. [Today's hits] borrow the vernacular ofcountry music, the genuineness and masculinity of that hard-knock life,but they morph it into something that's barely recognizable. The roughedges and authenticity have been sanded off."
There's no better confirmation of his prescience than today's news that 19-year country music veterans Brooks & Dunn are hanging up their Stetsons as an act, preferring instead to gamble on solo careers. They put the news up on their website, announcing that they'll embark on one last tour together (dubbed the "Last Rodeo") before calling it quits in 2010.
In the limited country radio market, the end of Kix Brooks' and Ronnie Dunn's honky-tonk hits means more playtime for poppier fare. Pop critic Jon Caramanica had a great piece in The New York Times a week ago about the wave of Taylor Swift wanna-bes currently using social media to nab those very playlist spots. From his piece:
The target demographic for country radio, which has historically been middle-aged women, hasn't helped usher in younger stars, though executives say that for new artists to have stability they must attract mothers as well as their children.... Regenerating its audience is something that's been heavily on the mind of Nashville of late. In March the Country Music Association released the results of a 2008 marketplace study it commissioned, the largest in its history. The findings identified one of the largest locuses of growth potential as "pop country" listeners, whom it described as "very urban, responding to new, female, pop-leaning country artists."
And where as traditional and pop coexisted in the '90s (Shania, meet George Strait), airtime in this decade is much more heavily populated with the latter. Summer singles "Alright," by former pop-rocker and Hootie & the Blowish frontman Darius Rucker, and "You Belong With Me," by Swift, are hardly mainline country. (As evidence, "You Belong With Me" sits at equal positions on both the top country and pop Billboard charts).
Country listeners, what's the future? Is there room for both types, as Carrie Underwood and Randy Travis are trying to prove? Is the extremely addictive "You Belong With Me" (13 million views on YouTube!) where it's at? Or should we simply pine for the dreamy days of Bob Wills?
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
