File this under things that should have been obvious but for some reason weren’t. I always figured that once the country audience moved from rural areas into the suburbs and the cities, it would come to more closely resemble the mainstream pop audience, and that both sides of the equation would become more accepting of the other. It’s something that’s been going on for years, but the people in the country music business, who you would think would know about these things already, apparently had to commission a study to find out about it. The contemporary country audience is as wealthy, as well-educated, and as tech-savvy as the pop audience, something that even country radio programmers and others in the industry seem to be surprised at. Which can’t help but make me wonder what they believed up until now. Do they really think the country audience falls for all that small town, simple life blather, or sees it as anything else but a romantic fantasy? Does country radio really think its audience is that stupid? Had they convinced themselves that they really were pitching hokum to a bunch of hicks? Considering how the business treats most fans, that would certainly be less surprising.
Archive for the ‘country’ Category
The country music audience: smarter than the country music biz
Monday, March 7th, 2011How country are country fans?
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011If this post is any indication, very. I suppose the same thing could be done with hip-hop and rock and indie fans, but when country fans set their iTunes to shuffle, all they get is country (and the occasional pop hit).
Are country fans more mature than pop fans?
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011When it comes to lusting after celebrities, maybe so.
Houston Hash
Monday, October 11th, 2010In preparation for their first US tour in nearly a decade, Cornershop goes country. Trucker country, at that.
Loverly
Friday, September 17th, 2010Comment from the YouTube page: This is Roy Lanham and the Whippoorwills with Sweet Georgia Brown. The mandolin player is Doug Dalton and the man with the Stromberg is my father, Gene Monbeck. Bassist is Dusty Rhoads.
H/T: David Hajdu
Western Swinging
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
Like most people, I imagine, my knowledge of western swing is limited to Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and Asleep At the Wheel. Loopy, corny, and relaxed in equal measure, it can be a difficult style to appreciate, too country for jazz and blues fans, too jazzy and bluesy for most country fans, too lacking in intensity, grit, and speed for most modern pop fans, never serious enough for the intellectual crowd. But as a bridge between the various genres that merged to become rock and roll its importance is underestimated, and like most older genres that have come to be represented by only one or two artists, it sports far more musical variety than most give it credit for.
All of which is just a way of saying that you should check out Western Swing on 78, a blog offering carefully curated mixtapes of otherwise uncollected 78s from the prime years of western swing. I’m currently listening to a wonderful compilation of cajun swing records, and I can’t wait to get to the mix that ends with “When the Curtains of Night are Pinned Back by the Stars” by Zora & the Hometowners. The title alone holds enough poetry for a hundred records. Check it out.
(HT: Roger Ebert)
Next step: a Tom Petty tribute album
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010Country, so far behind the curve they’re ahead of it, takes another peak into the ’80s and discovers power pop.
The end of country as we know it
Monday, April 5th, 2010Sugarland says their next album will be influenced by steampunk:
Nettles says that “The Incredible Machine”—both the album and their forthcoming tour—take inspiration from the “steampunk movement”, a branch of science fiction that imagines a world where humans evolved intellectually, but technology remained set in Victorian times. “I describe it emotionally as bungee jumping and eating chocolate cake,” she says. “It’s terrifying and gratifying, all at the same time.”
I’m not sure that’s an entirely accurate definition of steampunk, but if you reverse it, where the technology evolves, but the intellect remains in a previous era, you do have a pretty good description of modern country. Turning that on it’s head could be very interesting. Though I’m not sure I’d pick Sugarland as the band to do it.
Dead Record
Saturday, May 30th, 2009Since I was touting it earlier, I just wanted to mention that Miranda Lambert’s “Dead Flowers” is, as I suspected it might, dying on country radio. Too dark and somber for them, I guess. But then, it’s not getting much play on her MySpace page, either. Maybe it’s too dark for everybody. Still a great record, though.
Miranda Lambert
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009I had meant to post about this when I first heard it a few weeks ago, but it’s still worth mentioning that the new Miranda Lambert single, “Dead Flowers”, is everything The9513 says it is. It makes even her best songs sound like juvenilia. It may be a little too Lucinda Williams-ish for my tastes, but it’s a lot more down to earth than Williams has been in a while, so that’s a minor quibble. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to predict it being a smash–even though Miranda isn’t shooting her significant other or setting him on fire this time around, it may still be too dark for country radio. It certainly isn’t getting much play on Lambert’s MySpace page compared to her earlier records. I wonder what the uptempo stuff sounds like.
