12/02: The Chicks and the Hicks from the Sticks
Category: American Culture
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Today's NYT reads:
Defiant Dixie Chicks Are Big Winners at the Grammys
"After death threats, boycotts and a cold shoulder from the country music establishment, the Dixie Chicks gained sweet vindication Sunday night at the 49th annual Grammy Awards, capturing honors in all five of the categories in which they were nominated" (read entire article here ).
The first clause of the lead contains the MSM stock description of the Dixie Chicks: "threatened, boycotted and mistreated." Woe to any well-intentioned and enlightened dissenter intent on speaking truth to power. McCarthyism lurks in the hearts of these ignorant country-music cretins, and violence and economic coercion are the tools of compliance in Red-State America.
The second clause of the lead offers an abysmally flagrant cliché to describe the Grammy triumph for the Chicks: "sweet vindication." And not because it is merely a trite phrase--but it is also inaccurate. Sweet Vindication? Vindication equals justification. In its most literal sense, vindication connotes exoneration through argument or the exhibition of evidence. I suspect that the verdict of the Grammy voters will enjoy an extremely limited jurisdiction.
Sweet revenge? Maybe. Delicious counterpunch? Probably. Shot across the bow of the "country music establishment"? Yes. The Times actually gets it right in the fourth graph of the story, describing the Grammy haul for the Chicks as a "rejoinder" and a "sharp counterpoint to their shut-out at the Country Music Association awards in November."
An aside: Why did the Country Music Awards "shut out" the Chicks last November? Because the Chicks are no longer on country radio. Country fans in the United States, in general, are no longer buying tickets to see the Chicks in concert or buying their albums. The Chicks are off the radar for most country music fans.
Why did the hicks from the sticks disown the Chicks?
There was a time when the Chicks were the darlings of the country music world and could do no wrong. We cheered their emergence as rowdy Texas girls who could wax sentimental or bawdy, depending on how the mood struck them. The song "Goodbye, Earl," in which two female friends kill an abusive husband and get away with the crime, engendered a small controversy from the faint of heart. But most of us laughed it off. These were, after all, Texas girls. They hailed from a state where it was once legal to kill a man, if you could prove he needed killing. We whooped it up, all the while making the Chicks the hottest selling musical group in the nation. We were in love.
Then, on a stage in London in the spring of 2003, all the merriment turned to incredulity. She said what?
Then there was the defiant clarification two days later; "I feel the President is ignoring the opinions of many in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world."
Then there was the disingenuous apology to the President, which Natalie later admitted was a "forced" apology and the only action that she truly regretted in the entire imbroglio. Actually, she need not have confessed that to us; we knew it all the time. We could see it on her face.
Then there was the mammoth public reaction: Country radio banned the Chicks; erstwhile fans destroyed their CDs in riotous public ceremonies. In the blink of an eye, Middle America repudiated its sweethearts.
Why the intense reaction?
We were stunned. We thought we knew them. They were us. And we are flag-waving patriots with simple beliefs. We assumed that the Chicks were the girls next door (a bit rowdy and sassy, perhaps, but that is not atypical in our neighborhood).
But when the Chicks came out as “enlightened” and hip on politics, we were crushed. We constantly forgive entertainers with whom we do not agree: Sheryl Crow, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Mason; the list is endless. We can forgive movie stars for their “George-Cloonery” because they rarely suggest that they are anything but “Hollywood,” and we think we know what that means. We expect Madonna to be against the war. But the Dixie Chicks?
Country Music-loving, Red-State America felt betrayed. We had been cuckolded. And our reaction was much more emotional than it was rational.
In the ensuing months and years, the Dixie Chicks cast themselves as martyrs. Hurt and sobered, they made it clear that they never really felt comfortable with their country audience. Now they understood why. They had always been just one “honest statement” away from antagonism and alienation from their “fans.”
The Chicks sought the comfort of a more tolerant constituency. And cosmopolitan American embraced them as heroines.
In 2006, the Dixie Chicks were back. Once again, Natalie proved sassy and resilient. The Chicks arrived atop the Billboard Album charts with Taking the Long Way debuting at Number One. They were on the cover of Time magazine; they were on Today; they were on NPR’s Fresh Air and numerous other places telling their harrowing story of survival:
(from the autobiographical single. "Not Ready to Make Nice")
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter sayin’ that I better shut up and sing or my life will be over
Compassionate and sensitive people in New York and LA nodded in a knowing way and bit down on their lips.
Defiant and unrepentant, Natalie belted out:
I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time to go 'round and 'round and 'round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should
The Chicks were once again the toast of the town in progressive cities all over the world. But they were not selling out concert venues in Memphis and Okalahoma City and Houston. The North American tour was reorganized shifting emphasis from US dates to Canadian venues. Country fans balked at buying the CDs, and radio stations found it more trouble than it was worth to play their new music. Red-State America was not ready to "make nice" either.
Regardless of whether they were right or wrong about the war and the President, the Dixie Chicks were wrong about us. They misjudged us. They did not understand what we wanted from our superstars.
Above all else, country music fans want humility in their icons. Hanging out with the Hollywood illuminati and taking on the politics of the Left Coast connotes a hubris that country folks cannot abide. The country singer, James Hand, may have said it best. When asked what people ought to know about him, he responded: "I ain't no different or no better from nobody." I fear that the Dixie Chicks lost sight of that essential required element for sustained success.
What now? I wish them happiness and prosperity. I hope they find more than enough fans outside of the country music world to make up for the ones they lost within it. My hope is that the Grammy voters who applauded them last night will appreciate them just as much two decades from now, when they are no longer vehicles for a political statement.
Defiant Dixie Chicks Are Big Winners at the Grammys
"After death threats, boycotts and a cold shoulder from the country music establishment, the Dixie Chicks gained sweet vindication Sunday night at the 49th annual Grammy Awards, capturing honors in all five of the categories in which they were nominated" (read entire article here ).
The first clause of the lead contains the MSM stock description of the Dixie Chicks: "threatened, boycotted and mistreated." Woe to any well-intentioned and enlightened dissenter intent on speaking truth to power. McCarthyism lurks in the hearts of these ignorant country-music cretins, and violence and economic coercion are the tools of compliance in Red-State America.
The second clause of the lead offers an abysmally flagrant cliché to describe the Grammy triumph for the Chicks: "sweet vindication." And not because it is merely a trite phrase--but it is also inaccurate. Sweet Vindication? Vindication equals justification. In its most literal sense, vindication connotes exoneration through argument or the exhibition of evidence. I suspect that the verdict of the Grammy voters will enjoy an extremely limited jurisdiction.
Sweet revenge? Maybe. Delicious counterpunch? Probably. Shot across the bow of the "country music establishment"? Yes. The Times actually gets it right in the fourth graph of the story, describing the Grammy haul for the Chicks as a "rejoinder" and a "sharp counterpoint to their shut-out at the Country Music Association awards in November."
An aside: Why did the Country Music Awards "shut out" the Chicks last November? Because the Chicks are no longer on country radio. Country fans in the United States, in general, are no longer buying tickets to see the Chicks in concert or buying their albums. The Chicks are off the radar for most country music fans.
Why did the hicks from the sticks disown the Chicks?
There was a time when the Chicks were the darlings of the country music world and could do no wrong. We cheered their emergence as rowdy Texas girls who could wax sentimental or bawdy, depending on how the mood struck them. The song "Goodbye, Earl," in which two female friends kill an abusive husband and get away with the crime, engendered a small controversy from the faint of heart. But most of us laughed it off. These were, after all, Texas girls. They hailed from a state where it was once legal to kill a man, if you could prove he needed killing. We whooped it up, all the while making the Chicks the hottest selling musical group in the nation. We were in love.
Then, on a stage in London in the spring of 2003, all the merriment turned to incredulity. She said what?
Then there was the defiant clarification two days later; "I feel the President is ignoring the opinions of many in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world."
Then there was the disingenuous apology to the President, which Natalie later admitted was a "forced" apology and the only action that she truly regretted in the entire imbroglio. Actually, she need not have confessed that to us; we knew it all the time. We could see it on her face.
Then there was the mammoth public reaction: Country radio banned the Chicks; erstwhile fans destroyed their CDs in riotous public ceremonies. In the blink of an eye, Middle America repudiated its sweethearts.
Why the intense reaction?
We were stunned. We thought we knew them. They were us. And we are flag-waving patriots with simple beliefs. We assumed that the Chicks were the girls next door (a bit rowdy and sassy, perhaps, but that is not atypical in our neighborhood).
But when the Chicks came out as “enlightened” and hip on politics, we were crushed. We constantly forgive entertainers with whom we do not agree: Sheryl Crow, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Mason; the list is endless. We can forgive movie stars for their “George-Cloonery” because they rarely suggest that they are anything but “Hollywood,” and we think we know what that means. We expect Madonna to be against the war. But the Dixie Chicks?
Country Music-loving, Red-State America felt betrayed. We had been cuckolded. And our reaction was much more emotional than it was rational.
In the ensuing months and years, the Dixie Chicks cast themselves as martyrs. Hurt and sobered, they made it clear that they never really felt comfortable with their country audience. Now they understood why. They had always been just one “honest statement” away from antagonism and alienation from their “fans.”
The Chicks sought the comfort of a more tolerant constituency. And cosmopolitan American embraced them as heroines.
In 2006, the Dixie Chicks were back. Once again, Natalie proved sassy and resilient. The Chicks arrived atop the Billboard Album charts with Taking the Long Way debuting at Number One. They were on the cover of Time magazine; they were on Today; they were on NPR’s Fresh Air and numerous other places telling their harrowing story of survival:
(from the autobiographical single. "Not Ready to Make Nice")
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter sayin’ that I better shut up and sing or my life will be over
Compassionate and sensitive people in New York and LA nodded in a knowing way and bit down on their lips.
Defiant and unrepentant, Natalie belted out:
I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time to go 'round and 'round and 'round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should
The Chicks were once again the toast of the town in progressive cities all over the world. But they were not selling out concert venues in Memphis and Okalahoma City and Houston. The North American tour was reorganized shifting emphasis from US dates to Canadian venues. Country fans balked at buying the CDs, and radio stations found it more trouble than it was worth to play their new music. Red-State America was not ready to "make nice" either.
Regardless of whether they were right or wrong about the war and the President, the Dixie Chicks were wrong about us. They misjudged us. They did not understand what we wanted from our superstars.
Above all else, country music fans want humility in their icons. Hanging out with the Hollywood illuminati and taking on the politics of the Left Coast connotes a hubris that country folks cannot abide. The country singer, James Hand, may have said it best. When asked what people ought to know about him, he responded: "I ain't no different or no better from nobody." I fear that the Dixie Chicks lost sight of that essential required element for sustained success.
What now? I wish them happiness and prosperity. I hope they find more than enough fans outside of the country music world to make up for the ones they lost within it. My hope is that the Grammy voters who applauded them last night will appreciate them just as much two decades from now, when they are no longer vehicles for a political statement.
Sean wrote: