Post by Johnkenn on Nov 17, 2013 12:46:53 GMT -6
blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2013/11/17/peter-cooper-on-music-country-musics-new-rules/
Weird year for country music.
Too much death, as we remember Hall of Famers George Jones, Cowboy Jack Clement, Gordon Stoker and Jim Foglesong, massive hit-maker Jack Greene and other significant musical contributors.
And too much dissension. Big country stars including Zac Brown, Jake Owen, Gary Allan and Toby Keith have openly criticized the direction of the genre, harping on a preponderance of goofy songs about pickup truck romance and such.
Entertainment Weekly ran a piece called “How country music went crazy: A comprehensive timeline of the genre’s identity crisis,” and a Boston Globe writer surmised that we have hit a “bro-country critical mass.”
Much of the finest country material released hasn’t made a dent on country radio playlists. Solo male acts are dominating the radio charts even as literate and inventive female singer-songwriters are gaining mainstream critical acclaim without being played much over the airwaves. We are arguing amongst ourselves but not coming up with solutions.
Well, fear not. In the midst of this turmoil, I have good news to share:
A top-secret, blue ribbon, quite possibly fictitious committee has just named me Commissioner of Country Music, giving me governing powers over the entire industry.
I am both delighted and humbled, in a “feeling superior” kind of way. I am now in charge of Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, Luke Bryan and all of our other entertainers. I’m the boss of the songwriters, of the terrestrial radio airwaves and of the dancing naked statues at the Demonbreun round-about.
I am kind of a big deal. Which is good, because we have some big problems. I am just the man to solve these problems, but it is going to take some belt-tightening and some governing regulations.
Change is never easy — unless you’re changing from doing something hard to doing something easy, I suppose — but it is necessary for the survival of country music as a format and as a force of cultural good.
So, my minions, here are the new rules:
I am mandating a two-year — no, make that three-year — ban on writing or recording songs about partying in fields and/or congregating in, on or around pickup trucks. Anyone who enjoys these songs has plenty of them around to hear for the next 36 months. Songwriters who attempt to defy this ban will be forced to sit in a small, enclosed space with Kris Kristofferson and Guy Clark while Kris and Guy recite their lyrics aloud and make groaning noises. Performers who break this rule will be excommunicated from “country” music and made to work in a newly created genre, “Goober Rock.” After three years, everyone can go back to the 2013 norm, but I have a feeling they won’t.
Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson at the Bluebird Cafe on January 27, 2013 (photo: Dipti Vaidya/The Tennessean)
Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson at the Bluebird Cafe on January 27, 2013 (photo: Dipti Vaidya/The Tennessean)
In exchange for the peaceful removal of truck songs, fans and critics must refrain from anymore snarky truck song commentary. To paraphrase Willie Nelson, pretend they never happened. Erase them from your mind. Even I, your commissioner, am bound by this edict.
Anyone who wrote a silly truck song prior to this morning will be formally and officially pardoned, because they were only doing their job. Every professional songwriter with a Music Row publishing deal is supposed to be writing things that find radio favor. That’s how you feed a family. Blaming a songwriter for writing what’s in fashion is like blaming a pastry chef for carbohydrates.
Speaking of carbohydrates, Goo Goo Clusters are now the official candy of country music. Which means I, as Commissioner, get free Goo Goos.
Between 40 percent and 60 percent of songs featured on contemporary country radio stations must be performed by women. Do. This. Now. The night of the CMA Awards, the Billboard country Top 10 was only 5 percent female. Cigar bars and “Star Trek” conventions have greater female participation.
Charlie Worsham gets to be a big-time star, instantly. He’s a super-talented guitar player who writes, sings and plays hooky, tuneful songs. Exactly the kind of fellow the industry needs to be holding up as an example of our non-idiocy.
No more Johnny Cash T-shirts if you’re onstage doing songs that would have made Johnny Cash throw up.
Forget that last rule. The new mandate is: If you’re doing a song that would have made Johnny Cash throw up, at least have the decency to wear a Johnny Cash T-shirt while doing it.
Ugly and out-of-shape people get to have record deals again. The list of Country Music Hall of Famers is far from a compilation of the most physically attractive people to sing country songs. Ugly people have often been the backbone of the country music genre. “Sings great, looks bad” is infinitely superior to “Looks great, sings bad.” Plus, who says everyone is attracted to Barbie dolls or six-pack-ab dudes? Conway Twitty had a perm and a paunch and wore polyester jumpsuits, and he was a LEGEND and a SEX SYMBOL.
Lee Ann Womack, the most emotionally compelling country singer ever to threaten me with “two swift kicks to the groin” (long story: buy me a beer) is hereby immediately restored to heavy radio rotation and popular ubiquity. This is both because she sings better than most everybody else and because it would be unbecoming for The Commissioner of Country Music to be kicked in the groin even once.
We are replacing the birthday-suited “Musica” statue on Demonbreun with a statue of Conway Twitty with a perm, wearing a jumpsuit. Ladies, you are welcome.
Zac Brown Band performs Friday at the Southern Ground Music & Food Festival. (photo: Shelley Mays / The Tennessean)
Zac Brown Band performs Friday at the Southern Ground Music & Food Festival. (photo: Shelley Mays / The Tennessean)
Zac Brown, who called one pickup truck hit the “worst” song he’d ever heard, must admit that his breakout hit, “Chicken Fried” — in which he thanks fallen soldiers for sacrificing so that he could eat fried chicken, drink cold beer and wear and/or observe “jeans that fit just right” — was pretty silly itself.
Each person who wins, places or shows in a televised music competition has to take a class from former “Nashville Star” contestant Miranda Lambert in how to forge a post-competition career as a vital, creative, against-the-grain force. We will pay Lambert’s teaching salary with a retroactive $1 surcharge on every pickup truck sold in America over the past two years. The truck people owe us this much, at least.
Weird year for country music.
Too much death, as we remember Hall of Famers George Jones, Cowboy Jack Clement, Gordon Stoker and Jim Foglesong, massive hit-maker Jack Greene and other significant musical contributors.
And too much dissension. Big country stars including Zac Brown, Jake Owen, Gary Allan and Toby Keith have openly criticized the direction of the genre, harping on a preponderance of goofy songs about pickup truck romance and such.
Entertainment Weekly ran a piece called “How country music went crazy: A comprehensive timeline of the genre’s identity crisis,” and a Boston Globe writer surmised that we have hit a “bro-country critical mass.”
Much of the finest country material released hasn’t made a dent on country radio playlists. Solo male acts are dominating the radio charts even as literate and inventive female singer-songwriters are gaining mainstream critical acclaim without being played much over the airwaves. We are arguing amongst ourselves but not coming up with solutions.
Well, fear not. In the midst of this turmoil, I have good news to share:
A top-secret, blue ribbon, quite possibly fictitious committee has just named me Commissioner of Country Music, giving me governing powers over the entire industry.
I am both delighted and humbled, in a “feeling superior” kind of way. I am now in charge of Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, Luke Bryan and all of our other entertainers. I’m the boss of the songwriters, of the terrestrial radio airwaves and of the dancing naked statues at the Demonbreun round-about.
I am kind of a big deal. Which is good, because we have some big problems. I am just the man to solve these problems, but it is going to take some belt-tightening and some governing regulations.
Change is never easy — unless you’re changing from doing something hard to doing something easy, I suppose — but it is necessary for the survival of country music as a format and as a force of cultural good.
So, my minions, here are the new rules:
I am mandating a two-year — no, make that three-year — ban on writing or recording songs about partying in fields and/or congregating in, on or around pickup trucks. Anyone who enjoys these songs has plenty of them around to hear for the next 36 months. Songwriters who attempt to defy this ban will be forced to sit in a small, enclosed space with Kris Kristofferson and Guy Clark while Kris and Guy recite their lyrics aloud and make groaning noises. Performers who break this rule will be excommunicated from “country” music and made to work in a newly created genre, “Goober Rock.” After three years, everyone can go back to the 2013 norm, but I have a feeling they won’t.
Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson at the Bluebird Cafe on January 27, 2013 (photo: Dipti Vaidya/The Tennessean)
Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson at the Bluebird Cafe on January 27, 2013 (photo: Dipti Vaidya/The Tennessean)
In exchange for the peaceful removal of truck songs, fans and critics must refrain from anymore snarky truck song commentary. To paraphrase Willie Nelson, pretend they never happened. Erase them from your mind. Even I, your commissioner, am bound by this edict.
Anyone who wrote a silly truck song prior to this morning will be formally and officially pardoned, because they were only doing their job. Every professional songwriter with a Music Row publishing deal is supposed to be writing things that find radio favor. That’s how you feed a family. Blaming a songwriter for writing what’s in fashion is like blaming a pastry chef for carbohydrates.
Speaking of carbohydrates, Goo Goo Clusters are now the official candy of country music. Which means I, as Commissioner, get free Goo Goos.
Between 40 percent and 60 percent of songs featured on contemporary country radio stations must be performed by women. Do. This. Now. The night of the CMA Awards, the Billboard country Top 10 was only 5 percent female. Cigar bars and “Star Trek” conventions have greater female participation.
Charlie Worsham gets to be a big-time star, instantly. He’s a super-talented guitar player who writes, sings and plays hooky, tuneful songs. Exactly the kind of fellow the industry needs to be holding up as an example of our non-idiocy.
No more Johnny Cash T-shirts if you’re onstage doing songs that would have made Johnny Cash throw up.
Forget that last rule. The new mandate is: If you’re doing a song that would have made Johnny Cash throw up, at least have the decency to wear a Johnny Cash T-shirt while doing it.
Ugly and out-of-shape people get to have record deals again. The list of Country Music Hall of Famers is far from a compilation of the most physically attractive people to sing country songs. Ugly people have often been the backbone of the country music genre. “Sings great, looks bad” is infinitely superior to “Looks great, sings bad.” Plus, who says everyone is attracted to Barbie dolls or six-pack-ab dudes? Conway Twitty had a perm and a paunch and wore polyester jumpsuits, and he was a LEGEND and a SEX SYMBOL.
Lee Ann Womack, the most emotionally compelling country singer ever to threaten me with “two swift kicks to the groin” (long story: buy me a beer) is hereby immediately restored to heavy radio rotation and popular ubiquity. This is both because she sings better than most everybody else and because it would be unbecoming for The Commissioner of Country Music to be kicked in the groin even once.
We are replacing the birthday-suited “Musica” statue on Demonbreun with a statue of Conway Twitty with a perm, wearing a jumpsuit. Ladies, you are welcome.
Zac Brown Band performs Friday at the Southern Ground Music & Food Festival. (photo: Shelley Mays / The Tennessean)
Zac Brown Band performs Friday at the Southern Ground Music & Food Festival. (photo: Shelley Mays / The Tennessean)
Zac Brown, who called one pickup truck hit the “worst” song he’d ever heard, must admit that his breakout hit, “Chicken Fried” — in which he thanks fallen soldiers for sacrificing so that he could eat fried chicken, drink cold beer and wear and/or observe “jeans that fit just right” — was pretty silly itself.
Each person who wins, places or shows in a televised music competition has to take a class from former “Nashville Star” contestant Miranda Lambert in how to forge a post-competition career as a vital, creative, against-the-grain force. We will pay Lambert’s teaching salary with a retroactive $1 surcharge on every pickup truck sold in America over the past two years. The truck people owe us this much, at least.