June 14, 2004
« June 9, 2004 |
Main
|
June 18, 2004 »
From this week's Nashville Scene:
So is it cheating that [Faith] Hill's career relies on studio fixes? Is it a sham that she, like so many modern music stars, uses auto-tuning in her live performances? Or is it just a good use of the latest of studio technology to take an ambitious and dedicated young woman with an appeal beyond mere vocal ability and, with the right packaging and investment, help her become an international superstar?
Not only is it cheating, it's borderline fraud. If her face, body, performance, and voice aren't real, maybe we ought not believe all that happy little family shit that she and McGraw peddle as well. There's more heart, guts, emotion, and truth in 3 seconds of Van Lear Rose, than there is in Faith Hill's entire catalogue.
If you listen to the "Country Station" here in town, while they play this crap, you're being sold a fraudulent bill of goods. The Program Director there is solely interested in getting you, if you're a woman between 25 and 45, to stay tuned into his station during the commercial breaks. And, since he has no musical taste whatsoever, he's more than willing to accept whatever Warners, and Sony, and BMG, and Mercury, and Universal just throw at him to deliver the demographic, pretty package and all. He and his DJ's don't sit around in a big room and say, "Yeah, that's a good record, it'll play well to Minnesota people who like Country Music." They're delivered big boxes of music with track upon track of this garbage complete with thorough instructions about what time of day to play it, and what kinds of commercials to play it around. It's disgusting. And if some reporter in this town reads this Nashville Scene article, and then calls him up for reaction in the local paper, if he defends the use of this stuff, or says something like "I let our audience and my DJ's pick the music," well, you'll know the truth...
I'll be the first to admit that I'm a self-righteous bastard about a lot of things. But, I also like to believe that the Twangy music I love comes from a spot in the American heart where truth wins out, and the warts don't matter. Go through your music collection tonight. If you have albums by the people insinuated as phoney in this story, go sell them back to a used CD store and give the money to some charity. The fraud must stop at some point.
All of the bands appearing on The Other Side of Country are road hogs. They might not all be pretty, but they get the job done.
Posted by Jack Sparks at June 14, 2004 8:57 PM
« June 9, 2004 |
Main
| June 18, 2004 »
