Country's Conundrum

The Tennessean has done a pretty good job holding country music up to the light in the wake of the amusingly controversial Grammy Awards. Last week the major label heads sounded off in a Sunday cover story about being ghettoized and discriminated against by the Recording Academy (NARAS), and NARAS chief Neil Portnow expressed his displeasure at their displeasure, especially at the very public nature of criticism that could have been delivered in private. Now this week, NARAS VP Nancy Shapiro takes a stand out of keeping with her overly-politic caution of the past. She enumerates the many country music performances at the Grammys over the past five years as well as the superstars who gladly did tribute segments without complaint. She also gives Music Row a small slap by inviting its brass to take "the high road" in discussing this issue further.

I’ve been pondering all this a lot, partly because I don’t think anybody’s standing up for what I know to be a large constituency who believe that record sales notwithstanding, it’s deeply disturbing to have “country music” represented to the planet by Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood.

Of course like anyone, I self-select my musical peer group, but I know literally hundreds of people who feel as I do that the slide of country music the FORMAT (as opposed to country music the genre) has accelerated and is now in a kind of esthetic freefall. RF and CU are not without talent (though RF seems almost entirely without any tasteful reference points or historic influences), but when you’re at the Grammys, you’re supposed to be in a realm where legends tread, and I’d like to hear from anyone who thinks RF and Underwood are going to be remembered by history on the same terms as Loretta Lynn or Johnny Cash.

Here’s the problem as it’s playing out in Nashville: The major labels and the country music format, which I’ll shorthand as CMA country, seem to seriously believe that the media, from magazines and newspapers to radio and awards shows, are supposed to be extensions of their marketing and public relations operations. The CMA Awards and ACM Awards have been exactly that for years, rarely honoring excellent country music that didn’t fit on commercial radio or that didn't have Q factor for the broadcast. And when I was at the Tennessean, I was amazed at the drumbeat of pressure from the CMA and label publicists not to write anything that might reflect badly on country music, as if we were part of a family instead of observers of a business. My predecessors said they felt it too. Just last week, Country Weekly, the only national publication supposedly covering country, published a cover story about Kenny Chesney written by Holly Gleason who was, until very recently, Chesney’s personal publicist. That’s Nashville’s problem in a nutshell. It’s insular, playing to its pre-screened base, not unlike George W. Bush’s “town hall meetings" where only softball questions are allowed.

The country music format can be complacent today because it’s relatively healthy when measured against other formats of music, but that only means it's sinking slower than the rest of the mainstream music industry. As a believer in Nashville, it's not reassuring to see our big record labels, for decades the nexus of talent investment and development, in such a precarious position, because nobody seems poised to take its place. Moreover, speaking as a music fan, CMA country has become almost completely irrelevant. Even its best artists like Brad Paisley and Josh Turner tend to make extremely dull sounding records, because radio programmers and fans won't let them stretch or try the quirky things that keep musicians growing and inspired.

Meanwhile, country music the genre is developing and advancing largely in spite of rather than because of the CMA. The finest writers and voices of our generation, from Jim Lauderdale and Buddy Miller to Elizabeth Cook and Laura Cantrell battle for their careers every day either on their own or through cash-strapped independent labels with a meager radio base. But this not news to anyone. I just thought the gulf between the CMA's all-imporatnt country format and the country music genre couldn’t get much wider, and after the past two weeks I realized I was wrong.

Comments

[George]

First of all, no one would ever say Country Weekly is the bastion of journalistic integrity. The fact that they printed an article written by a publicist should not be used as an indictment of an industry. Consider who owns Country Weekly. That says it all.

You seem to have a problem with radio programmers. The fact is that country radio is one of the few formats in the radio business that is healthy, and is so because of the wide diversity of musical styles it includes. I would not call "Me & God" a dull record, and the fact that a song that features the voice of Dr. Ralph Stanley is in the Top 30 for radio airplay is a huge statement on the open minds of country radio programmers. I can't think of many other radio formats that can claim as wide a range of artists from 17 year old Taylor Swift to Dr. Ralph.

I also don't feel an artist who draws all of their style from the past, like Elizabeth Cook, is an example of fresh or ground-breaking music. In fact, none of the people you mentioned are doing anything new, and they'll be the first to admit it. There's a reason these artists don't achieve popularity when given their shot. And it's not because radio is stupid.

Does radio like a certain amount of consistency? Sure. Does the chart system lead to playing it safe? I'm sure it does. But when someone drops out of the sky with something new and fresh, they will rally around it with dizzying intensity.

[George]

Let me add that I agree that the music industry feels radio should be an extention of their marketing and PR operations. That was never more evident than during the FCC hearings in December. Everyone there complained that radio wasn't doing enough to sell records. However, that's not radio's job. And if radio occasionally doesn't play a certain artist or a certain song enough, that's because it doesn't serve the interests of radio. This is how radio fights being an extension of a label's marketing and PR operations.

And radio SHOULD have a say in what it plays. If that means telling a record label that a certain group should identify one person as a lead singer, then radio has not only the right, but also the obligation to say so. If the label ignores radio programmers and not identify a lead singer, then it's the label's right and obligation to do so. If what radio wants doesn't sell records, or isn't good for artistry, then don't listen to people in radio, and find another more creative way to get your music to the public. But if you go to radio asking for free airplay on their stations, don't be surprised if they want a say in what you bring them.