Posted on 06/01/2006 3:48:24 PM PDT by familyop
The Dixie Chicks appear to be more popular than the president these days. President Bush's approval rating has plummeted, but the Chicks are on top of the pop and country charts with their first album since publicly criticizing Bush three years ago.
They did it without the support of country radio, which largely ignored the Dixie Chicks after lead singer Natalie Maines told a London audience in 2003 that the group was ashamed Bush was from their home state of Texas.
The new album, "Taking the Long Way," took the No. 1 spot Wednesday on the country albums chart and the Billboard 200 overall chart - which are based on sales rather than radio airplay - with 526,000 units sold in its first week.
For the year, the Chicks' first-week showing is behind only Rascal Flatts' "Me and My Gang" (722,000 units), according to Wade Jessen, director of Billboard's country charts.
Jessen said the strong sales figures may show that hardcore country fans are not as bothered by the controversy as many in the music industry thought, or simply that the group is attracting a broader audience.
"There also might be a certain amount of support that may have been thrown their way by folks who are a little more liberal and that maybe never bought a country album in their lives but want to show their support," he said.
The new album hit stores May 23 amid a flurry of media appearances (including a Time magazine cover story) and its first-week sales are the trio's best since "Home" sold 780,000 units in its first week of release in September 2002.
First-week sales on "Taking the Long Way" were better than Chicks' longtime nemesis Toby Keith, whose latest album, "White Trash With Money," sold 330,000. Tim McGraw's "Greatest Hits Vol. 2: Reflected" sold 242,000.
The new album's first single, "Not Ready to Make Nice," came out in March and stalled at No. 36 on Billboard's country songs chart. It did slightly better on the adult contemporary singles chart, peaking at No. 32.
The song was co-written by the trio and addresses the controversy head on, with Maines singing in the chorus, "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."
The latest single, a more conventional song called "Everybody Knows," reached No. 48.
The group did not respond Wednesday to a request for an interview.
In January Maines told Entertainment Weekly magazine that she was disappointed with country music and that she's "pretty much done" with the genre.
Jessen suspects that most country stations have already made up their minds about the Chicks' new album and probably won't come on board even if sales remain brisk.
For a lot of programmers, the group is still too polarizing.
"Programmers are directly or indirectly responsible for the health of the bottom line, and if anything happens that distracts from that in the way they run their business, they won't deal with it," Jessen said.
Ken Boesen, program director at WPOC in Baltimore, said his station played "Not Ready to Make Nice" a few times, but never added it to the playlist.
"Regardless of whether country radio plays them or not, they're going to sell," Boesen said. "There are too many ways for people to hear about and get new music these days."
You are right, and I think there will be just so much patronage of their music before they give it up.
When the Ditsy Chits steered the attention away from their music and toward their political views they blundered bigtime. Not wise to alienate fans....I used to like the music but now it's tainted when I hear it. They dont get my $$ and don't give a rats behind how the MSM pushes their agenda. Let them Chits lick Bruce Springsteens heels.
Doesn't seem to work well with the constituancy, now does it?
read the comments on ITunes - the buyers are simply making a political statement.
Name TIME magazine too. I don't read the rag but did happen to see it at the doctors office. I guess it's a watershed moment for the elite New York media to curry favot with a country music group.
I have never seen the MSM push an album like their pushing this one. It is so over the top obvious. It makes me want to cry.
The proof will be when they go on tour...people may spend $12 on a CD to make a statement, but I doubt they'll shell out $50 for a ticket for a statement. However, we'll see.
The boycott ain't working. The same people who are "boycotting Hollywood" and then rush to put down $9 per a flea-bitten sticky seat to watch The D'uh Code among ringing cellphones, are now shelling out $13.99 to buy the Chickies' CD, and for the same reason: everybody else (they think) is doing it, don't wanna get left out. ('Course, it goes withut saying no one here went to see the stupid movie or bought the CD.)
I'm still wating for those who were arguing that it was only the protests and reactions that made The D'uh Code popular to show us some consistency and apply the same wisdom to the Ditzies.
Finally, I don't recall a recent example of such successful promotion of a recording artist in the news media. The Chicks on 60 Minutes, on the cover of TIME? Hey, what's the news? As usual in cases of manufactured news, the real news is behind the scenes. And behind the scenes there must have been a lot of big money commitments from Sony and their partners to the execs at the news outlets. Politics, me thinks, had nothing to do with it. This came down from the corporate and the schmucks on payroll in the editorial had to come up with a convenient excuse for themselves and an angle to present the story. Why not another Bush hater like Neil Young and his new album, or somebody else releasing a new album? No, this is money talking. The lefties like Ben Bagdikian are correct in saying that the media serve mainly the corporations and work to defend the status quo. And suckers out there follow the fashion and buy whatthey're told, so as to not be left out. Gotta feel connected!
The Dixie Chicks post above had "1,144+" views before the time of this comment. The post above scrolled off of the front page some time ago and was intentionally kept out of the sidebar by me.
Posts about the Iran nuclear weapons problem very often get less than 50 views.
My point is made. Our country is too feminized. Most of us focus and harp too much about famous/infamous individuals. Most of us have confused the War on Terror with entertainment and have expected it to be over and done with long ago. We are spoiled rotten and need to listen to the wisdoms of our ancestors.
You are probably right. Need to check where they are on the chart in another week.
I believe little that comes out of the music industry.
List price for their CD is 18.95. Everybody is selling it for $9.98. Thats a pretty steep discount for a just released CD.
It is # 1 on Amazon music sales though.
Considering the amount of exposure they've got from the MSM, I'm not surprised. You'd think they had a vested interest..oh wait..THEY DO.
I saw the little piggies on the cover of TIME magazine. As of late, TIME has sunk pretty low. They had Jennifer Lopez of all people listed among the hundred most influential Hispanics in the world.
I was in a record store and a young clerk piped up about not wanting to play the latest CD, nothing to do with politics and everything to do with it being a boring album.
The video sucks as well. All the black ink will be red.
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