[GailA]

FYI

[Paul Atreides]

''If you were just casually listening to country radio in the last year, you would think it was the music of Republicans,''

Oh the humanity! If Republicans like it, it has to be awful, huh? The market decides. If some people want to sing liberal country songs, let them sing them. Let the market decide.

[bigghurtt]

I thought we learned yesterday that country music listeners weren't offended by the Chicks, but that the whole thing was another vast right-wing conspiracy...did these folks not get the memo?

[Revolting cat!]

''If you were just casually listening to country radio in the last year, you would think it was the music of Republicans,'' says Beverly Keel, country music journalist and Middle Tennessee State University associate professor.

The good professor/journalist's statement is so telling it's hard to know where to start.

The Left would like to hijack country music they way it has hijacked Hollywood, the media, the rest of the arts including Chuck Berrys' own genre. They won't rest until country performers start singing odes to AIDS and abortion!

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

''If you were just casually listening to country radio in the last year, you would think it was the music of Republicans,'' says Beverly Keel

Oh, dear God! No! NOOOOOOOOOOO -- ! //**sarcasm** :)

[Saundra Duffy]

That corporatewide ban, which affected 41 country radio stations nationwide, has since been lifted,

Too bad the ban was lifted. The clucks have a right to free speech but we have a right NOT TO LIKE WHAT THEY SAY.

[Tax-chick]

Rabble-rousing songs by Toby Keith and Darryl Worley have become smash hits.

I beg your pardon, snot-nosed journalist! We are not "rabble," we are Rednecks!

Xy, the original, unadulterated, polysyllabic, rednect tax-chick!

[dead]

Funny that the only people they could find bemoaning the "situation" in country music were journalists.

[sweetliberty]

"Rabble-rousing songs by Toby Keith and Darryl Worley"

Rabble rousing?????

"The environment, she says, may be leading to self-censorship"

Didn't that used to be called using good judgement or self-discipline or just a sense of propriety? Good grief these idiots are touchy!

"...the Dixie Chicks' right to be on the radio"

That's a right now??? I don't remember that one. I guess I must have been absent from civics' class that day.

"I think that tolerance is evaporating in society at large"

I think the author is being overly optimistic. < /sarcasm > But even if that were true, that would be a step in the right direction in my opinion. We have for far too long tolerated much more than we ever ought to have.

" Tim McGraw added video of troops being deployed to Iraq to his performance of The Cowboy In Me. Lonestar made a new video of the 2-year-old hit I'm Already There into yet another tribute to the troops"

Is it just me, or is there a venomous contempt for the troops seeping out of this whine?

"'When those albums diminished, there wasn't another swell of females behind them to fill that void.''

I'm so glad the NOW nazi quarter has been heard from. Sheesh. How about the natural ebb and flow of the industry, moron?

"That could be remedied to a large degree, he notes, by getting past the Dixie Chicks controversy and getting them back on the air."

That's all fine and good, but what is the good of putting them back on the air if the listeners don't want to hear them? Oh, I guess it must be that right to be on the radio thing again.

[GSWarrior]

''Faith (Hill) and Shania (Twain) were so hot at the same time that they sort of dominated the charts,'' he says. ''When those albums diminished, there wasn't another swell of females behind them to fill that void.''

There are countless female country performers who are twice as talented as Hill and Twain but don't comfortably fit the Nashville "image" and who are more concerned with making good music than appearing on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Kelly Willis and Allison Moorer come to mind.

[narby]

''Unfortunately, there's a climate right now that probably strikes fear in the heart of singers and songwriters who don't agree with the prevailing winds,'' she says.

Kind of like the fear of a conservative trying to make a living in Hollywierd?

[2ndMostConservativeBrdMember]

"Rabble-rousing songs by Toby Keith and Darryl Worley have become smash hits."

Songs become 'smash hits' because lots of people buy them. Nuff said.

[Zathras]

This is the same thing the SF Bay Area does all the time.
When you need a DNC spin, ask a college prof.

[onehipdad]

The Chicks, who made an elaborate apology for Maines' Bush remark on prime-time television, dealt themselves another setback when Maines wore a homemade T-shirt during a performance broadcast on the recent Academy of Country Music Awards that was widely interpreted as a personal insult to Toby Keith.

I worked the Brooks & Dunn concert last Friday, and the MC (Kledus - ??) apologized for having to announce the the Chix would NOT be performing that evening (huge round of applause - yes, in Portland!) then went on to explain what her shirt message REALLY meant: Found Under Table, Kneeling.

Got some good belly laughs for that one...

[A Navy Vet]

Think they got a problem with those songs? Wait till Lynard Skynard's new single (I've Always Been) Red, White, and Blue gets some air play.

Chorus:
My hair's turnin' white;
My neck's always been red;
My collar's still blue;
I guess you could saaaay;
I've always been - Red, White, and Blue!

Part of last verse:
...so what are they [Hollywood] complaining about?
If they don't like it...they can get the hell out!!!

This stirring single is on the "With Love and Appreciation" CD tribute to our Troops.

[Publius6961]

''The country audience has always been intensely patriotic, but it didn't refuse to listen to dissenting voices before,'' he says.

The voices of dissent have been free to do their thing as long as I can remember.
Dissent is not the problem.
Mindless, ignorant screeching dissent is something else entirely.

And expecting no consequences for disagreeing is a childish expectation when any of us makes the choice as to when where and how we dissent.

[CyberCowboy777]

''That's (been) reinforced with the way the Dixie Chicks have been treated.''


by the fans of country music

[johnfl61]

The war is not over. The Muslim thugs are still out to destroy th USA. The Saddam Sluts should stay out indefinitely and their Country supporters too.

[HHFi]

Having worked in radio for over 25 years, I'd like to know at what mythical time and in what fictitious place anyone ever thought they could achieve musical success on a mass level without any self-censorship at all? "Self-censorship" is the term liberals fling around to protest the fact that they might actually be subject to "editing," a process everyone who makes a living in the popular media has to deal with.

And it's a good thing: a few societal limits force you to think before spewing. That's why back in the days when lyrics were censored for sexual content, we got the brilliantly witty double entendres of Cole Porter, and today when literally "Anything Goes," we get braindead thug rappers saying the F-word 495 times. Country is one of the last bastions of music where singers and songwriters are expected to think before they open their mouths, which is why clever wordplay and good stories still matter, and why Natalie Maines is in so much trouble.

[ladyinred]

Years ago when I was young, I never expected to see the day when a big debate was raging over whether or not one should be patriotic! It makes me sick to see it now, and it tells me something or someone is at work in this country to tear it apart.

[Flora McDonald]

''The war is past us and gone,'' Dalton says.

Well what planet is he living on? Does he think all our Troops are home? Does he have any idea how many of them have been killed and maimed in the last few weeks?

I never thought I would call anyone connected with country music a poofter litwonk but if the shoe fits...