Legend Sails, Sales Fall, and Swift Fails
This was a bad week for country. It started at the end of the week before, when Gerry House, legendary morning DJ for Nashville’s WSIX-FM announced that after 30 years he was retiring. You could almost sense the next question was “why?” with people anticipating scathing remarks on the direction of country music, but Gerry was a professional simply saying, “I wanna sleep late, contemplate and feel great.”
So the scathing remarks were left for another legend of country music coverage, Chet Flippo, who in his Nashville Skyline column, laid down heavy criticism of WSIX’s parent company Clear Channel, and country radio in general. Flippo is not one afraid to pull the trigger with criticism, but I’ve never seem him so willing to name names and lay the criticism down so heavy.
“I never fully realized how hard it is to do really good morning country radio until some years ago when I was doing a lot of business travel and listened to country radio around this nation. I pretty damn quick realized how truly awful or, at best, mediocre most morning drive shows are on country radio stations. BubbaBubbaBubba! And worse. That’s what you hear.” “Gerry was jacked over by his parent company Clear Channel last year when CC abruptly sacked two of his longtime show staffers, Al Voecks and Duncan Stewart, apparently without his knowledge. I heard he considered quitting then, but stayed on. I am not surprised he is leaving now. If the most highly-regarded country DJ in the country is not well-respected at all by his parent company, then what’s left in radio?” “As radio conglomeration has decimated radio station staffs, genuine on-air radio talent is sadly disappearing.”Flippo even went on to blame the fall of local radio programming to the destruction of community orientation, and specifically cited its use during crises.
“One of the problems Nashville authorities found with local residents getting news warnings about the recent disastrous flooding here was that some Nashville radio stations are programmed by syndication, have no local news, and therefore there was no one even at some stations to take phone calls on the weekend when the flooding happened. The stations’ listeners heard nothing but automated programming broadcast from somewhere else.”Then on Wednesday a report came out showing country sales fell further than the rest of the industry. Put aside all the arguments of what is country or not, country music has insulated itself from some of the recent deterioration of music sales by incorporating pop and rock elements under their expanding tent. Country was also helped last year by rising superstar Taylor Swift.
Which led us to Thursday, when Taylor let fly a couple of mediocre live performances at the NFL kickoff game. Some are not worried that country sales are falling, because Taylor and a slew of other big names still have albums to release this year. However as time goes on, it is being exposed that Taylor Swift just can’t sing. And as record sales dwindle, the one fall back the music industry has is the money-making power of the live performance, something that Taylor has proven numerous times she can’t deliver in a strong manner.
In a time that calls for bold ideas, fresh blood, and innovation, country has decided to stick even more vehemently to their unimaginative formulas, while cutting costs ahead of unnecessary contraction to keep ill-conceived infrastructure in tact. Country is not void of talent, far from it. It is void of ideas of how to mine and evaluate that talent, and then educate its consumers on what to listen for, like listening at all. I listened to Taylor’s performance, but could barely hear anything.
Big G
September 12, 2010 @ 11:10 am
I think folks are figuring out that there is something to having a little “soul” in the music they listen to, regardless of what those in the ivory towers, who have none, say.
The Triggerman
September 12, 2010 @ 1:10 pm
Slowly, maybe. You may have a slanted view, because down in your neck of the woods you actually have a local DJ who actually palys REAL music, and is not dictated to on high to fit some focus group format. 😉
B.J.
September 12, 2010 @ 11:34 am
Yet another great one Trigg. Can’t wait to watch the music industry as a whole fall into the ash heap of history. I have been a fan of underground music all my life. I have been very happy about the rise of the Internet and the decline of record sales. In today’s world a regular Joe like myself could record song in the comfort of his own home, mix and clean things up on his(or her) shitty home pc and send it to a mom and pop pressing shop, and all under $1000. That same schlub can also market his or her music on the web and make a few bucks for himself. That is, in my opinion, the true downfall of the music industry.
Just like during the American Revolution, where pamphlets would be passed out, to express peoples opinions. And debates would be held in Taverns. Today the music revolution is comeing in the way of home produced CD’s and Websites such as this fine one. And people are going to hole in the wall bars to hear the music they love.
Sorry for that little diatribe.
The Triggerman
September 12, 2010 @ 1:10 pm
Thanks man,
I just hope all these super talented musicians can still scratch enough dough together to make a living and raise families if they choose.
Ojaioan
September 12, 2010 @ 11:48 am
WOW! Great video…makes me wanna grab the bubble gum, my old Archies comics and head for the play ground. Great Post…sad but expected news.
Ga. Outlaw
September 12, 2010 @ 12:35 pm
I haven’t listend to country radio sence David Earl Hughs of Chattanooga’s US101 left for Nashville’s WSM. A year or two later he passed away from a heart attack. Roger Alan Wade played his funeral at the church I grew up in. The only dj that I’ve heard that comes close to what DEH did is Mojo Nixon.
Tom
September 12, 2010 @ 1:12 pm
What the hell was that video? I heard it all the way through an then quickly turned on my George Jones/Merle Haggard album Kickin’ Out The Footlights…Again. That’s what I needed. But I rest. I need ta hear what’s wrong with the music ta know why I don’t like it. An fer the record I stopped hearin’ country music once I got myself to understand how it was on the wrong path. There is a song called The West Ain’t What It Used To Be an that’s how I feel about country music. It ain’t what it used ta be. In fact one album I had ta have back in the 90’s or so…I heard a straight up techno type song from Sarah Evens. I now know that’s not what should be on there. But alot of folks must think it’s all good. As long as at least one or two songs seem country it’s good shit. BAH! They piss me off!
Tom
September 12, 2010 @ 1:29 pm
Oh an one last thing…I tottally missed that live feed last night. I’m a bit unhappy about that at the moment.
Ojaioan
September 15, 2010 @ 10:34 pm
YEAH…I Havn’t heard anything back yet bout the live feed either, so yeah, just another unanswered question? Still lookin’ forward to it when the bugs get worked out.
The Triggerman
September 15, 2010 @ 10:46 pm
What? Didn’t I email you through MySpace? What’s the question?
Ian
September 12, 2010 @ 3:04 pm
She sounds like a slowly dying dog
cathy
September 12, 2010 @ 3:21 pm
This morning GMA made a big deal over Twitt and Kanye again like a soap opera….about threw up in my coffee. I can’t believe crap like that makes the news shows….
there’s a commercial first, but here is the clip…
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/swift-west-saga-continues-11615423
The Triggerman
September 12, 2010 @ 4:06 pm
Ah ha, I see, hype up the situation so everyone tunes in to be brain washed by their “awards” infomercial. Fuck that, I won’t take the bait. I ain’t watching, I ain’t reporting.
kocis
September 12, 2010 @ 5:26 pm
Clearly people aren’t listening to Taylor Swift for her singing voice, they are listening to her for her lyrics. As her audience grows up and becomes adults and her lyrics stay the same she will fall off the charts. It might take a few years however. Can only pray that it’s much quicker than that.
Denise
September 12, 2010 @ 5:41 pm
I’m sorry but no true football fan that I know is into her music. And I use the term music loosely. I guess flashing lights and machines help make a good performance. “You belong with me” right in the high school auditorium NOT a NFL game. She is not a good singer, nor a good songwriter and I am not sure but that banjo player was needed why? To look like he was pickin’?
Over it.
Aran
September 12, 2010 @ 9:33 pm
I can think of some “fresh blood” in country music ready to step up to the plate, and I know there are plenty of bold ideas and innovation around this site. We must bide out time; remember, Rome didn’t fall in a day.
Waylon4ever
September 13, 2010 @ 9:34 am
9/14/10 is tomorrow. Go buy the new Jamey Johnson, “Guitar Song”, and you won’t worry about Taylor, Sugarland, Lady Ante-awful, or any of those jokes anymore.
The new face of country starts tomorrow.
Owen
September 14, 2010 @ 4:44 am
Jamey Johnson wrote Honky Tonk Badonkadonk. Or however the fuck it’s spelled. Fuck his faux Outlaw bullshit. Fuck his new record. Fuck him.
The Triggerman
September 14, 2010 @ 11:37 am
I think you both represent the extremes of the spectrum, and the truth about Jamey lies somewhere in the middle.
Just confirmed my copy of Guitar Song is on its way, and an honest review is coming, meaning I won’t take into consideration his previous “Badonka Donk” sins. He’s paid plenty for them, as he probably should have. But its time now to move on.
Owen
September 15, 2010 @ 1:07 am
It really goes beyond my disliking of that song, Triggerman. I hate him for the same reasons I hate Toby Keith, the same reasons I hate Jack Ingram, the same reasons I hate Kyle Turley, the same reasons I hate Josh Thompson. They’re all putting on an outlaw minstrel show, and it’s disgusting.
I loathe Taylor Swift for what she’s helped do to country music. Same with Kenny Chesney, and all the other clowns under the pop country blanket. But they’re just being themselves, empty, talentless, figureheads for a corporate bullshit slinging machine hellbent on escaping any semblance of ‘country’, aside from the name itself. But at least they’re honest about it.
These clowns, on the other hand, want to market themselves as ‘Outlaws’. They want to cling to a bad boy image that is all steak, and no sizzle.
I’m so sick of frat boys playing dress up, trying to act like they’re anything credible, packaging it, and peddling it to the masses. I’d like to spit in every one of their collective eyes.