How many country stars do you think are bulls***- as in, only out for money; liars?

Cafe Society
1

Ever see the movie Nashville (1975); there’s one scene where the young country music star meets w/ the record executive to discuss marketing a label to the people in Nashville, and they talk about promoting an image so as to sell to these folks. As the exec. says (paraphrasing) those hicks really ‘eat up this patriotic sh**.’

Rap artists definitely promote negative images so as to make money and sell records; so do teen idols like Britney, Christina, etc. But I got to thinking as I listened to some country at work weeks ago:

most country is a positive image, one of the singer being someone who is patriotic, a lover of Jesus and of family, and someone who is an accessible everyman who is more concerned about doing what he can each day than making a million bucks. Which got me thinking-

Even though rap stars and young pop hussies promote such filthy images for money, the thought of country music stars possibly promoting a positive image like this one- getting at the hearts of their listeners- to sell albums, all the while being someone wholly different (in this scenario, I’m saying)- makes me f-ing pissed off!

In other words, it makes me much angrier to think that country stars might be lying about loving Jesus and being an everyman to make money, than it does about the other filthy musicians. :smiley: Not that I’m angry about it now, just saying, that’s bull, man…

So anyways- How many country stars do you think are lying f-ers who are promoting a fake image so as to sell albums?

2

Garth Brooks is the Madonna of country.

3

I saw highlights of the CMA awards yesterday on the TV, it was gruesome. Elton John and Bon Jovi performing at a country show? Pop-rock acts like Sugarland making an arse of proceedings, Willie Nelson looking like he’s embalmed, Alan Jackson singing an Eric Clapton number; it was just a horrible glimpse of the mainstream country and western music scene.

Addressing the OP, didn’t the Dixie Chicks make anti-war statements that generated difficulties for them with their constituency in the US? I guess that represents at least some authenticity in a very artificial genre of music.

4

I tend to think of country stars as offering a wizened blues consisting of a harmonically bland, lyrically trite, ethnocentric, xenophobic pandering to the dullest anti-intellectual throwback they can think of - perhaps on the same evidence upon which you think they have a “positive image”. So I’d think the better of them if they chose to do it for a buck.

“Accessible everyman”?!

5

I think you’d be amazed how many rap stars dripping with gold jewelry and driving around in hugely expensive cars are really dead broke.

Of course, all entertainment is about image to some extent. Though I tend to agree that Garth Brooks isn’t fit to shine Johnny Cash’s boots …

6

Brooks isn’t worthy to lick the horseshit off Johnny Cash’s boots.

7

No Garth Brooks fan here and I like Johnny Cash’s music alot but am not a big enough fan to know whether or how often he got any horseshit on his boots. Just wondering? :wink:

8

Johnny grew up as the son of a sharecropper, so I’m sure he’s stepped in his share of horseshit.

9

I totally agree with the OP, but what music isn’t a pandering commercialization these days?

When I was driving a delivery truck sometime back, I had an 18-year-old helper who thought he was as country as country could be. He commandeered the radio, and I spent hours listening to crooning about loving Jesus, getting home from a hard day’s work, and how America was right about going to war in Iraq (note that since the Administration made this decision, all Americans automatically agree with it. :dubious: )

Total bullshit. At least rappers admit that they’re rich.

But I loved messing with this guy. I asked him what his favorite Johnny Cash song is, and he said he can’t specifically remember the name of his favorite one. Yeah, right. :stuck_out_tongue:

Adam

10

Tom Waits, Ben Folds, Decemberists, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Neko Case, New Pornographers, Shins, Raveonettes, White Stripes, Portishead, Belle and Sebastian, Jonathan Richman, Social Distortion, Less Than Jake… I could go on and on.

11

Nope, nothing at all commercial about those bands. Nothing the slightest bit manufactured about Tori Amos’s image. Nope, not a thing…

Bwaaa ha ha ha ha haaaa! Sorry, I couldn’t hold it in.

12

Oh, come now. You mean to tell me that they’re “all about the music” and could care less if they didn’t make a dime doing what they do? You mean to tell me that none of these bands had top-quality graphic artists design their CD sleeves? Or that their labels didn’t spend any money on marketing – that good 'ol word of mouth is good enough?

Labels aren’t in it for the music, Lou. They could give a rat’s ass about the band’s artistic integrity. They’re there to make money. If they’re going to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars on a band, they’re going to make damn sure that they get a return on their investment. This means merchandising, advertising, the works. Why do you think it’s so hard to get signed?

Adam

13

Big Bad Voodoo Lou, while I like many of the bands you mentioned, do you really think that they aren’t presenting some kind of image? Do you think Colin Meloy of the Decemberists actually spends his days as a Dickensian stree-urchin? Do you think Jack White’s wild rock’n’roll preaching extends to all aspects of his life? Surely there are some days Jack White wakes up, pulls on some blue sweatpants, watches a bit of TV and then does his laundry. He can’t be Jack-White-of-the-White-Stripes 24/7.

That’s the problem with the OP’s question. Authenticity is a false standard. Jack White, Tori Amos, Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash and Britney Spears all exploit a combination of fantasy and authenticity to produce their image. That’s not a criticism of any of them; it’s just a necessity of making music. Any artist is only going to be known to their audience as a persona. You don’t know the real Johnny Cash, no matter how many of his records you own.

14

I’m a lifelong country music fan, but am less familiar with the music coming out of Nashville in recent years, so I rather than answer the OP, I’ll offer some historical perspective.

From the beginnings of country music as a popular market, it has emphasized things like patriotism, religion, family etc. The Carter Family really were pious, religious hill people. But when A.P. Carter and Sara divorced, most fans didn’t know it – they continued to perform as the Carter Family.

This was in contrast to jazz and blues (and later rock and roll) which often played up its association with drinking, drugs, and fornication.

Although that was a long time ago, the influence exists today on descendent music styles – e.g., every Beatles fan knows the Beatles took drugs, but I meet lots of people who express shock (and sometimes outrage) at the claim that Hank Williams had a horrifying drinking and drug problem. (I’m reminded of Hank Hill’s reply to someone telling him that John Wayne’s real name was Marion Morrison: “You take that back!”)

Johnny Cash (one of my two or three favorite performers of any style) was so refreshing in that he didn’t claim to be a choirboy. Although his honesty ultimately won him much admiration from a variety of audiences, it created long-time enmity with the Nashville music establishment, who were treating him like damaged goods as recently as his American Recordings CDs.

15

I think we’re talking about different things. They definitely have an IMAGE. Tom Waits as the bluesy, boozy barfly, Jack White as the wild-eyed weirdo in white and red. But there’s a difference between an image and a “pandering commercialization.” I wouldn’t call any of the artists I mentioned terribly commercial, and certainly not the Decemberists. I’ve played in bands and worked as a professional musician, and I know full well the struggle between trying to be “all about the music” and trying to make a dime and get yourself noticed.

16

The Beatles were greasy, streetwise, blue-collar punks from Liverpool. Their manager marketed them as cute, cuddly boys-next-door.

The Rolling Stones were a bunch of rich or upper-middle-class art-school fairies fronted by a skinny economist. Their manager marketed them as thugs you’d be afraid to bring home to Mum.

Get the idea that maybe, just maybe, a certain amount of fraudulence has been part of marketing in popular music for a long time?

That said, I’ve always agreed with Milton Friedman that “sincerity is a highly overrated virtue.” I like most of the Beatles’ music and some of the Stones’, and couldn’t care less that both bands’ images were utter B.S.

The same is true in country music. I expect that, since most country stars are blue-collar folks from the South, they come by their politics and religion (repulsive as some may find it) honestly. If a few adopt phony postures because they think it will score points with their fans, so what?

I mean, John Lennon sang about love and condemned materialism, but guess what? He abandoned his son Julian, just as his own father did, and he had hundreds of millions of dollars that he and Yoko never shared with anyone.

So, John Lennon was the ultimate phony. Again, so what? If you believe in the ideals Lennon expressed in “Imagine” (I think they’re mindless, sentimental pap, but opinions vary), you can and SHOULD continue to love the song, even if the man who wrote and sang it wasa a fraud. Similarly, if you love Jesus and/or Old Glory, what do you care if the guy in the 10-gallon hate and sequined shirt REALLY shares your sentiments or is just pandering to you? If it’s a good song, it’s a good song.

17

I knew a band name would come out of this.

18

Neuraxis, Nile, Rigor Sardonicous, Crimson Moonlight…

Sure, these guys all work to project a particular image. We all do, entertainers or not. But I feel completely confident saying that none of the ones I just listed are in it for the money.

19

Johnny Cash has no bigger fan than me, but he never was “stuck in Folsom Prison,” and he never “shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” These images got indelibly stuck with him, and he never fought them terribly hard; they maded him seem like a tough, rebellious, dangerous guy, and that added to his mystique–and helped him sell records.

And ultrafilter:

Really? Next time you see one of them in concert, take a CD without paying.

I know what you mean (or I think I do): These are people for whom the decision to make music was made prior to the decision to make money from music. But as soon as they quit their day jobs, they’re in it to make money just as thoroughly as Britney Spears is. Maybe more so in a way, since Britney could probably retire today and eat caviar on Lear jets the rest of her life.

20

I hope I don’t get ran out on a rail for this, especially since I don’t even listen to country, but I cannot stand that pompous ass Tobey Keith. Not only does he strike me as someone who is solely trying to cash in, but so fake his own kin don’t probably know him.

::: shudder :::