Random (late) CMA Thoughts

I finally forced myself to sit through the 44th Annual presentation of the Country Music Association Awards that I recorded when it was televised live a couple of weeks ago. and I have to admit I enjoyed a lot of it.

Carry Underwood and Brad Paisley did a great job as co-hosts.  Underwood is easy on the eyes and has a great pipes and Brad Paisley is as close to a shredder as Nashville has. Both are warm and funny and make you feel right at home.

Rascal Flatts’ Gary LeVox used his wail to annoy dogs for miles around and to personally keep the hair product and skin bronzer industry in business. Kenny Chesney made football suck with his light-rock Boys of Fall and Taylor Swift performed an overwrought, orchestrated and fog-machine  and fake snow embellished variation on yet another Us Weekly article put to music and sure to print money. Sugarland unveiled their latest and probably annoying song Stuck Like Glue. Currant flavor of the week Lady Antebellum won Vocal Group of the Year by skillfully utilizing the bland, homogeneous pop sauce ladled in copious amounts at recording studios all over Music City. Reba wasted her impressive pipes on the soft-rock If I Were A Boy Lyrics.

The highlight were where the craft of country music peeked through the glitter. George Strait commanding the stage with his apologetically sentimental song of life and family Take Your Breath Away. The Zac Brown Band sharing the stage with Alan Jackson for the leaving song As Shes Walking Away. I have to admit I teared up a bit during Brad Paisley’s ode to his craft This Is Country Music.

Miranda Lambert beat the odds and won Album of the Year for Revolution. This make it her first win in the category and my first time to review an album nominated at the CMAs (or ever will again probably.) Lambert  is a personal favorite of mine. Like her current charts counterpart Jamey Johnson they’ve done a fine job of producing a body of work that combines their particular brand of hard country music.

Dierks Bentley took a huge chance for an established Country act to step into the Americana side of town with the Bluegrass-tinged Up On The Ridge.

Great to see the legend Little Jimmy Dickens.

Apparently there was a blonde shortage in country music so actress Gwyneth Paltrow passably entered the fray and upped her cred by sharing the stage with the extraordinary Vince Gill.

Sissy Spacek Introduced a Loretta Lynn tribute in her sweet Texas twang. Miranda Lambert nailed Coal Miner’s Daughter, but like Kid Rock I have no idea why Sheryl Crow was invited to this party. Was Carrie Underwood busy? Reba? Martina? Great to see a surprise appearance by the Lady Loretta Lynn herself.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnVLrWKZ3GI[/youtube]

CMA / AMA Best Artists – My View

So the Country Music Association and the Americana Music Association have recently released their nominees list for their respective awards and in an attempt to figure what passes for country music nowadays and what the heck “Americana” means I am going to compare a category they share…sort of.

CMA Entertainer of the Year
Kenny Chesney
Brad Paisley
Rascal Flatts
George Strait
Keith Urban

CMA Male Vocalist of the Year
Kenny Chesney
Brad Paisley
George Strait
Josh Turner
Keith Urban

CMA Female Vocalist of the Year
Alison Krauss
Miranda Lambert
Martina McBride
Reba McEntire
Carrie Underwood

AMA Artist of the Year
Joe Ely
Lucinda Williams
Patty Griffin
Todd Snider

Being good, progressive minded folk the Americana place the boys and the girls in one “artist” category. The CMA naturally plays it like a broken record with Chesney and Rascal Flatts nominated for the millionth time. I have a question, to qualify for EOTY shouldn’t you be entertaining? And I don’t mean in a comedic sense. And what is the difference between “Entertainer of the year” and Vocalist of the year” I mean all the nominees are vocalists,that’s what they do to entertain, sing. Is the CMA rewarding acrobatics, ripped biceps and hair gel as a separate category?

I like George Strait and think his 07 release “It Just Comes Natural” is good but not great. I like Brad Paisley somewhat but think he’s choosing the corn-ball and schmaltz cuts that are beneath him and his fine guitar playing to chase the dollar. I think Miranda Lambert is the best thing to happen to country in a long time and she has the good sense to cover excellent songwriters like Gillian Welsh. Alison Krauss is the one crossover artist here but she had to soften her bluegrass roots and get a make-over to get acceptance by the CMA crowd. Britney 2…er..I mean Carrie Underwood has the pipes but not the soul or courage to be interseting.

Joe Ely is a Texas legend and should when in any category he’s in. And even though I love Lucinda, I think “West” was a weak effort and shows that moving to L.A. will kill even a dignified soul.

I will use the CMA boy/girl dichotomy and ignore the useless EOTY category and play nice and not add other deserving artists like Elizabeth Cook and Wayne Hancock into the mix, and say:

Male Artist of the Year: Joe Ely

Female Artist of the Year: Miranda Lambert

Bob Lefsetz Does Country

I usually hang on every acerbic and insightful post from music business gadfly Bob Lefsetz. He’s a no bullshit guy that sees the bloody writing on the wall for the big labels and pulls no punches. I hope this blog allows me to do 1/16th of what he’s been able to do in exposing the hypocrisy and crap in the music industry and also point the way to a great talents that are trying make a difference and do great work.

But recently Mr. Levitz was caught in L.A. Traffic and came across Sirius radio Channel 60, “New Country” who, by the blurb on their web site states they play ” Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney.”

Lefsetz writes that while listening to the station that:

“…every one of (the) words rang true and glowed like burnin’ coal, pourin’ off of every page like it was written from me to you, but I was not tangled up in blue, I was laughing, I was alive, I was ECSTATIC! This was a joy I hadn’t experienced in oh-so-long!

But I don’t know shit about country. Maybe this is the crap. Maybe this is the stuff those deep into it rail about. Then I realized, I was the target audience, I was fucking IGNORANT!”

I’m here to tell you Bob, you are listening to the crap, and allow me to school you.

You are a fucking genius savant when talking about rock and pop of the past, present and future, but when you stray into country music, I won’t say “fucking ignorant”, but I will say sadly naive.

What you were listening to was the country equivalent of listening to Beyoncé or Fallout Boy. Sad, shallow reproductions of artists that came before that did it not just do it better, but did it in a way that was breathtaking and dangerous. What you were listening to was formula, contrivances and confection.

You pine for the days of the Beatles, Stones and Hendrix. When the Velvet Underground and the Stooges were punching sonic holes in the cultural malaise of the 70’s. If you’re looking for the contemporary country equivalent of that, then you’re not going to find in on Channel 60, “New Country.”

The country equivalent to these ground-breaking artists, the giants that the current talent of country artists are standing on the shoulders of is Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. It’s the Allman Brothers and The Band. It’s Lynyrd Skynyrd, X, Jason and the Scorchers. Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam.

You’re more likely to find these artists on the Dallas area station Lone Star 92.5 that, despite being a Clear Channel station, is taking risks and plays artists that better represent the spirit you crave. Bands like The Drive By Truckers and the Bottle Rockets. Artists like Hank Williams III and Shooter Jennings. But Lone Star 92.5s are hard to find just as great rock stations are. The playlists are still the most common framework for commercial radio, and playlist are driven by sales.

Shooter Jenning’s band, the .357s comes closer to Led Zeppelin than the comparison you draw between Zeppelin and Tim McGraw. Tim McGraw is less Led Zeppelin and more Peter Frampton.

There is great country music out there and Bob Lefsetz, with a little counseling, is just the gauge that will recognize it. I for one would love for him to turn his laser eye on the Nashville money machine and the way it takes great talent and churns out dull, gray sausage.

CMT Music Awards Review – Still Blows

So I finally held my nose and watched my recording of the suck fest that is the Country Music Television Awards show (you can tell right there how objective this is going to be) and it as predictable and unpleasant as July heat in Dallas.

A Dixie Chicks and Stonewall Jackson slam already. Nice Foxworthy. You’re an ass.

There was a new category, the Wide open Country Video of the Year. It seems like it was a stab at irreverence. But with Jimmy Buffet and Sheryl Crow and Sting as nominees it was more like “Let’s see what we can get by with.” The Johnny Cash video for “God Going To Cut You Down.” Jack Ingram won. Not a great start for the new category.

Everyone that won robotically thanks CMT in their speeches. I mean what are the odds that every winning artist felt truly compelled to thank a network? Tools…

There was a moment of true grace and emotion on the program, but it had nothing to do with the three-ring pyrotechnic circus of bland performances by Toby Keith and Rascal Flatts. It was when Rosanne Cash presented Kris Kristofferson the Johnny Cash Visionary Award. Kritofferson was visibly moved, gracious and his amazing life and legacy was briefly detailed before he accepted. It was a brief moment of sincerity in an otherwise facile showcase of mediocrity.

Rascal Flatts stacks the deck on the Group Video of the Year with two nominations and beats out the crowd favorite The Dixie Chicks. Just joshin.

Foxwothy is giving the last 25% of morons that don’t see Iraq as a fiasco and people who worship a sky god a sloppy one. He’s like the reverse Natalie Maines with less talent.

There, that’s all I can stand. Another year, a lot of make-up and $200 denim and precious little country music.

Oh and Kenny Chesney is a girl.