Dixe Chicks, I Salute You
You know, I don't usually pay any attention to the Grammy Awards. But the fact that the Dixie Chicks defiantly put out this album, thumbed their nose at George Bush and all their detractors, were banned from the airways, and still manged to win the Song of the Year and Album of the Year... that needs to be recognized.
As a Minnesotan, let me also salute Minneapolis-based songwriter Dan Wilson who was instrumental in making this album and this single. There's a great interview with him on Minnesota Public Radio.
I believe these awards are another sign of the end of broadcast radio as we know it. Thank God.
Comments
Interesting! I admire your passion, Lars, but I have to disagree. :-)
I'm a Dixie Chicks fan--I like their music and I agree with their politics--as well as a country music fan. But I really don't think the Dixie Chicks' current release is up to snuff. I didn't like it nearly as much as the previous album, "Home." Their first few commercial releases were over-produced and mass markety (but quite good nonetheless) so with "Home," it was nice to see them returning to their bluegrass roots, where they seemed a lot more . . . at home. That style seemed to fit their fun personalities while showing off their talents better.
Then a lot of stuff happened I guess, and they put out a new album and I was looking forward to it, but "Taking the Long Way" is your basic breakup album, with every song going over and over their bitter breakup--with country radio, with Texas, with GWB, with a lot of their prior fans. it's too self-referential to be really compelling music. It's repetitive, as breakup albums invariably are. And far less musically interesting than anything before. A real disappointment, though I do love that video for "Not Ready to Make Nice." I like the inky black swirls because they make me think of octopi.
I agree with their politics (the Dixie Chicks,' not the squids'), so I truly wouldn't mind if they sang about that. But I don't care about their public lives any more than the lives of other celebrities, and that's what this album is about more than anything. A celebrity singing about the public life of a celebrity strikes me as a particular type of novelty song: "Celebrity" by the Barenaked Ladies and "Celebrity" (a different one) by Brad Paisley jump immediately to mind. Cute once or twice, but you can't do a whole album of that.
I guess they had to do the bitter venting thing, fine, but I'm holding out hope that their next release (working title: The Post-Post-Breakup Album) will head back into the more colorful, rambunctious, acoustic territory they found in "Home."
And finally, looking at their competition, I think some of the country songs they beat out in "Best Country Performance" were better country songs. For all its lovely squirting octopi, "Not Ready to Make Nice" doesn't seem like a country song to me. But that's just me. I listen to country music, so how smart can I be, really?
Posted by: Liz @ Buffalo | February 14, 2007 9:49 PM
Liz, I defer to you in all things musical. Like I say, I don't really pay attention to the Grammies. I'm not even sure that is the correct way to spell "Grammies." So you may be completely correct in your assessment. I do think their winning is more about the zeitgeist than music, mainly because I like the word "zeitgeist."
Posted by: ironic1 | February 14, 2007 10:02 PM
I have to agree with Lars here. It's about message not music. And I think it is spelled Grammys.
Posted by: Dana | June 17, 2007 4:25 PM