Showing posts with label lady antebellum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lady antebellum. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Part 3 ~ Fake Outrage

Eeek!

In Part 3 of my "new country" screed, let's discuss fake outrage and grasping for relevancy.

Part 1 was an excruciating listen and on-the-spot review of July's top ten tracks.

Part 2 discussed the sad cookie cutter state of today's music.

This installment returns me to artists I'm at least a bit familiar with, albeit they've changed, by God! Just watch! They're woke!

The Dixie Chicks are back after a fourteen year recording drought. There was a time, okay a really brief time, when the group formerly known as The Dixie Chicks were hot. That time was 1998 to 1999 and comprised two albums, Wide Open Spaces and Fly. They also released Home in 2002, but the album produced no hits, nor did Taking The Long Way, which dropped in 2006.

Thus, two hit LP's.

2006 was approximately the time that Natalie Maines shot off her mouth about the president, which is neither here nor there (and seems quaint in retrospect). The group milked the ensuing publicity, but the fact was, by that time they were already living off seven-year-old hits and no one really cared.

Fourteen years later, the Dixie Chicks are back with a shortened name; and no offense, but they're really no longer "chicks". The word Dixie obviously is now forbidden. Always adept at garnering press, they've been bestowed with a glowing New York Times article. And they're still nursing grievances, new and ancient.

Let's face it; other artists from their era aren't getting written up in The Times. I haven't caught a feature about Diamond Rio or Lee Ann Womack. No, The Dixie Chicks are news because they're "sassy". Or at least Natalie is. We don't really hear much from Martie and Emily.

Natalie is what we benevolently call a drama queen. It seems she's recently divorced and has some scores to settle. And this is what the single "Gaslighter" is apparently about. I surfed on over to YouTube to check out the track. It's not terrible. Not great, but it doesn't reek, either. The harmonies by the unspoken other members of the group help...a lot.




Unfortunately, what stands out for me is Natalie's severe butch haircut. I'm sure that's another statement, but all it states for me is Angela Kinsey from The Office. And here's a clue, New York Times and Dixie Chicks: women have other emotions beside "defiant". It must be draining to live one's life in a perpetual state of fury.


In other "woke" news, Lady Antebellum has changed their name to "Lady A". Firstly, I don't know how the two guys in the band feel about being referred to as ladies, but I guess they must be okay with it after all these years. Second, they might have wanted to conduct a Google search to find out if anyone else was using the moniker "Lady A". Sure enough there was, and she wants ten million dollars in compensation (a Google search, by the way, costs zero dollars). Now the band Lady Antebellum A is suing the original Lady A (Anita White, who, by the way, is African-American) because the band trademarked the name in 2011 but never used it. Good job, woke musicians! You've endeared yourselves to countless downtrodden minorities!

All I know about Lady Antebellum A is that their biggest, and basically only,  hit was a rip-off of an Alan Parsons Project single, Eye In The Sky.








At least Lady Antebellum A ripped off a white artist that time.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave....

So, essentially Lady Antebellum A are neither ladies nor original. And they hate African-Americans. Great job! Now if Hillary Scott dons a severe hairdo, she'll have completed the trifecta.

Thanks for your wokeness, ladies (and token males).

I prefer not to thrust my finger to the winds.














Wednesday, January 26, 2011

So, You Got Songs ~ Then What?



I guess anyone can write a song, if they try. At least I sort of believe that.

Which means, there are at least 300 million songs floating around out there (and that's only figuring one per person).

I don't count lyrics. Lyrics are not songs. Lyrics are rhyming poems. Sorry, lyricists, but it's true. I could dash off as many lyrics as there are hours in the day, but what the heck would I do with them? Unless you can strum them on a guitar, or plink them out on a keyboard, they're not songs.

But I digress.

So, let's say you've got a body of work. Then what?

Well, you can plunk them on SoundClick or ReverbNation, for all the good that'll do ya.

The only people who peruse those sites are other songwriters/musicians; and they just want to get their own stuff noticed. Fat chance.

If you're not looking for a cut (which is akin to winning the Powerball), and say, you want to advance your own skinny self as an artist, where do you go?

Alas, that is the question, isn't it?

The winning answer is, there is nowhere to go.

Yes, by all means, try the music libraries. We've been signed up with music libraries for about three years, and you know what that's gotten us? About $20.00. And the sad part is, we can't even collect the twenty, because there's some arbitrary benchmark that one has to reach before the $20.00 is doled out, and we, apparently, haven't reached that yet. And probably never will. But it was a nice ego boost at the time.

As a band, I think we're stuck at the crossroads of Delusion Street and You Gotta Be Kidding Me Boulevard.

But, you know, that's okay, really.

What songwriting is, and what music production is, is a diversion; a way to fill the hours. I could sit and watch the latest episode of "Modern Family" (and don't think I don't), and reap as many rewards (if not more) than I would if I continued to shop our songs around.

I'm a realist. I don't have my head in the clouds. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I'm thinking bad, because it really dashes one's hopes. But on the other hand, it's a good thing, because I'm not being taken for a sucker.

If this was 1968, I could theoretically be hailed as an up and coming songwriter. I might even get a chance to shake hands with Kris Kristofferson.

But it's 2011. Everybody's way more jaded now. What passed for talent, then, now is considered lame, or hopelessly outdated and naive.

If you want to have even a glimmer of a chance, you'd better have those beats, and you'd better have those remixes of past hit songs (all the while pretending that your stuff is original, and that you haven't ripped off the hits of the past ~ see Alan Parsons vs. Lady Antebellum):

Oh, and don't forget to record it REALLY LOUDLY.

Ahh, music. I think I'll just do some guitar/vocals of my songs, and be done with it.

Cuz after all, who do you need to please but youself? Isn't that the bottom line?

And if that twenty dollars really means that much to you, stick a twenty in an envelope and put it someplace that you won't notice for a few months. Then, one day, when you're doing some organizing, you'll find that twenty, and say, "Hey! Twenty dollars! Cool!"