A Swift commentary on Country Music

Remember when this happened a little while back? I remember the outcry for poor little Taylor Swift, and what a jerk Kanye was for doing it. And indeed I too felt a twinge of pity for Ms. Swift who afterward stood on the stage in mortified paralysis like a 19 year old girl (which, well, she is). I had listened to her album before, and it hadn't done much for me, but she was a nice girl and all, so maybe Kanye was a jerk.

But then the more I thought about it, like a jerk myself I found myself chuckling a bit. Then it went further. Every time "Love Story" or "You Belong With Me" came on the radio, I would find myself immediately switching to NPR or listening once again to my burned CD of the soundtrack to "Streets of Fire" to keep from hearing her saccharine sweet warble. What was it? Why was the sweet young girl quickly climbing to a place of disdain on my list which featured such nemeses as Paris Hilton, Fred Durst, Julia Roberts, or she who will one day fall to my wrath, Celine Dion? Then it hit me- I hate modern country music, and Ms. Swift was the final step in the nefarious plot of Nashville execs who made me hate country in the first place.



You see- she's a "crossover" star; perhaps the ultimate. Country, once the refuge of real people singing about real emotion had since the late 60s been slowly morphing under the hands of Nashville producers toward the pop arena. Pop music in general is fluffy, non-offensive, fake happy moments as sung by pretty people. This was why legends like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, David Alan Coe, et al made a break for Luckenbach, Texas in the 70s. They weren't pretty nor poppy- neither were a lot of the classic Country stars. Once, Country stars looked like this:



Faron Young


Kitty Wells



Hank Williams Sr.



Patsy Cline.

Legends. Not pretty people. Now?




Jake Owen



Faith Hill*



Keith Urban



Sara Evans

That's what you basically have to look like to make it in Country Music today. Don't believe me? Ask Shelby Lynne:



This is Shelby's first album, "Sunrise," released in 1989. It's solid country. This is Shelby's sixth album released ten years later:



This is how Shelby showed up to accept her Grammy for "Best New Artist" for that album.


She broke the code.

Truly talented yet physically unattractive people aren't going to get far in popular music today- and country is going after that pop crowd. Look what happened when the adorable Kelly Clarkson went up (gasp) three dress sizes? Magazines, websites, etc. dropped the f-bomb: FAT. Pop music requires pretty and if country wants in, it must be pretty. Taylor Swift is that last step, getting completely equal play on Pop and Country Radio, crossover awards, etc. She's singing pop songs, made country firendly by nothing but a steel guitar. Is she talented? Somewhat, but she's no Patsy Cline.

But who's going to look better in this outfit?



Sorry Taylor, you're on my list with Paris and Celine. Go get 'er Kanye (though he's still a jerk).


* I am going to grant Faith Hill one small piece of reprieve; the song "Cry" is full of heart-wrenching emotion as the singer covets pure schadenfreude from the lover who jolted her. "Show me you feel a little more pain..." That's old fashioned Country right there.

Just a quick update!

Letting you all know I am not dead, just dreadfully busy. I should be back here with some biting sarcasm and cool commentary soon, but here's some quick hits:

-Read Max Brooks' "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War." Ken Burns meets George Romero in what is probably the most politically insightful book I've read in a while. Besides the obvious horror elements, Brooks does a great job showing how various governments and cultures deal with what is essentially an outbreak of a horrendous disease. Makes you want to get your swine flu shot.

-Read Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." Possibly the most poetically sad book ever written. If you have been feeling down, don't read it. It's fantastic, but yikes- a downer. Hoping to see the new Viggo Mortensen film version soon.

-Bought a Blu-Ray player in order to buy Star Trek in HD. That's really all I wanted it for.

- Haven't touched a guitar in a month, and my mandolin in about three. Must rectify this.

-Marvel Comics' stunning 1980s war comic "The 'Nam" is finally coming out in trade paper back. That makes me happy.

-Jack White produced an album for Loretta Lynn in 2004 called "Van Lear Rose." I am a criminal for not knowing this sooner.

Hope to catch up more soon... ready for some holiday time off!

Reviews of things recently experienced...

Felt it was about time to throw some geeky talk up about some things read, watched, or listened to lately. There's some good, some bad, and there are better reviews than mine out there, but if I can warn you away from, or turn you on to something then cool!





Watchmen and Watchmen related products: There's a merchandizing blitz to go along with the movie. A lot of it is lame or makes no sense (the yellow keychains showing the doomsday clock with the blood drop on it...what? Completely inapplicable iconography). I have picked up the six inch DC Direct action figure set, and they are pretty well done, if you like the character designs from the film. The hovering Dr. Manhattan and the Golden Age Silk Spectre are the jewels of the line though.




There's a number of decent reprints of the original comic as well, which I am glad to see. My reader copy is about to fall apart, I may need a new one. So how do I feel about the film? I'm not going to rehash the story, but I give it a B+. I think it's a decent adaptation of the comic, with tweaks appropriate to film versus comics. It does make a couple of big missteps, but is visually stunning and has some really good performances from Jackie Earle Haley and Billy Crudup. They're actors I generally like anyway, but they truly bring their characters to the screen from the page. Now, I hear a lot of bad press on Matthew Goode's performance as Adrian Veidt- a character who is probably the most changed from the comic. I'm going to earn the eternal enmity of Alan Moore and many of his fans when I say I like the screen version of Veidt better than his print counterpart. As the world's smartest man, I really enjoyed the less obvious physical prowess, and I think his performance demonstrated someone far removed from normal human emotion and thought, and perhaps in his own way as detached as Dr. Manhattan.

The movie is brutal, even when it doesn't necessarily need to be, and on one occasion when it shouldn't have been. Then there's one of the most laughable sex scenes ever captured on film. Usually though, the movie is well on. It's not a flavor for everyone, and it asks you to pay a lot of attention to background details if you aren't as intimately familiar as I am with the source material. I am definitely looking forward to the extended cut, but was not as impressed by this film as The Dark Knight or even Iron Man. Cool though.




IDW comics is running the new GI Joe comic- one main title by Chuck Dixon, then two miniseries, one of which is by Larry Hama. Hama's work is supposed to be a lead in to Dixon's title (the origin of this re-booted Joe team). Yet, the tone and circumstances are so incredibly different they might as well be two different companies. If you can only go with one though, I have to recommend Hama's “Origins.” Dixon's work on Joe has always been lackluster to me (he took over GI Joe: Reloaded for Devil's Due Comics with issue ten, and rode it in like Slim Pickens ), and his work here is no different. I am sticking through the arc hoping it plays better whole than in parts. Hama's Origins is a solid read and a neat refurbishing of his original characters.





I am three episodes from the end of Battlestar Galactica. I pray to all that is holy they don't botch the end, because right now I am hooked up to my gills. I will give more when they do finish up, but even now, this show has given me the four best years of TV I have ever seen.




My good friend Eric recommended Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles to me. I had been reluctant to tune in, but you know what? It's groovy. What really sells me on the show is the idea that killing John Connor is only aspect of SkyNet's time travelling shenanigans. Stockpiling supplies, advancing multiple lines of AI so any one can evolve into the mainframe which actually causes Judgement Day- really neat thinking. Also, the writers have a slavish devotion to the first two films, and manage to completely erase the third! We'll see how the fourth plays out. I don't know if Lena Headey fills Linda Hamilton's shoes completely, but she's pretty good in her own right. She carries guns real good.






Watched M. Night Shymalan's Lady in the Water the other day, and got turned on to the end credit music, a little indy band called Whisper in the Noise. They do these very ethereal deliberate songs, and are really worth checking out.




Oh, before I go- one more gratuitous shot of Carla Gugino. She doesn't shy away from dangerous roles, and makes any movie she's in dramatically more watchable.