Static Cling

I'm not in the car much, so I don't listen to the radio much, but I swear that within the past two weeks, I've heard more Dixie Chicks songs on the radio than in the past five or six months, since the whole fiasco started. Has anyone noticed the same thing? I know that they have a live album and DVD that was just released.

bigjim25

No change here. They play them all the time.
Even though Natalie has a big mouth , I'm still a fan of their music.
I can't wait to see what she has to say about CTJ making fun of their EW cover.

Okheresthedeal

It's easy to forgive when the cash register chings.

conscience

Yeah Dixie Chicks were probably being played on radio stations as other radio stations were steam-rolling over their cds and such.

They are okay...but not the type of country that I like.

And I have met Cledus and he is frickin' hilarious. And did you know he is also a barber/stylist.

muggins

They never stopped playing Dixie Chicks here.

aktick

Why would they have stopped playing them? What happened? Just the deal where they were saying they were against war or whatever?

Deftones

They basically distanced themselves from Country music b/c no one really stood up for them during the anti-war rants.

POWERBOMB

One station here still does not play any Chicks and the other station only plays songs from the first two cd's.

Lateralus42

Yup, some right wing nazis triedd to censor them. Their music is crap, but what some of these nutcases tried to do to freedom of speech is even worse.

aktick

Whatever. Find the political forum.

Lateralus42

Uhhh my comments are on topic.

Deftones

If you could look up the meaning of censor, maybe you might rethink your statements. Nobody censored them.

The lead singer broad made dumb comments during a time of war, and the band paid the price with severe decreases in both air time and album sales. No government entity or record label coerced or forced them to change anything about their music.

Josh-da-man

It wouldn't surprise me if the country music "scene" was just looking for an excuse to attack the Dixie Chicks. They seemed to be coming on too -- er... what's the term I'm looking for? Lilith Fair? -- for the country music scene. I remember many moons ago joking about that song "Did I Shave My Legs for This?" and saying that was probably the strongest feminist statement that country music could handle.

That, combined with the far right looking for someone to make an example of, is what the big fuss was all about.

Same thing sort of happened with Metallica and the Napster thing from a few years back. A lot of the old school Metallica fans had pretty much been fed up with the band for "selling out," and the Napster debacle was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back. Of course, that backlash was more of a grassroots thing, whereas the Dixie Chicks thing was something stirred up by the far right media. Without the talk radio brigade fanning the flames 24/7, nobody would even give a shit about the offhand comment.

Lateralus42

Many Clear Channel stations, which have ties to Dubya and his cronies, took them off the air. That is censorship. They didnt say anything wrong about the war, they turned out to be right.

Deftones

No, it's not. They were not played on those stations because those people did not choose to support what message they were saying. As a business it's their right, just as if I owned a business, I could refuse service to you or anyone else. Political ideals or not, it's not censorship.

Groucho

Here in Utah the stations stopped playing them for about a week.

It was funny how self-righteous the dj's were...both times:

"We have decided not to play the Dixie Chicks...aren't we patriotic?"

"We have decided to play them again...aren't we such great proponents of free speech?"

POWERBOMB

There is a show on CMT which covers controversial songs and stories as told by the artist, label reps, fans and program directors. You should see how much these PD's will not buy into a song just because of lyrical content. It's obvious the Dixie Chicks were pulled off a lot of stations because of PD's who didn't want the backlash they perceived would happen by playing their music/

dolphinboy

It was a shame it got that bad. Seemed like they were scapegoats for the right to me. I certainly had never thought of the Chicks as pushing a liberal message, just liked their music. Still do. So, if country music stations don't play their music, I won't be listening to them as much.

If their next album is a hit, I have a feeling most stations will forget all about this and just hop back on the bandwagon.

I wonder what would have happened if it had been someone like Springsteen. I can't see too many rock stations pulling his songs and organizing rallies to burn his albums.

Static Cling

If Natalie Maines just made one comment and never said anything again... or even just said one thing explaining it... then that might be more true. However, she just would not keep talking about the "incident"... and each time she seemed to change her story. She's sorry, no wait, it was a joke, never mind, she's proud she said it. Come on. I understand that people say stupid things once in a while. But I thought the constant changing of the story was more ridiculous than the initial incident itself.

dolphinboy

It wasn't a stupid comment in the first place, maybe careless. And the heavy backlash she and the band faced was pretty much immediate. I believe they released something in the press about it to try and do damage control, but the burning and steamrolling of their albums and over-reacting in the press was well on its way long before she made any public comments that might have differed from her original explanation. And she woudn't have been in a position to "change" her story if it weren't for people asking her about a thousand times a day due to the righties on talk radio encouraging people to overreact to it before there was any time to really put her rather benign comments into context in the first place.

raiders757

You know what I find funny? That same company, Clear Channel, had no problem with thier rock stations playing Pearl Jam music after the antiwar Bush bashing, singer Eddie Vedder did at thier Denver show during war time(not long after the Maines statement). It is also funny how the media reported on it, but didn't go into a frenzy over it, like they did with the Dixie Chicks, and I find what Eddie Vedder did to be a bit worse, than what Natalie Maines said. If you want to sit back and judge it in a "Far Right" sort of way.

I didn't like what either of them did, given the fact that war was in the air. I have no problem with free speech, or thier opinion(although I didn't agree with thier views that much), but I did have a problem with thier timing. When people are going to go, and die for our countries views, wether you view them good or bad, it is a time to zip it, and show some support for the soldiers, and thier families. It is my opinion also, that being entertainers, they should have realized many of thier fans might use them as an escape from the daily grind(and for a few other fans, escape from worrying about loved ones going to fight overseas), and kept thier political views to themselves. There is a right, and wrong time for protest, and the Dixie Chicks, as well as Pearl Jam, picked the wrong times to do so. I just find it funny, that only the Dixie Chicks had to pay the price for it, if it was censorship, that caused the backlash.


That's just my 2 cents

Just in case someone doesn't know of the Veder incident, here is a link.

http://www.nme.com/news/104686.htm

Rypro 525

they never stopped in baltimore

aktick

Wow, I never heard about the Pearl Jam deal. Fine if somebody wants to make a press release expressing their views, but in the middle of a concert that people paid an outrageous amount of money to see? That's not the time to do something like that.

DJLinus

I think the difference between the Pearl Jam and Dixie Chicks incidents depended on their respective audiences. It was no shock that PJ would say something like that and that their fans would likely agree with them. It really wasn't news.

Country music fans are generally more of a flag waving demographic, so the Dixie Chicks' comments created a stir. The statement was a boneheaded thing to say, business-wise (although it did get them in the national spotlight and if the first post is correct, they are doing pretty well*). Controversy sells and it was news

At least, that's my take on it.

*I remember when this broke that there were a lot of magazine articles and entertainers on the air talking about the "unfair price of dissent" (or whatever). Guess it only affected them in the short term. But I digress...

dolphinboy

I'd be willing to be that upwards of 90% (or more) of their audience that night agreed, were amused by or even enjoyed the comments, so I'm not sure what the meaning of the cost of the tickets is to the controversy.