I try to not like Christina Aguilera that much, but man, she knocked that over-the-top This is a Man's World right out of the park.

EDIT: Apparently, not everyone agrees.

Yep, a left coast award for the Chicks. Considering the treatment country music gets from the Grammys, it's no surprise. I mean, Bob Wills is responsible for an entire form of music and he gets one song and Don Henley three in the tribute? And, the Grammys don't even let two of country's biggest acts (Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood who have more album sales and concert attendance) do their own music. Look also at the country album nominees.

Those folks out there don't get and really don't care about country music. So, honoring the Chicks? No suprise.

As for me, I don't really care. Most of my choice in country was recorded a long time back. I like the drinkin', cheatin' and sad songs.

I've still got an HD recording of the Dixie Chicks' totally awesome performance on a recent Austin City Limits. I can't bring myself to delete it. I might have to get an HD DVD recorder just to save it.

Natalie says "I'm ready to make nice." I bet not. I hope not. Funny how the "backlash" over a silly, throwaway remark has turned out. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere about standing your ground. Congrats to the Dixie Chicks!

Those folks out there don't get and really don't care about country music. So, honoring the Chicks? No suprise.

As for me, I don't really care. Most of my choice in country was recorded a long time back. I like the drinkin', cheatin' and sad songs.”

They get it just fine, and so do the Chicks. If you were a fan, you’d realize they share your view of country music, expressed nicely a few years back in “Long Time Gone”:

We listen to the radio to hear what's cookin’
But the music ain't got no soul
Now they sound tired but they don't sound Haggard
They've got money but they don't have Cash
They got Junior but they don't have Hank
I think, I think, I think
The rest is a long time gone

Amen.

I'll bet the Christian Music Awards will be a gala night for the Right. And the MTV Music awards will be a big night for the Left. And I'll be you'll hear Rush Limbaugh support the President today, and Randi Rhodes will attack him.

Bad night for the Right at an Entertainment Industry awards ceremony? What a shocker. Put that one in the "dog bites man" catagory.

In the dog bites man category, we have two Republican operatives still hanging on to the tired old bash the Chicks-only lefties like them anyway, line, and everyone else is happy for them because, well, THEY WERE RIGHT, by golly, and it's time to say we're sorry for letting a bunch of mean spirited creeps say nasty things about a girl or two speaking their minds.

More of us shoulda listened sooner.

Steve

Pretzels go really well with Chicks music, by the way.

Wasn't that long ago that a lot of pundunts were saying the Chick's career was over. Lagging ticket sales and only selling 10 million copies of thier latest CD was a sure sign that folks had turned thier back on the Chicks.

I just think its nice to see the Chicks prove a few folks wrong.

And the Grammy's are a pretty middle of the road if not consertive organization. Its been around about 50 years and been safe in thier awards over the years. Grammy voters are a stright laced bunch. So its not a Lefties only party.

YMMV

So then why did Maines apologize for her remarks when the controversy blew up? And then some time later retracted the apology, if I recall correctly ...

Did they really stand their ground? I think public opinion just swung their way. (Actually it did a while ago.)

Maybe they just decided it wasn't good business to pander to a shrinking market of 30% deadenders.

Wasn't that long ago that a lot of pundunts were saying the Chick's career was over. Lagging ticket sales and only selling 10 million copies of thier latest CD was a sure sign that folks had turned thier back on the Chicks.

I remember Bill Hobbs and me just arguing over this point. He said the DCs were finished and their career was killed by the Bush statement. Hell, I think they have a long way to go and see them getting better every year.

CD sales have gone into the toilet industry wide, as have concert ticket sales. The DCs are still making money like crazy and giving people good music. The are widely adored now and probably made new fans last night. Life is must be pretty damn good for them now!

BTW, I embarrassed that Bush is from this planet.

Yep, I'd be really proud of winning a Grammy. It takes talent and skill to win one of them.

Just ask Milli Vanilli.

If I remember right, they were up against Billy Joel (Storm Front) and Fine Young Cannibals, two acts who actually, you know, sang their own songs.

I lost all respect for the Grammy Awards the year they voted Jethro Tull's Crest of a Knave as the best Heavy Metal album.

So you're comparing the Dixie Chicks to Milli Vanilli? Is that the most salient criticism you can come up with?

Bwah ha ha!

(For what it's worth, and as far as your memory is concerned, you are in the wrong category. In 1990, Milli Vanilli was voted "Best New Artist," not "Album of the Year." That honor, by the way, went to Bonnie Raitt for Nick of Time. So, actually, your criticism would be best directed to Carrie Underwood's fans -- she won Best New Artist last night. Is Carrie Underwood this year's Milli Vanilli, Rich?)

(Oh, and MV's Grammy was later voided.)

____________________________

Recursive blogwhore.

So you're comparing the Dixie Chicks to Milli Vanilli?

Nope. I'm just not impressed by somebody trying to use a music awards show as a political response to criticism over political commentary, particularly when the history of that music award demonstrates an inability to render competent judgments inside its area of supposed expertise.

Put simply, in deference to you Andy, if they can't even tell whether a singer is actually singing or not, I hardly think their collective political judgment is worth 2 pennies.

By the way, do you really think that Taking the Long Way was truly the best album issued last year? Or do you think that maybe, just maybe, the Grammy voters were, as you said yourself, "being supportive of an artist who was the target of an irrational smear campaign." And if they were voting to send a political message, instead of voting based on musical merit, then what does that say about the Grammy Awards as a whole?

It says exactly what I started off saying.

As a musical award, they are meaningless.

The Grammys have been "cool" at least in terms of diverse styles of music for some years now, but I remember (maybe up 'til around the time of the Tull thing) when it was really out of touch with, say, that crazy rock'n'roll stuff the kids had been listening to for only--oh, about 30 years. Major awards routinely went to short-lived pop tune "artists" like Christpher Cross.

It's also fair to say that the Grammy folks are out of touch with the latest modern country music (i.e., redneck rock'n'roll), but that's deserving because modern country is so bastardized. They have their own CMA awards for that (mostly awful) crap.

For the steel guitars no longer cry
And you can't hear fiddles play
With drums and rock 'n' roll guitars
Mixed right up in your face
Why the Hag wouldn't have a chance
On today's radio
Since they committed murder
Down on music row

Copyright, etc. Larry Cordle

...if they can't even tell whether a singer is actually singing or not, I hardly think their collective political judgment is worth 2 pennies.

Again, they rescinded the Grammy given to Milli Vanilli. It didn't stand. So.

Just insofar as politics goes, let's just talk about the politics of the music industry (not of George W. Bush) for a moment.

Is it possible that Maines was dedicating her Nelson Muntz moment to the clueless, tin-eared music industry insiders on Music Row who helped coordinate the spike campaign against her band?

It wouldn't be the first time that a genuinely good country record made waves without getting much airplay -- or don't you remember the success of O Brother Where Art Thou. It caused a number of execs quite a bit of heartburn -- that their prized lap-dancers like Shania Twain were struggling while some Kentucky old-timers kicked their collective asses with a hit crossover compendium of 100 year old songs from "the hayseed version of Lawrence of Arabia."

I don't defend the industry for a moment, but I am willing to acknowledge that sometimes they do the right thing, and for the right reasons. They stood by one of their own, rather than letting the breathless winger brigade dictate who should have whom on whose roster.

What's more, country belongs to Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell and Steve Earle and Allison Moorer and Buddy & Julie Miller and Maura O'Connell, too. There's room enough for them and their politics in the universe of American music.

And country belongs to George Jones and Merle Haggard, whose new work can't get on country radio. The fate of The Possum and The Hag has everything to do with the Chicks' struggle, in case you didn't know it.

By the way, do you really think that Taking the Long Way was truly the best album issued last year?

Let me answer this way first: Do you concede that it's possible that a plurality of the voting membership of the Academy thought that it was? Because that's what matters, not what you or I have to say about it.

(Regardless, as a spectator, I love all of this innuendo coming from Bush-apologists/Grammy detractors about vote-rigging. Truly priceless.)

Anyway... who's to say. In the interest of full disclosure, I own a copy of that album, and I went to their show when they came to Nashville. As for what I listened to this year, my ears were taken with the sound of Brazilian tropicalia from the early 60's and a mish-mash of deep cuts from the American funk tradition. My top 10 would have included artists like Jorge Ben and Gilberto Gil and Marcos Valle, even though most of them aren't performing around the US these days. I just discovered these, in fairness.

This is all to understand that my tastes aren't exactly the mainest-of-stream. That said:

Out of the albums nominated, I paid attention to Gnarls Barkley & the Dixie Chicks. (Can't stand Mayer or Timberlake.) I thought RHCP made a middling album; their radio-friendly sound isn't quite my thing (although I loved them from their self-titled release all the way through to Blood Sugar Sex Majick). Given the choice, I might have gone for Gnarls Barkley, but I gotta tell you, in all honesty, the songwriting and the cohesiveness of the Chicks album was all there. It was a little more immediate for me, and among the five nominees, I'd give the edge to Dixie Chicks.

ETA:

Put simply, in deference to you Andy

"Why Rich, what an ugly thing to say! Does this mean you're not my friend anymore? You know, Rich, if I thought you weren't my friend, I don't think I could bear it."

____________________________

Recursive blogwhore.

I hadn't heard most of the other music featured on the show, and many artists I'd never even heard of. Most sing in the horrible Amer. Idol trend of imitating Whitney Huston and Mariah Carey, no matter the race, style, or sex of the singer.

On Sunday we were recording the first part of the show and had the sound down for most of it. I thought it odd that this John Mayer kid, I had never heard, was actually playing electric guitar leads in this sea of mostly dance/rap/R&B/hip-hop/whathaveyou. (Aside from the few big name acts like the Police, DCs, and RHCPs.)

Last night we fast-forwarded through the show to parts we wanted to hear. While a decent player, I thought John Mayer plays like he's just ripping off B.B. King and maybe some SRV thrown in with a few other derivative licks. His singing is also in the regurgitated Huston/Carey style, IMO. I'm not sure Justin T. is much worse...

Melissma and its overwrought excess has got to be one of the worst fads in music history.

Got a chuckle from Gnarls Barkley, but can't say I listened to more than a few seconds of him... I wanted to hear Christina Aguilera's piece after skb's comments, but I had stopped recording before her number.

The current Rolling Stone cover has that Mayer kid featured as a new guitar hero. I'm with you, I don't get it. Each successive generation of derivative white bluesmen seems to get weaker and weaker.

On the same cover, with their photos upside down for some reason, are Derek Trucks and some other guy I never heard of. They call Mayer "Slowhand Jr.". Which is funny, because after his performance at the Grammys I said "well, he's pretty good but he ain't no Eric Clapton." But he sure can emote.

Derek Trucks may in fact BE a (the?) new guitar hero. He's got the chops, but he also has a wide range of styles and influences. Not to mention the pedigree.

I listen to little electric guitar anymore, but I agree Derek Trucks (and wife Susan Tedeschi) is (are) very much the real deal, if not my style.

I too like Kenny Vaughan, who used to be/maybe still is R.B. Morris's Nashville guitarist. I mostly know his playing from his work backing up Mindy Smith.

Lucinda's main guitarist is pretty awesome, Doug Pettibone, I think.

If you're into acoustical guitar, there are too many good ones to mention, but don't miss checking out Tommy Emmanuel if you've never heard him. He's pretty amazing.

Wouldn't it be logical to look at record sales as a point of reference for the nominated album(s) of the year?

If the Dixie Chicks were near the top of the list then it seems to me they are entitled to (and deserve) the award, at least in this category, regardless of how they feel about Bush. Would this be an accurate assessment?

UPDATE: Amazon Top Music Sellers

KTB