How Nice! Entertainment Weekly Notices Country Music
I don't have a lot of faith in human intelligence. But I do think every one of us is smart enough to know which songs and performers give us the most pleasure. So when critics for Entertainment Weekly listed only two country CDs -- Shania Twain's Come On Over and Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around -- among its Top 50 albums of the past 25 years, I felt no impulse to complain. After all, it's EW's list, not mine. Still, I wondered why pop critics are so dismissive of country music's richness. And I think I've come up with some answers.
For one thing, many of our songs depict us as clueless hicks who take pride in our provincialism, think it's cool to be poor and regard "daddy" as the fount of all wisdom. It's easy to look down on those who devalue themselves. Then there's the fact that country music doesn't generally have the combative pose and hard edge common to other forms of popular music. Critics, who should know better, misread country's restraint as a lack of passion and its straightforwardness as simple-mindedness. To anyone who's listened to enough of it, country has passion, wit, irony, sophistication and insight to spare -- and these qualities are widespread, not exclusive to Twain and Cash.
Pop critics are inordinately impressed by producers, unless, of course, they're from Nashville. They regard them as missionaries sent to save the savages. You'll notice both of EW's country picks came from out-of-town producers -- as though Cash and Twain recorded nothing of worth until Rick Rubin and Mutt Lange stepped in.
Accompanying the list is a sidebar that spotlights artists whose albums have sold 10 million copies or more. Here we find one title each from Twain, Alanis Morissette, Gun N' Roses, Metallica, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, TLC, George Michael, U2, Bob Marley and Van Halen. That's it. Notice anyone missing? How about Garth Brooks? He has five albums with sales of 10 million units plus, including Double Live (21 million), No Fences (17 million) and Ropin' the Wind (14 million). Oh, that's right. He's probably not deep enough to count. Provincialism runs both ways.
©2008 Country Music Television, Inc., a Viacom company. A division of
Ham says:
Please let’s not forget the Dixie Chicks and their huge sales numbers, multiple Grammys, etc. They have certainly been celebrated and piloried far more than Garth.
Patti says:
Personally, I think we are plain damn lucky that they even think we are in fact a genre. Last time I checked, EW usually only likes country stars who cross over and become pop (or vice versa which I am so distressed to see a lot more often) or REALLY cross over like our beloved Johnny Cash. Oh well, lucky for country music fans, that the work ethic of country singers is pretty superior. I wish someone would do a survey of rising (not already risen) country music stars. I read a lot of their websites and I am always shocked that so many of them travel 75 % of the time BEFORE they have an entourage or a bus or any of the amenities that come with fame. When I feel like they have been slighted by the likes of EW, I know they still get their satisfaction from the people who really count.
Joe says:
I like country music – some of it. But country has become ‘country light.’ The stuff out of Nashville sounds too much the same, and the lyrics don’t say much that is worth saying; it is boring. “Critics, who should know better, misread country’s restraint as a lack of passion and its straightforwardness as simple-mindedness.” Country, though, did at one time possess not only straightforwardness, but also un-restrained passion. Johnny Cash sang, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” Jimmie Rodgers sang “Gonna buy me a shotgun as long as I am tall, gonna shoot poor Thelma just to see her jump and fall.” Hank sang about hard times and about killing himself.
Death. God. Murder. Trains. Suicide. Dust storms. Loss. Blindness. These things only became cliché when the singers stopped believing what they were singing. Cash never did stop believing, and neither did his out-of-town producer Rick Rubin. On his last record, he rumbled through “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” and he meant it. The critics and selective Country fans like myself don’t want posh ‘country’ songs that talk about sexy tractors or a boot up Bin Laden’s ass. I think Country has lost much of its “passion, wit, irony, sophistication and insight.” Twain and Cash have these qualities in abundance. Country singers who still do show some grit and honesty don’t get attention from the Nashville establishment. That’s why Cash was picked up by Rubin’s label; everyone in Nashville forsook him. Fortunately, some singers are still recording great country music (Levon Helm’s Poor Dirt Farmer, Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose). Country is an attitude these days where once it was a way of life.
ed morris says:
That some country artists sell extremely well must mean they’re filling someone’s emotional needs. Because it’s boring to you or me doesn’t mean it’s not serving its function for someone else. People who live in the suburbs and confront daycare problems rather than dust storms look to music for comfort, too–and whatever works for them is fine with me. Rubin (whom I admire) did a fine job with what was left of Johnny Cash; but Cash made better music earlier in his career when he was in Nashville. And it wasn’t Nashville that made him cut such dreck as “The Chicken In Black.”
OutlawSteph says:
The lyrics are only a small part of what makes an artist endearing. It’s about getting full bands out there who have the talent to create history and contribute to the history of country music.
I could list some example: Jim and Jesse had an array of very inventive banjo players including Vic Jordan, Allen Shelton, and Bobby Thompson. The Stanley Brothers had George Shuffler. Flatt and Scruggs had Josh Graves. Merle Haggard had Roy Nichols. Buck Owens had the Buckaroos. The Desert Rose Band were all brilliant.
Most of those artists sang few songs that someone who grew up in the 1980s could relate to, but the musicianship, charm and aesthetics of real country heritage is all there, and that’s why they are in this history books despite singing songs about trains, Jesus, and honky-tonks.
I don’t need any musician I’ve never met to fill my emotional needs, but those Telecasters and banjos still sound good to me.
-Stephanie
M- says:
Shania Twain is NOT that talented…Mutt deserves ALL the credit for that creation
laska_crab says:
If not that ‘MUTT’, then someone else ‘WOULD HAVE DEFINITLY’ found her. YOU, are most likey a woman who probably slept with “MUTT” and you are hoping to get her leftovers…….. She is a talent you could never hope to be!!!!!!!!
OH, and by the way, does the WORLD know you by your first name only.. Think about it, wont you.
laskan_crab says:
BUTT, I may be wrong, you may be a man, ‘who still wants the leftovers’..and, I have to say, I have no clue as to why Shania (or any woman) would settle for this guy in the first place.
laskan_crab says:
Although, he is very good at what he does……