Posted on 06/01/2006 3:48:24 PM PDT by familyop
The Dixie Chicks appear to be more popular than the president these days. President Bush's approval rating has plummeted, but the Chicks are on top of the pop and country charts with their first album since publicly criticizing Bush three years ago.
They did it without the support of country radio, which largely ignored the Dixie Chicks after lead singer Natalie Maines told a London audience in 2003 that the group was ashamed Bush was from their home state of Texas.
The new album, "Taking the Long Way," took the No. 1 spot Wednesday on the country albums chart and the Billboard 200 overall chart - which are based on sales rather than radio airplay - with 526,000 units sold in its first week.
For the year, the Chicks' first-week showing is behind only Rascal Flatts' "Me and My Gang" (722,000 units), according to Wade Jessen, director of Billboard's country charts.
Jessen said the strong sales figures may show that hardcore country fans are not as bothered by the controversy as many in the music industry thought, or simply that the group is attracting a broader audience.
"There also might be a certain amount of support that may have been thrown their way by folks who are a little more liberal and that maybe never bought a country album in their lives but want to show their support," he said.
The new album hit stores May 23 amid a flurry of media appearances (including a Time magazine cover story) and its first-week sales are the trio's best since "Home" sold 780,000 units in its first week of release in September 2002.
First-week sales on "Taking the Long Way" were better than Chicks' longtime nemesis Toby Keith, whose latest album, "White Trash With Money," sold 330,000. Tim McGraw's "Greatest Hits Vol. 2: Reflected" sold 242,000.
The new album's first single, "Not Ready to Make Nice," came out in March and stalled at No. 36 on Billboard's country songs chart. It did slightly better on the adult contemporary singles chart, peaking at No. 32.
The song was co-written by the trio and addresses the controversy head on, with Maines singing in the chorus, "I'm not ready to make nice. I'm not ready to back down. I'm still mad as hell and I don't have time to go round and round and round."
The latest single, a more conventional song called "Everybody Knows," reached No. 48.
The group did not respond Wednesday to a request for an interview.
In January Maines told Entertainment Weekly magazine that she was disappointed with country music and that she's "pretty much done" with the genre.
Jessen suspects that most country stations have already made up their minds about the Chicks' new album and probably won't come on board even if sales remain brisk.
For a lot of programmers, the group is still too polarizing.
"Programmers are directly or indirectly responsible for the health of the bottom line, and if anything happens that distracts from that in the way they run their business, they won't deal with it," Jessen said.
Ken Boesen, program director at WPOC in Baltimore, said his station played "Not Ready to Make Nice" a few times, but never added it to the playlist.
"Regardless of whether country radio plays them or not, they're going to sell," Boesen said. "There are too many ways for people to hear about and get new music these days."
I guess I have too much time to even respond to this. Give me another beer
betcha
Of all the possible explanations for the success of the album, this one is most plausible in my opinion. I enjoy country music occasionally, but I won't even give the Dixie Chicks a free play on Yahoo Music, let alone spend real money for their stuff.
My clock radio is set to a country station. They are doing whatever they can to NOT have people buy the Chicks. The report and trash everything they say.
Same idiotcrats bought this $hit that bought Hillarys book!!!!!
If enough people call radio stations and ask them to play the Chicks, they will. Guess what? Nobody is calling. These sales numbers are manipulated to make the record seem "hot" in the hopes of selling to actual individual consumers.
CNN did a spot on them today that lasted about 15 minutes. Just doing their part to further liberal causes. Same with ABC and their "special". Curious to see the ratings of that "special".
Since they want to be so PC,they better drop the word Dixie from their name.If they were Pro-Bush,I'm sure they'd be villified for it from the narrow minded media.
Considering the fact that the two parties are now one the Chicks could be singing the anthem of the future. I wish them well.
We need a Conservative party now.
This thread has 558+ views as of about a minute ago, and it's not even in the sidebar. In comparison to news about the War on Terror, the Dixie Chicks issue is very popular.
The liberals that want to support them will do so the first week or two, then they will drop like a rock IMO.
"There is nothing wrong with America that Americans can't fix"- Reagan
The Dixie Chicks = the Dems new Cindy Sheehan
I figure that all the money going to buy recordings of their whinings is money NOT going to Rat political campaigns.
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