Anger at Maines may cost Chicks top spot

Tennessean ^ | 3/18/03 | JEANNE A. NAUJECK

[TheBigB]

Airplay of the Dixie Chicks' hit single Travelin' Soldier is down 15% in the week after lead singer Natalie Maines' controversial comments about President Bush and could bump the song from No. 1 to No. 3 within a week of the flap.

[HamiltonJay]

Dixie Chicks Parody

Why the sisters didn't muzzle this immature brat long ago is beyond me.... she has much too much growing up to do.

[grobdriver]

''Country music is the format where patriotism in its purest sense lives,''

Perhaps they should change their style to match their politics.
Gangster Rap.

[A. Morgan]

My buddis and I were talking about the Dixie Twits this morning, everyone of us said tha same thing: No Thanks!

[Paul Atreides]

''I'm not in the business of censoring music, although we've pulled back a little,'' Kelly said. ''Their music is great music, and I have a feeling that this, too, shall pass.''

How is it censorship to not play their music?

[Bigg Red]

Only down 15%! That's disappointing. Sounds like these stations need a lot more calls coming in.

I don't usually follow this kind of stuff, but didn't this Natalie Mange say something else obnoxious about Bush some months ago? I seem to recall seeing something here on FR.

[Bigg Red]

Only down 15%! That's disappointing. Sounds like these stations need a lot more calls coming in.

I don't usually follow this kind of stuff, but didn't this Natalie Mange say something else obnoxious about Bush some months ago? I seem to recall seeing something here on FR.

[jimt]

" It's one of those professions where people seem unable or unwilling to separate the politics from the performance."

Who interjected the politics? The pinheaded performer or the fans?

[talleyman]

"I'm not in the business of censoring music..."

Me either - I just turn the dial to a more patriotic station.

[wideawake]

Oh, that's easy. Dave Kelly still hasn't collected all the payola he's supposed to get for playing Vichy Chicks records ad nauseam at his station.

He would be censoring his own paycheck if he stopped now.

[wideawake]

15% is huge, considering that their song gets airplay on liberal pop stations throughout the country, not just on CW stations with a more conservative listenership.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

At last, Bill Clinton has the chicks in his grip.

[MarMema]

She said, on stage in London, with 6+ weeks to go before she returns to the US - that she was ashamed that our president was from Texas - she is from Texas herself.

I just don't think it gets much lower than this.
To say she was against the war, ok. But to make a personal slap against Bush, when he is dealing with all this, just erks me the wrong way.

[MarMema]

Thanks for posting this. I hope their standing continues to show the "profit" of her remark.

[Huck]

But to make a personal slap against Bush, when he is dealing with all this, just erks me the wrong way.

On foreign soil, on the brink of war, while diplomatic efforts in the UN were heated and tenuous, with hundreds of thousands of real "travelling soldiers" in the desert awaiting orders.

[AmericanInTokyo]

MARINES? YES! MAINES? NO!

[KellyAdmirer]

The Lennon comment was typical Beatles cheekiness, and in fact arguably was true, if perhaps exaggerated for effect, for those who bothered to think about it. Plus, Lennon was making an abstract statement without any intentional slurs, and the people likely to be offended - religious types - were not in the Beatles' core fan group.

The Maines comment was personal, specific, derogatory, and on its face designed as a political statement. Plus, it attacks someone who her core supporters do not find offensive, by and large, and goes against their tendency to be patriotic Americans.

The two cases are vastly dissimilar. The Chicks will be hurt, short- and long-term. An expensive mouthing-off.

[Teetop]

She said, on stage in London, with 6+ weeks to go before she returns to the US - that she was ashamed that our president was from Texas - she is from Texas herself.

I'M ashamed I live 85 miles from Lubbock! LOL But, her dad, Lloyd is a BIG Republican & I know he chewed on some butt.

[bmwcyle]

I like Laura Ingraham's comment from Huston, TX last night,

"I tossed my Dixie Chicks CD from my car on I495 traveing around DC doing about 70 miles an hour."

[Billthedrill]

I don't think it's the comment itself, it's that she was pandering to a foreign crowd with it that irks people the most. But people in the entertainment business are artists and businesspeople as well, and it is incumbent on these to know their market. For example, an author of children's literature who slips in the occasional obscenity for "art's sake" is well within his or her rights to do so, but would quickly stop selling books. So with country music artists and their audiences. She has a perfect right to tell the world how ashamed she is for her home state but that doesn't necessarily make it a prudent thing to do.