I am not ready to MAKE NICE either.
Posted on 06/26/2006 7:34:19 AM PDT by Pokey78
The Dixie Chicks are back from exile. They’ve got a new album, they’re doing interviews and they’re plumb dang full of sassy attitude. Take one of the singles off the album, for instance: “Not Ready to Make Nice.” Gee, I wonder what that’s about?
Unfortunately for former fans, that sassy attitude is the same one that got them pretty much shunned from country music after lead singer Natalie Maines bad-mouthed George W. Bush while onstage in Britain during the run-up to the Iraq war.
Hey, everybody has the right to criticize the president and the war if they want to. But when you’re in the field of entertainment, it would help your career to be a little more savvy about the core values of your primary target audience. So, for instance, since fans don’t come any more patriotic and flag-waving than those who follow country music, common sense says you steer away from public and gratuitous anti-Bush, antiwar remarks.
Maybe it was the intoxicatingness of being in another, more sophisticated country and performing before a presumably more enlightened audience that caused Maines to succumb to the unfortuitous urge to bash the president who hails from her home state of Texas, the fact of which she was so ashamed. And at that moment and in that place, her comment was probably a real crowd-pleaser.
But modern telecommunications being what they are, the word got back in a hurry to the country faithful in the States and before you could say “no blood for oil,” the Chicks were being avoided like a batch of bad moonshine. They definitely picked the wrong genre of music through which to express their discontent with the Bush administration’s handling of contemporaneous geopolitical exigencies.
That was three years ago and now they’re back, not only with a new album, but on the cover of Time magazine as well, where they appeared in what seems to be a mutually protective embrace, staring into the camera unsmiling and defiant. Underneath the large headline, “Radical Chicks,” is the line, “They criticized the war and were labeled unpatriotic.” You know, as if to suggest that such is the fate of all dissenters in the stifling, McCarthyistic atmosphere that has prevailed since right-wing warmongers pulled off their coup and took the White House.
And as if to suggest that just because the Dixie Chicks disagree with the war doesn’t mean they’re not every bit as patriotic as any country music fan.
But the Chicks’ own words put the kibosh on any such suggestion. No, not in the Time article because the issue isn’t even raised there. But it was raised in a subsequent interview with a British newspaper and any country fans who want to give the Chicks the benefit of the doubt in the patriotism department will be sorely disappointed.
In that interview the Chicks first complained about the lack of support from other country artists. Said Emily Robison: “A lot of artists cashed in on being against what we said or what we stood for because that was promoting their career . . . A lot of pandering started going on and you’d see soldiers and the American flag in every video. It became a sickening display of ultra-patriotism.”
Well sure, what could be more sickening than a strong display of patriotism?
Then Maines got right down to the crux of the matter. “The entire country may disagree with me, but I don’t understand the necessity for patriotism. Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country . . . I don’t see why people care about patriotism.”
There you have it, country music fans, straight from the horse‘s mouth. The Chicks aren’t simply patriotic dissenters who got a bad rap. They are utterly clueless about why anybody would be patriotic for any reason!
It wouldn’t be gentlemanly to suggest that they‘re dumb as a box of rocks, but these are the statements of people who seem to be profoundly and abysmally ignorant of the dangers in today’s world, unappreciative of how good they have it in their home country and clueless about how it got that way and what it takes to preserve it.
Anyway, Maines needn‘t worry about the “entire country“ not agreeing with her. That’s because the country is crawling with Bush-hating America-bashers who not only agree with her questioning of the need for patriotism, but who sympathize with terrorists and actually hope America will be defeated in Iraq. But most of those people aren’t listening to country music.
When it comes right down to it, just how country are the Dixie Chicks, anyway? Their new album, “Taking the Long Way,” is being described as a shift from country to pop. One review says they “are now savvy, sophisticated urbanites . . . like they’ve stepped out of ‘Sex and the City’ — and the music reflects that. It’s rooted in . . . country-rock . . . but sounds more suited for upscale apartments and coffeehouses.”
Fine. There’s no law that says the Dixie Chicks have to continue the country charade with all its oppressive baggage, such as the expectations of patriotism. If they prefer “Sex and the City” to Haggard and Twitty, more power to ’em. Like it said in the Time magazine article, “This is what talented musicians are supposed to do: aspire to get better, braver.”
Chick Marty Maguire summed it up pretty well in Time: “I’d rather have a smaller following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith. We don’t want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do.”
In other words, stick it in your ear all you Reba and Toby lovers. The Chicks are leaving all you white trash, country bumpkin losers behind — and saying good riddance while they’re at it. They’re movin’ on up to bigger and better things. They’re looking to cull a new audience of “really cool people” from “upscale apartments and coffeehouses” and get shed of all their old fans who were mainly just filling up America’s decidedly unsophisticated trailer parks and rural route addresses.
Maybe the Dixie Chicks will find happiness with their new peeps. The old peeps aren’t likely to be too broken up over their departure from country. They’re “not ready to make nice” either.
Those venues are too good for the DCs. Actually I saw George Thoroughgood (sp???) at a casino up north a few years ago - pretty good show.
Sorry I didn't see your post first I told on post#40 what she said..This happened in Austin Texas..All of these people think they are so great when they make a little money and consider everyone else trash..I am sure there are lots of others that could tell more tales about old Reba...
What a bunch of dipchicks.
Reba went off about handguns maybe 10 years ago. Got a lot of flack about it - hasn't said anything since. I remember a gun dealer offering some trade value for items in his shop if you dropped off or sent in one of her CD's.
Forgive Willile for his politics. His music is so much better than the chicks' there's no comparison.
I never really knew anything about Reba except at the time I listened to her music some..it really turned me off of her when she did what she did..
It is really sad since the public is what made these blow hards what they are..I will never understand these people that are so rude to their fans..Just stay nice to everyone and you will go a long way..It does not take much to be a nice person and I would rather be among the nice people..
Successful actor Adrian Pasdar ~
recently played a lawyer on Desperate Housewives.
Never knew he was Arab until Maines' big mouth took flight.
Thanks for the real facts on Pasdar.
Gnatalie Maines, lead "spokesperson" for the Ditzy Twits is doing all she can to wreck whatever passes for their careers.
No big loss, IMO.
Reply to post about Maines husband, I have never met an Iranian that liked Americans or our country. There may be some but I have not ran across any.
hey. We can attract some good acts for the casinos. maybe they will play at some obscure county fair. Or a childs birthday party. how are there tickets sales going?
I sincerely hope you are right. Thursdays are "Canadian Days" across the nearby UP. Darn International Bridge clogged up with us Canucks going there. Canadian money at par. They treat us good.
Oh, what was I going to say? Yeah. Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams III (grandson)plus scores of good old boys and gals have performed in the UP. I saw the Hank Williams III show, at Brimley. I do not want to be a one man band here though- please excuse.
No, really- a great gallery of Indian art for free at the Vegas Kewadin at Sault Ste. Marie,Michigan. A splendid edifice it is. Boys if that is third rate...... I am glad to be a peasant. Thanks for your support.
Willie Nelson, in spite of his terrible politics, was salt-of-the-earth, a honky-tonk player at heart who will always be a honky-tonk player at heart. He was, at the time, at possibly the highest point of his career, and yet he was as genuinely humble and kind (it was no act .. I've been around) and real as could be.
John Anderson and Randy Travis took special time and paid special attention to EACH AND EVERY ONE of the fans, regardless of age or sex, who came to see them. For Randy Travis in particular, who was nearly a super-star in country at the time (late 80s), it was very poignant. I remember seeing him, again and again, lean his head down closer to hear the words of some old lady or old man as, thrilled to their hearts, had the chance to speak with him and have their pics taken. He connected on an individual level with each and every one, and he didn't have to do it. My regard for all three of these musicians is high because of the ways I've seen them treat real people.
hey...maybe they'll all donate their money to the Gates foundation too!!!
the disgust I have for such "entertainers" is such that now I don't listen to much country at all, except the the old' timey stuff.....I am mostly a Dave Ramsey and Clark Howard listerner...
...if you use your imagination, you can dance to them too......
These stupid, ignorant, no talent bitches are finished. Thank God. Their career is over - dead. This is so gratifying. Also, Maines might be one of the ugliest women ever, very glad to see her disappear. Wal-Mart is always hiring, maybe she can resume her career there in the CD section because that's the only way she's going to be selling anything. Bye, bye girls.
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