The Lonely Goatherd Blog And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats - Matthew 25:32
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Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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February 20, 2007
I hate the Dixie Chicks more than anyone This right here is a bunch of crap: I am listed by Google search as the #2 result for "I hate the Dixie Chicks." What?!?! I'm number TWO?
I HATE THE DIXIE CHICKS more than anyone else in the world does. Not to boast, but I was the FIRST GUY TO CUSS THE DIXIE CHICKS out of anyone on the whole electronic world wide internet web after their infamous London remarks. I took their nonsense apart better than anyone else ever with my ANDY KAUFMAN ARTICLE. Indeed, I've devoted my life as a patriotic American to countering the treasonous menace of the Dixie Chicks! Yet, I'm only #2? Where's the justice in that?
Plus, Natalie Maines still isn't returning my phone calls. Now I ask you, is that right? I've put together the best collection of hot DIXIE CHICKS PICTURES on the net with loving care. All this attention and devotion, and she continues to ignore me. What an ingrate! Who's a fella gotta shoot to impress her?
Then there is the grievous offense against any decent ideas of Geometry and Theology that is involved in Grammy voters giving the Dixie Chicks AWFUL CORPORATE MUSIC awards for best record of the year. The voters must be put to the lash post haste.
Please stop for a moment and join me now in a special and intense Two Minute Hate for the worst American traitors ever - or at least the worst excuse for country music ever foisted upon the public by the corporate music industry, the Dixie Chicks.
I do enjoy making fun of the Dixie Chicks. In the confederacy of dunces that is America 2006, their music and general behavior are particularly ripe for humor. I have to expect a South Park episode dedicated to them at some point. They're just begging for it.
But there is one specific angle of their foolishness that really does wipe the smile off my face, and brother Blogcritic Mark Saleski walked right into it with this story today. So then, I will drop the humor for a minute in order to be real unmistakably clear about this. As I'm responding to his story specifically, I'll address my comments to Brother Saleski.
Not to put too fine a point on it Mark, but your hand wringing here for poor little victim Natalie is utter bullshit. She is stirring this stuff up absolutely on purpose. In short, their claims of victimhood are as fake as their pre-processed, homogenized corporate country music cheese food product.
It absolutely IS a bunch of WHINING from Natalie Maines, milking a couple of isolated threats for a cheap claim on victimhood. They're MILKING, MILKING, MILKING a few lame threats to get some cheap martyrdom points.
But FAR WORSE, "Not Ready to Make Nice" specifically and their behavior generally carefully demagogues the situation to smear ALL critics of the band as evil, drooling, violent fascist haters. This is FAR worse than her couple of silly off hand comments about Bush.
Life is full of threats from nature, and from humans. LOTS of people get death threats. I've had a couple. It's unfortunate, but that's life. If you find the people doing such things, bust them down and lock them up. But don't smear the other 99.9% of critics who are doing no such thing. That is malicious, wicked and evil on the part of the Dixie Chicks.
The original outburst three years ago was overblown, yes, but not entirely unreasonable. Whichever way you want to look at the wisdom of our entry into Iraq, it's a critical point of life and death for the country. People who felt that Maines' comments were out of line and bad for our country had just as much right to protest as she does- even if some of it was an overreaction.
But now SHE and the other Dixie Chicks are the ones PURPOSELY stirring up hatred. They could have let that sleeping dog lie, and made their normal record and pretty much everything would be largely forgotten. They'd probably be king of the roost at country radio again. Instead, they are purposely spreading hatred and divisiveness, and using it as a marketing tool.
Maines went well out of her way to tell the Time magazine reporter that Bush is due "no respect whatsoever." That's not disagreeing with Bush, or criticizing his policies, but merely purposely and calculatedly fanning flames of hatefulness.
Feel sad for poor Natalie if you want to, but that just makes you a sucker- cause she absolutely WANTS this spite. She LIKES feeling angry, as she said IN SO MANY WORDS to the Time magazine reporter. It's an "awesome" feeling to be mad and KNOW you're right. She LOVES it.
By the way, while we're talking about haters, spreading disrespect and de-humanizing people, why don't you direct some of that exquisite sensitivity back at the Dixie Chicks. There are LOTS of examples in their current media campaign. Just for starters, think for a minute about Martie's disavowal in that same article of all those stupid people whom she doesn't even WANT as fans because they like Reba McEntire. You go around talking like that, gratuitously disrespecting people for no needful reason, expect some negative energy in return.
Mostly, I'm bemused by the situation. It's an entertaining confederacy of dunces all around. It's fun mocking their foolishness, and it's all helping them sell their wares. Good times.
However, I do get a bit pissy about just exactly this one angle that you're playing in this story. The Dixie Chicks and their supporters following their lead are smearing and de-humanizing the opposition.
They are in fact trying to intimidate non-believers such as myself from making any substantive criticism under threat of ostracism and malicious de-humanization as an evil, violent, irrational hater. This is pretty near exactly what they're accusing others of. It's classic, wicked demagoguery.
I'm not having ANY of it. Critics go way too far in casually using words like "treason" against the Dixie Chicks, but trying to dishonestly tar the opposition like this in order to silence or discredit critics absolutely IS un-American.
Dixie Chicks as Andy Kaufman Apparently, the Dixie Chicks think they're Andy Kaufman. That's the only sense I can make out of their album release press, particularly their big Time magazine interview.
Andy Kaufman was an arrogant little prick who made a big point of looking down on all those dumb little people who made him a tv sitcom star. He was a performance artist, not a stand up comedian or anything like that. He spent his last years largely in his wrestling villain personae, the better to mock his audience- while still craving their attention. He put a lot of effort into coming up with stuff designed to make the little people hate him. In his defense, he was pretty clever, and managed to concoct some pretty good entertainment out of this foolishness.
The Dixie Chicks, however, are not nearly so clever or talented. I'd rather hear Kaufman lip syncing the Mighty Mouse theme than to listen to the Dixie Chicks. Silly politics aside, they're not very good.
But they seem to be bound and determined to make every sentient being in the country hate them. Now, I may be judged to be an easy mark for this, as already I hate the Dixie Chicks beyond all measure - and all the sexy Dixie Chicks pictures in the world won't change that. Me and Natalie got issues. Still, they seem bound and determined to make not just wingnuts like me dislike them, but everyone in the entire frickin' world, regardless of their politics.
Start with the lead single from this, their first album since The Incident. To say that "Not Ready to Make Nice" is undiplomatic hardly begins to describe it. It's a straight middle finger to their original country audience. Their defense here would be that they feel they have been treated unfairly. They have a grievance to address, even if it cheeses people off more. Fair enough.
But that doesn't explain any of these other asinine things they're saying now. It looks for all the world as if they are calculating their remarks to be as off putting as possible.
The Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines apologized for disrespecting President Bush during a London concert in 2003. But now, she's taking it back.
"I don't feel that way anymore," she told Time magazine for its issue hitting newsstands Monday. "I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever."
As war in Iraq loomed, Maines told the London audience: "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas."
The remarks led to death threats and a backlash from other country stars, including a high-profile spat with Toby Keith. It also stalled what until then had been the group's smashingly successful career.
Bandmate Emily Robinson said she knew right away the remark wouldn't be taken lightly and got "hot from my head to my toes."
"It wasn't that I didn't agree with her 100 percent; it was just, 'Oh, this is going to stir something up,'" she told Time.
For band member Martie Maguire, the controversy was a blessing in disguise.
"I'd rather have a small 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," Maguire said. "We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do."
Miss Martie thinks that she's quite the smartie, but this smells more like a little brain fartie. For starters, I'm not particularly a Reba partisan, but she's at least moderately talented- and a heck of a nice gal who has done nothing to earn this disrespect. Besides which, why would you say such a thing? What is that supposed to do for you, other than make you look like a disrespectful, arrogant bitch?
But Sister Emily isn't going to let the other get all the arrogance. Just randomly picking out any excuse for an unearned display of superiority, Miss Emily says "Would Bruce Springsteen do The View?" Oh yes, the Dixie Chicks are SO much more significant than Barbara Walters. There's probably just country music fans watching the show anyway.
Until recently, these DIXIE Chicks were at least nominally a country act. They would have pretty much exactly the same fan base as these mainstream modern commercial country acts. I'm not a big fan of modern commercial country music generally, but Toby Keith and Reba McEntire are towards the better end of that.
The classic country music statement of class consciousness was the studied advise of Flatt and Scruggs, "Don't Get Above Your Raisin'." But that's exactly what they've done. It doesn't sound so much as if Natalie Maines is ashamed that Bush is from Texas as that she's ashamed that SHE is Texan.
They haven't particularly mutated to any strikingly new musical style, but they're just too good for their old one. The Dixie Chicks don't even WANT anyone for a fan that would be gauche enough to listen to - turn up nose in disgust - REBA MCENTIRE. Catering to such morons could only limit their avant artistic vision. Yuck.
That Miss Martie would take this kind of attitude based on the contrived corporate country cheese-food product that she's produced with the Dixie Chicks suggests serious self-delusion. One suspects that she might be really high from sniffing her own smugness, like the doomed San Franciscans caught in the South Park "Smug Alert." Perhaps that's what's causing her to be so (as Hannibal Lecter would say) unspeakably rude. Who was it told her that she's better than Reba McEntire, much less that the Dixie Chicks are too good to even be in the same record collection with her?
Andy Kaufman kicked his wrestling career into gear with a famous Tennessee press conference in which he explained that he was a rich entertainer from Hollywood, and he had come on behalf of the beautiful people to teach the hicks how to act. He as much as whipped out a bar of soap, which use he demonstrated to the great (literal) unwashed masses.
But Andy Kaufman was an artist, or at least a thinking dude. He was TRYING to collect all the cracker's goats that he could corral. He INTENDED to make everyone hate him. The complete over-the-topness of it makes it really more a criticism of the likes of George Clooney than of the rednecks, anyway. But basically, Kaufman was totally consciously striving to make everyone hate him like a classic wrestling heel character.
Whereas one must suspect that the Dixie Chicks are just too dumb to realize how childish and contemptible their behavior and attitudes are as they talk down to those stupid people who buy country records. Selling a few records is great, but it doesn't mean that you're better than everybody else, or that you should show such lack of appreciation or respect for exactly the people who bought all those damned Dixie Chicks records. Ingrates.
Natalie Maines displays herself as a particularly ugly face of human nature with a story from high school that she's proud to trump up to the Time reporter. "As a high school senior in Lubbock, Texas, she'd skip a class a day in an attempt to prove that because she never got caught and some Mexican students did, the system was racist." This petty and distasteful grasping for a cheap sense of moral superiority exhibits perfectly the shallowness of the artist.
She helpfully lays it out precisely in the comments with which the Time reporter concluded their big feature, "It was awesome to feel those feelings again that I felt in high school: to be angry, to be sure that you're right and that the things you do matter. You don't realize that you're not feeling those feelings until you do. And then you realize how much more interesting life is."
Wowee, zowee, what a toxic moral stew she's cooking up there. Natalie Maines WANTS to be mad at the world. That's an "awesome" feeling. On top of which, she's RIGHT and everyone who disagrees is simply wrong. What exactly it is that she's right about, I'm not sure. But that doesn't particularly matter. It only matters that she's RIGHT. Finally, she's getting off on "mattering." That is, she's in a position to inflict both her anger and her insights about her own superiority onto innocent bystanders. Wow.
The girl would be dangerous if she had a brain. Or are the Dixie Chicks really geniuses, conjuring up all these multiple layers of contemptible displays of petty arrogance, ignorance and malice as part of a meta-artistic performance art statement?
Dixie Chicks album = Al Qaeda Plot: New album releases, 5-23-2006 It is a dark day for Team America: There's a new Dixie Chicks album out today, Taking the Long Way. These enemies of The People are just begging for a visit to Camp Mimi. There's no home for you here, Natalie Maines, but their CD is currently the #1 album at Amazon.
I don't wish to overstate the case, but the Dixie Chicks are agents of the devil and of Al Qaeda. It's kind of like the Christy Lane situation, only far worse because Natalie Maines is so much cuter. I admit that I can't stop looking at my hundreds of Dixie Chicks pictures, but that doesn't mean that Natalie Maines isn't evil beyond all constitutional measure. She would be considered a major offender against any reasonable system of Geometry and Theology.
In short, they're "Not Ready to Make Nice." Alright then, neither am I. Plus, she won't return my calls.
Look, if Natalie Maines would rather date Saddam Hussein than a good patriotic American like Al Barger, that's fine. Just know that if you buy the new Dixie Chicks album, then the terrorists have won.
The truly sad thing though is that the Dixie Chicks probably don't have the worst big league album of the week. Lord Rand forgive me for even typing the title of Michael Bolton's new CD Bolton Swings Sinatra. Bolton. Swings. Sinatra. Tell me Bin Laden doesn't have a finger in that. Hurry down doomsday, the bugs are taking over.
Def Leppard singing the Kinks? After the Michael Bolton, my sense of outrage is fatigued, and I can only whimper like Leo Marvin at his sister's wedding to Bob Wiley. Anyway, Def Leppard has an album of covers, imaginatively titled Yeah!.
But just as despair for the state of the republic starts to take over and I start wanting to go all Hannibal Lecter, we find a new Johnny Cash album- a double album at that! The 49 tracks on Personal File are Cash acoustic solo recordings mostly made in 1973 in an intimate style that might be seen as his prototype for the famous final American albums. See, there is goodness and beauty in the world too. Put down the gun. Remain calm.
Also figuring into the don't-go-on-a-killing-spree ledger, Dr John has a new album called Mercernary, all songs associated somehow with Johnny Mercer. I could definitely imagine him doing something really special with "Blues in the Night." I can definitely imagine the benefit of a little New Orleans swing to "Moon River" or "That Old Black Magic."
That's all for this week. Sleep well- but check under the bed for sleeper cells or Dixie Chicks.
Here's the complete list of this week's major new album releases, courtesy AMG:
Johnny Cash Personal File Columbia/Legacy Country-Pop, Traditional Country
Dixie Chicks Taking the Long Way Open Wide/Columbia Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Pop/Rock, Adult Contemporary, Contemporary Country, Country-Pop
Dr. John Mercernary Blue Note New Orleans R&B, Piano Blues
The Wreckers Stand Still, Look Pretty Maverick Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative Country-Rock, Contemporary Country, Country-Pop, Singer/Songwriter
Alias & Tarsier Brookland/Oaklyn Anticon Indie Electronic, Alternative Rap
The Allman Brothers Band Eat a Peach [Deluxe Edition] Mercury Slide Guitar Blues, Album Rock, Boogie Rock, Southern Rock, Hard Rock, Blues-Rock
Angels and Airwaves We Don't Need to Whisper Geffen/Suretone Alternative Pop/Rock
Anjani Blue Alert Columbia Vocal Jazz, Vocal Pop, Pop, Ballads, Adult Contemporary
As Fast As Open Letter to the Damned Octone Pop Underground, Power Pop, Alternative Pop/Rock
The Blood Brothers Love Rhymes with Hideous Car Wreck V2 International Punk Metal, Hardcore Punk, Punk Revival, Emo
Michael Bolton Bolton Swings Sinatra Concord Adult Contemporary
Susan Cagle The Subway Recordings Lefthook/Columbia Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Teen Pop
Eric Clapton Eric Clapton [Deluxe Edition] Polydor Album Rock, Blues-Rock, Pop/Rock, Soft Rock, Rock & Roll
Coachwhips Double Death Narnack Indie Rock, Garage Rock Revival
Damone Out Here All Night [CD] Island Punk-Pop, Punk Revival
Def Leppard Yeah! Bludgeon Riffola/Island Pop-Metal, Album Rock, Hard Rock, Pop/Rock, British Metal, Glam Rock, Heavy Metal
Neil Diamond Forever Neil Diamond Shout! Factory Pop/Rock, Pop, Southern Soul, Motown, Alternative Pop/Rock, Soul
Fasolis, Diego Gossec: Le Triomphe de la Republique Chandos Classical Chamber Music
The Ditty Bops Moon Over the Freeway Warner Bros. Indie Pop, Alternative Pop/Rock
End of Fashion End of Fashion Capitol Britpop, Garage Rock, New Wave, Alternative Pop/Rock
Merl Saunders & Jerry Garcia Well-Matched: The Best of Merl Saunders & Jerry Garcia Fantasy Jam Bands, Soul-Jazz, Rock & Roll, Jazz-Rock
Halifax The Inevitability of a Strange World Drive-Thru Punk-Pop, Emo, Punk Revival
The Heavy Blinkers The Night and I Are Still So Young Cooking Vinyl Chamber Pop, Indie Pop
La Ricordanza Foreign Insult MDG Baroque Orchestral Music
Less Than Jake In with the Out Crowd Sire Punk-Pop, Third Wave Ska Revival, Punk Revival
Huey Lewis & The News Greatest Hits & Videos [CD/DVD] Capitol Pop/Rock, Bar Band, Album Rock
Jenny Lin The Eleventh Finger Koch Contemporary Piano Music
Mission of Burma The Obliterati Matador Indie Rock
Harry Nilsson Everybody's Talkin': The Very Best of Harry Nilsson [RCA] RCA Pop/Rock, Soft Rock, Pop, Singer/Songwriter, Baroque Pop, Psychedelic Pop, Sunshine Pop
Sakari Oramo John Foulds: Dynamic Triptych; Music-Pictures III Warner Modern Orchestral Music
Gal, Yoav Yoav Gal: Bit by Bit, Cell by Cell Innova Avant-Garde Opera
Original Soundtrack A Prairie Home Companion [New Line] New Line Original Score, Film Music, Soundtracks
Osaka Popstar Osaka Popstar and the American Legends of Punk Ryko/Misfits Punk-Pop, Punk Revival, Alternative Pop/Rock
Phoenix It's Never Been Like That Astralwerks Indie Electronic, Alternative Dance
Sierra Swan Ladyland Interscope/Custard Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Singer/Songwriter, Pop/Rock
Tilly and the Wall Bottoms of Barrels Team Love Indie Pop
Various Artists American Idol Season 5: Encores RCA Adult Contemporary, Pop/Rock, Urban
Various Artists Big Star Small World Koch Alternative Pop/Rock, Pop Underground
Various Artists Classic Labor Songs from Smithsonian Folkways Smithonian Folkways Political Folk, Folk Revival, Field Recordings
Various Artists Give 'Em the Boot, Vol. 5 Hellcat Punk Revival, Hardcore Punk, Psychobilly, Oi!, Ska Revival
Various Artists Harlan County USA: Songs of the Coal Miner's Struggle Rounder Political Folk, Appalachian Folk, Traditional Folk, String Bands, Old-Timey, Field Recordings, Bluegrass
The Walkmen A Hundred Miles Off Record Collection Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock
Leslie West Blue Me Blues Bureau Hard Rock, Blues-Rock
I Hate the Dixie Chicks Fan Page and Photo Gallery Oh Lord, how I despise the Dixie Chicks. I was the first guy to cuss the Dixie Chicks out on the internet. In my best Raymond Shaw voice, I loathe them danged pinkos and their fake country music. The mere mention of their name might raise the blood pressure of any decent American. They are clearly enemies of The People. Somebody should be keeping tabs on these chicks. What the hell are we paying the NSA for, anyway?
HUNDREDS OF DIXIE CHICKS PHOTOS Single Review: Dixie Chicks - "Not Ready to Make Nice" The Dixie Chicks have a new album coming out in May, Taking the Long Way. It is their first album since the pre-war unpleasantness. They have released the first single, which addresses that controversy. It's called "Not Ready to Make Nice."
Full disclosure/brag: I'm proud to have been the first person to cuss Natalie Maines out on the internet when the story of her infamous London remarks surfaced. In short, me and Natalie have history. It's a thing, you know. Natalie - I ain't mad atcha. Just call me.
But to get to the point, this song really sucks. Now obviously, I'm going to have some thoughts on the autobiographical lyrics but we'll get back to that. Let's start with parsing this out as a song.
"Not Ready to Make Nice" is the biggest bunch of whining, self-pitying shitlickin' I've heard on a record in a good while. The lyrics are only part of that effect, though. The whole expression of cheap calculated, homogenized self-righteous self-compassion is particularly unappetizing.
"Not Ready to Make Nice" is basically a third rate Faith Hill song. It's the worst end of that whiny victim crap, only she's a tough old broad who'll stand up and fight back, thus the title.
The title almost has a musical hook, but it's just so bland and generic in every possible market-calculated way as to defy description. It's like a response crafted by a PR firm - only not a very good one. It doesn't go anywhere. The climactic bit of tune supposed to carry "or my life'll be over" was particularly totally flat and bland.
This is musically regressive even for the previously mediocre at best Dixie Chicks. This song, though, is less melodically memorable, and even less country than their previous records. Rick Rubin produced this, so advocates want to basically transfer a bit of Johnny Cash karma onto the Chicks. Rubin produced his exemplary final albums, and really brought Johnny back.
But that was Johnny, and Rubin didn't get those results by producing sounds like this arrangement. It's a big, awful, bland pop arrangement with just the least hint of fiddle (mixed in with 10x more generic violins) being the only clue I can take that this is even nominally a "country" song.
It'd be fine for them to try something different, but this sound isn't particularly anything else, either. Not as in doesn't sound like anything else, but that it sounds a little bit like a whole lot of things - just a stylistic gray muck of nothing in particular. They could play this at commercial country radio, or VH1, or some adult contemporary format.
It could play at pop radio. Heck it sounds as much like Britney Spears singing about being "Lucky" as anything. The general not-really-rock-not-country-not anything in particular thing runs between both songs. They also have a similar self-sorrowful emotional tone about being a poor suffering rich singer. But "Lucky" has a considerably more memorable tune than this.
About the only thing I'd say this record definitely is NOT is country. There's next to nothing here musically to connect this to any rural music tradition. Nor is this whiny tone of victim-hood worthy of a country gal. In short, this Dixie Chicks record makes Shania Twain sound like Loretta Lynn. There's no Dixie left in these chicks at this point.
Now this crappy corporate contrivance could well turn out to be a huge hit. "Lucky" was. If all the Britney Spears and Faith Hill fans tune in, they won't be able to print this crap up quick enough. I'm just saying that in the holy name of Buck Owens, I'm gonna put my boot in the ass of the first fool what tries telling me that this is country music.
OK, now let's draw a line, switch gears, mix some metaphors, and whatnot. That was the song and the production. Let's conclude with a brief examination of the text of the lyrics.
For starters, this is not any kind of political statement. It might have turned out more interesting if they had written lyrics detailing why W is such a doo-doo head.
But instead, what Natalie Maines thought was noteworthy was how bad she felt with everyone being all mean to her. Poor thing.
She apparently got a couple of dumb death threats, which she milks here for all it's worth. Now, obviously it's wrong for people to do that. Idiots who would make physical threats against a singer over a little of nothing like this need to be knocked upside their stupid heads with a 2x4. If I knew of anybody in my part of the country responsible for such a thing, I'd do it for her. Maybe it'd get me a date. I'll defend you, Natalie!
But that doesn't make it cool to milk a couple of half-assed threats for public sympathy. Nor, especially, does it excuse the self-serving hatefulness of generalizing a couple of schmucks out to tar the other 99.999% of their critics who were NOT threatening them. In short, she's not ready to make nice with ANYBODY. Whatever. She's trying to steal an unearned sense of moral superiority. I for one am not inclined to recognize it.
Plus, did I mention that this song sucks?
Forgive, sounds good Forget, I'm not sure I could They say time heals everything But I'm still waiting
I'm through with doubt There's nothing left for me to figure out I've paid a price And I'll keep paying
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 It's too late to make it right I probably wouldn't if I could 'Cause I'm mad as hell Can't bring myself to do what it is you think I should
I know you said Can't you just get over it It turned my whole world around And I kind of like it
I made my bed and I sleep like a baby With no regrets and I don't mind sayin' It's a sad sad story when a mother will teach her Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger And how in the world can the words that I said Send somebody so over the edge That they'd write me a letter Sayin' that I better shut up and sing Or my life will be over
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 It's too late to make it right I probably wouldn't if I could 'Cause I'm mad as hell Can't bring myself to do what it is you think I should
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 It's too late to make it right I probably wouldn't if I could 'Cause I'm mad as hell Can't bring myself to do what it is you think I should
Forgive, sounds good Forget, I'm not sure I could They say time heals everything But I'm still waiting
Merle Haggard defends the Dixie Chicks Merle Haggard has an editorial on his website questioning the wisdom of the war in Iraq, and defending the Dixie Chicks. You might be a bit surprised to hear these sentiments coming from the author of "The Fighting Side of Me":
I don't even know the Dixie chicks, but I find it an insult for all the men and women who fought and died in past wars when almost the majority of America jumped down their throats for voicing an opinion. It was like a verbal witch-hunt and lynching. Whether I agree with their comments or not has no bearing.
Then again "in the same breath" he also pronounces his admiration for Toby Keith.
That's Merle Haggard for you, Mr. Love.
[Psst. CLICK HERE for groovy free Merle Haggard mp3]
Dixie Chicks: I hate you, please come back! The Dixie Chicks have left, and I hate them. I wish they would come back. When they were disrespecting the president, cursing them gave me reason to live. Most importantly, it drug in a lot of web traffic and attention for ME and other Blogcritics. We fight because we love.
Then the girls responded with the infamous nude lesboEntertainment Weekly cover. Oh Jebus! All is forgiven!!! And yet more traffic and attention for columns about this.
Now they've abandoned me. They haven't done anything controversial in weeks. They won't return my calls. Spirits and traffic are down.
Please girls, come back. If you come back, I'll even listen to some of your music. I'm not saying that I'll go out and spend actual money on your crappy records- that's really asking too much. If you come back though, I promise to download a couple of your songs and make myself listen to them at least once.
Come on, do I have to beg? Don't make me beg. You know that only infuriates me, and makes me want to start cussing you again.
Tatu vs Dixie Chicks From this photo you might think that the Dixie Chicks are the hottest lesbo act going in the music business.
Not so fast, say the girls of Tatu. Even just the casual photo with this news story makes me feel all funny.
No, but that's not all. They're actively publicly recruiting the youngest legal girls they can, as young as 14, for a nude photo shoot for their next album cover. Holy spine-tingling publicity stunt, Batman!
Now how exactly are the Dixie Chicks going to top this?
Wait, wait. Ladies. There's no need to argue. Maybe you could work together, a win-win cross-marketing sensation. You could all get together for a big pay-per-view special that would surely break box-office records.
Now the Dixie Chicks are just asking for it Like the old maid aunt in Elvis Costello's classic song, "I almost had a weakness." I was just about starting to feel bad for the Dixie Chicks getting continuing grief over a couple of stupid comments back in the long ago days before the war. Sure Natalie Maines was talking foolishness, but people have vandalized their property and made threats and organized boycotts. Damn, people, get a life already.
Then they go and do this:
Their considered response to this controversy is a softcore lesbian photo shoot for the cover of Entertainment Weekly. This amounts to a cheesy Madonna-style publicity stunt.
They have positively embraced the controversy. This photo amounts to a giant raised middle finger to their critics. Oh wait, that's not their middle finger, that's me...
Understand that this is not a rebuke. Hell, they look like they're just seconds away from filming the first Dixie Chicks video ever that I would be interested in watching.
Even beyond the amusing titillation though, I much prefer this to whining. Instead of complaining and backtracking, they have chosen to make a frontal assault. They have chosen to positively exploit this controversy for publicity and marketing. You go girls!
However, with this photo they have pretty much given up any right to bitch about people overreacting. The thing was dying down, and now they have purposely picked it up- and raised it to a whole new level. Does Miss Emily intend this picture to disprove the rude folks who have called them "dixie sluts"?
None of this constitutes any kind of a serious political statement or argument, mind you. I vaguely suspect that they want us to think that this picture constitutes some kind of significant political argument or artistic statement or something. It does not, in fact. It's just naked chicks. And I'm OK with that. :)
It's a publicity stunt. It might backfire and cause them to only sell 2 copies of their next album, or it might make a big splash and sell them 20 million albums. Bully for them. This little play is more interesting than any of their homogenized, pre-processed country cheese music product.
I just don't want to hear any whining if they get pickets at their concerts. After all, they're sending out an engraved invitation.
The Dixie Chicks' deep political thought On stage in London on Monday [03-10-03], Dixie Chick Natalie Maines told her audience "Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas."
Pressed for an explanation, she later said "There is nothing more frightening than the notion of going to war with Iraq." Well, yeah, if a proposed action elicits the subjective personal emotional reaction of fear from a Dixie Chick, then we shouldn't do it. Indeed, we should be ashamed that we have a president who would frighten a poor defenseless little Dixie Chick.
What a dumb, whim worshipping fool. Why don't you just hide your ignorant disrespectful bitch ass under the bed and let the guys take care of defending the country. Or perhaps instead we should just wait here like sitting ducks for some Arab fanatics to come kill the rest of us at their leisure, since military action gives this girl the heebie jeebies.
