CMT rejects new Dale Watson Video

Janice Brooks · Post by **Janice Brooks** » 30 Jul 2001 7:10 pm

Comment posted to the RMCW newgroup from the director of Dale's new video.

the rumor is true...i'm the director of the clip...CMT is passing because the
video "looks dated" and has "poor production values"...please prove them wrong
and send them some email requesting they add the video....

and please be nice...i still gotta work in this town

thanks,

stephen
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Has anyone else seen this video on GAC to make comparrisons?

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Janice "Busgal" Brooks
ICQ 44729047

Jody Sanders · Post by **Jody Sanders** » 30 Jul 2001 9:36 pm

Just add 3 or 4 scantilly clad dancing girls, and Dale would be in. Jody.

Joe Casey · Post by **Joe Casey** » 31 Jul 2001 2:40 pm

Must have been a Country song. They don't play that kind of Music on CMT.

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CJC

Leroy Riggs · Post by **Leroy Riggs** » 31 Jul 2001 2:56 pm

Jody,

With my wife in the house, I never look at the "scantilly clad dancing girls" anyhow.

Anne Marie O Keeffe · Post by **Anne Marie O Keeffe** » 31 Jul 2001 3:15 pm

You hit the nail right on the head there Joe.
Why is that Leroy? Your wife dances scantilly clad so you don't have to watch them on TV?

Leroy Riggs · Post by **Leroy Riggs** » 31 Jul 2001 4:03 pm

Anne Marie--I've been married 40 years...I don't EVER look at her anymore under any condition especially when she is "scantilly clad". Youck!

Leroy

Roger Miller · Post by **Roger Miller** » 31 Jul 2001 5:13 pm

Anne, I'm sure he was joking about that last statement, at least I think so. My wife can easily read this so I hadn't better say things as such about my wife.

Leroy Riggs · Post by **Leroy Riggs** » 31 Jul 2001 5:36 pm

Just kidding of course. Forgot to put in some simley faces.

Michael Johnstone · Post by **Michael Johnstone** » 31 Jul 2001 10:01 pm

I also produced and directed a "low production value" video on Dale back when I was playing with him and he was on Curb Records.The tune was called "If It's Over" - one of his 3 Curb singles. I don't think we even TRIED to filter it through Nashville,because they already didn't like Dale much out there and Curb didn't give a damn about Dale anyhow - that's why I had to do the video out of my own pocket - his Curb deal didn't even HAVE a video budget! We did end up getting some rotation out in Austin on a local country music video showcase,though.But hey...such is life outside the Nashville box. -MJ-

Steve Pacholl · Post by **Steve Pacholl** » 1 Aug 2001 10:16 am

I guess Dale was showing enough cleavage and he didn't do enough cheek flexing.

Bill Crook · Post by **Bill Crook** » 1 Aug 2001 11:56 am

Hoss, If you ain't showing a little/lot T&A or rappin, Nashville don't even want you. How's that for country ??

I was talkin' to a lady that works out at ShopryMills the other day and she said that "Monday thru Friday,The mall was dead." They did O.K. on Saturday and Sunday due to tourist and out-of-town folks. So many of the shop owners out there are saying that "the average consumer in Nashville isn't going to pass up another mall just to pay almost double the price,drive twice as far and still fight that traffic on Brily Parkway".

Thanks to Gaylord and the "Music" industry, Nashville has gone to pot. In a few years, we will have a Football team and stadiumn for sell too.

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 6 Aug 2001 9:45 am

Haven't watched GAC in a while to notice the video (if it's there).

I think the labels waste WAY too much money on videos. Seems to me a low-budget version would work just fine.

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons

Ricky Davis · Post by **Ricky Davis** » 6 Aug 2001 12:01 pm

I believe CMT has now put our new video in the "stone country" section...I don't have time to check it out now; but maybe Janice you could head over there to that website and verify; Honey.
Ricky

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 7 Aug 2001 10:27 am

I think the labels waste WAY too much money on videos. Seems to me a low-budget version would work just fine

The money goes to make it look professional, ever noticed the 'producion values' on those 'local' commercials for matresses or used cars. And a video, which is an infomercial from a marketing standpoint, is inexpensive for the amount of time it's on and for the size of the audience it reaches.

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 7 Aug 2001 1:48 pm

The money goes to make it look professional, ever noticed the 'producion values' on those 'local' commercials for matresses or used cars

There's "cheap", and then there's "inexpensive", and then there's "extreme waste".

I'd go for inexpensive.

Since so much of the video production costs are simply taken out of the artists' potential future earnings, there's less incentive, IMO, for the label to be frugal with the money that's spent on video.

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons

Tim Rowley · Post by **Tim Rowley** » 7 Aug 2001 9:39 pm

So why do labels think it's necessary to have a video to sell a recording anyway? Aren't the recordings good enough to stand alone without a video? No, evidently it doesn't work that way anymore. It takes multi-media nowdays. Listeners apparently are no longer satisfied to hear a song and form a mental picture like they used to (maybe the lyrics have become so goofy that they can't?) Besides that, video is a means of pushing more "product". The music business has always been strictly about dollars and C.M.T., through its cable subscribers, is a vehicle enabling that to be done. It sure brings in more than sheet music sales!

My point in all this rambling is that since the only goal of the big labels nowdays is to sell large volumes of up-to-date commercial "product" to the "young record-buying public" through any and all viable means without regard to quality of content, and C.M.T. is their most successful chosen vehicle, this automatically puts C.M.T. in the position of being able to reject what their current management doesn't "like". Bottom line is that they don't regard Dale Watson as being commercially viable enough to make them any money, in other words he's just way too retro and too country to be a big commercial success in today's market.

My E-mail's broke so I can't send anything to C.M.T., but in this instance I'm not sure that it would make any difference if I or 10,000 people did. At the risk of sounding fatalistic, I reckon that C.M.T. is gonna play whatever they perceive as satisfying to the masses, and 10,000 E-mails probably won't change their mind. They've decided it ain't Dale, at least not until he comes up with a slick enough "up-to-date" and "high production value" (read "musically compromised" and "spend way more money") video.

Now if 250,000 real country music fans E-mailed or wrote in to C.M.T. requesting that Dale's video be put on the playlist, that might be enough to pursuade them to suddenly change their view to a more favorable one! Or if Dale was younger, better looking, and surrounded by the ever-present scantilly clad dancing girls I guess that might help too.

Tim R.

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 8 Aug 2001 12:26 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Since so much of the video production costs are simply taken out of the artists' potential future earnings, there's less
incentive, IMO, for the label to be frugal with the money that's spent on video.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>One of the primary functions of the record company is being loan office, so it's in their best interest to run up the debt owed to them by their roster of artists. That and a little creative bookkeeping means big $$$ for the suits on top.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>So why do labels think it's necessary to have a video to sell a recording anyway? Aren't the recordings good enough to
stand alone without a video?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I suspect because there is such a glut of media available, and since most of the information we process as humans is visual, it takes some 'eye candy' to get our attention.

P Gleespen · Post by **P Gleespen** » 8 Aug 2001 3:07 am

A good looking video (which costs a lot more that one might think) helps sell records. That, for the record company, is what it's all about. Shifting units. It's really cheap advertising for the record company's product.

When my old hardcore band's video was played on MTV (all of 3 or 4 times), the sales of our cd would skyrocket.

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 8 Aug 2001 7:29 am

The emphasis on "visual" rather than "hearing" speaks volumns about the current music consumers market.....oh woe is me, all is lost, there is no hope!!!!

Ray Jenkins · Post by **Ray Jenkins** » 8 Aug 2001 9:27 am

Is that a video of Tim Mcgraw's song,Grown Men Don't Cry,where the lady is vacuuming and the little kid is hanging on her leg as she drags him around the room?It looks like the start of that "whinny" song.
Ray

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Steeling is still legal in Arizona

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 8 Aug 2001 10:53 am

When you figure that a decent commercial costs in the $800,000 range, and that's for a 30 second spot. If a video costs the same and it runs for 3 minutes, then it's cheap by those standards.

Given that we the consumers are so bombarded with media and information, sights and sounds, it takes more than a good tune to get our attention. If you think about the amount of radio and tv exposure in Hank Williams day compared to now, there is no comparison.

Rich Weiss · Post by **Rich Weiss** » 8 Aug 2001 12:54 pm

Hi Chas. You know who got lucky? Christopher Cross. He was doing great as an artist just "before" the music video revolution. Had he waited several more years to make his assault, we'd probably never have heard of him. No offense to Christopher, but he wasn't exactly a screen idol.

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 8 Aug 2001 10:27 pm

Yo Rich, the musician who was reeeaaaalllyy lucky is Kenny G

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 9 Aug 2001 8:38 am

it takes more than a good tune to get our attention

Unfortunately, that's true for many people -- probably most people.

How's the song go? "Video killed the radio star?".

Just like a movie is never as good as the book, a video is never as good as the song. At least not to me. I'd rather just see a video of the band performing the song, personally.

Leave the imagery to my own mind, thank you very much.

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 9 Aug 2001 12:35 pm

David, me too. We live in an age where as consumers, we're used to having our entertainment spoon-fed to us which, of couse, makes us very pliable and easily manipulated. Sort of a creative sloth.