The state of country music... What's your take on this?

[Wally Moyers]

http://www.savingcountrymusic.com/blake ... -jackasses

[Barry Blackwood]

Hey, Blake, young or old, farts still smell about the same. Your arrogance will be noted long after your opinions are forgotten..

[Curt Trisko]

In his defense, all sentiments aside, he's right. Just complaining isn't going to make Nashville change its music format. It's a business. Even decades ago, Nashville was never above being straightforward about that. They would match the best songwriters with the best musicians and the best performers and producers in order to sell records and sell tickets to shows. The biggest stars themselves were stylistic chameleons... Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, etc.

For the record, newer country music holds absolutely no appeal for me.

[Sidney Malone]

Well I honestly wouldn't know him if I heard him and after reading that interview I shouldn't have to worry about hearing him on Willie's Roadhouse.....so, all is well!!

If the truth was known it is probably a calculated statement for publicity purposes and he was the puppet appointed to say it.

I heard someone say a very true statement about publicity years ago...."you don't look at it as good or bad....you weigh it".

If it is truly his personal opinion then so be it. It don't affect me any more than mine would affect him.

[Dave Hopping]

So Blake at 37 has age issues....He'll have more of them if he lives long enough.

[Bill L. Wilson]

Having played guitar at both The Oklahoma Opry, and the Centennial Rodeo Opry in Okc. I was always surprised at really young people, doing traditional old country, and gospel music. A lot of the kids here in Oklahoma are carrying the torch to a new generation of country fans. There is a country radio station in Cullman Alabama that plays old obscure, country and gospel songs, that I tune in to every time I get down there. So traditional country is not dead every where. I love Brad Paisley, but I love traditional too.

[Ransom Beers]

Were it not for teenyboppers & little kids buying his music he would be driving a cab in Nashville.He seems to forget where he is from,the mean streets of "OL' TIME COUNTRY MUSIC".Hate the arrogance of these youg "know-it-alls",still he & other young upstarts will record the classics & the young crowd will oooh & awe thinking it's a new country song.Just a buncha BS.
Garth Brooks is a prime example of "Tennybopper"made.

[Steve Pawlak]

Knock Knock...Who' there?...Blake Shelton...Blake Shelton who?.... Tough town!

[Curt Trisko]

Maybe what you're hearing from him is in fact his own frustration that he is not able to successfully perform classic country to a paying audience.

[James Holland]

We do have a nice local country station that actually generates their own play list! They play stuff from the 60's thru today. You might hear Flatt and Scruggs, Mel McDaniels, and Martina McBride in succession. LOTS of folks in our area listen to WQAH.

So Shelton is right about the over-35 crowd not buying records. so what's new?

There's a lot of us over 35, and we make more money. We just have higher standards FWIW, His music, and his wife's are alright with me. I do wonder, how many buyers of Shelton's records are teens, who get that money from....us old folk parents?

[Bud Angelotti]

It's good product.

[Jerome Hawkes]

i'm certainly no new country fanboy, nor even know this guy - but i will say he is more correct in his brash statement than we care to admit.

everyone hoops and hollars when someone's non-PC statement aligns with their own philosophy.
here are the cold hard facts of life - making "commercial" country music in Nashville is no different than making washing machines in Greer, SC...at the end of the day, they are in the business of selling airtime for radio ads, not giving you free listening pleasure. everyone thinks its "art" (we call them recording artists..yeah) when 99% of it is disposable 3 min tunes in between car lot and furniture store ads. the radio stations are gonna play what the audience is willing to listen to - they live and die by these rankings which they use to sell ad time.

older people do not buy recordings...not the way young teenagers do. think back at the junk you bought back between 13-20 for confirmation of that statement. kids will buy anything, they dont know any better - put it on the radio / tv / entertainment mags and they will fall for it - adults just are not that gullible...at least i hope not.

[Dave Grafe]

If I am “Male Vocalist of the Year” that must mean that I’m one of those people now that gets to decide if it moves forward and if it moves on.

Uh, in a word, no. As impressed with his own greatness as young Blake appears to be, and as true as some of his observations may seem, this statement is not at all true. Being chosen "male vocalist of the year" simply means that he made the corporate oligarchy behind the award more money than any other male vocalist in that year, and that they thought he still had marketing "legs" that such an award might serve to maximize. No more and no less. In another year or two he will be too high maintenance for them and with fresh new meat at the market he will be old and stale to the very people he is putting his trust in.

If he were to ask those who gave him the award about it all I have no doubt that their curt reply would be "just shut up and sing, kid!"

The response from Mr. Ray Price brought a smile....

[Curt Trisko]

Just in case you've forgotten...

[/img]

[Dave Mudgett]

older people do not buy recordings...not the way young teenagers do.

I'm gonna dispute whether or not anybody knows the cause-and-effect of this. If they produce product that is strictly geared to teenyboppers, then it shouldn't surprise anybody that other demographic groups don't buy it. That is emphatically not evidence that older people wouldn't buy music targeted to them. I can only speak for myself, but would buy plenty of mainstream recordings if I liked what was being offered. I don't because I don't like it.

I think BS's comments that were quoted on that page are born from purely ignorant ageism. Ray Price's comment is on the money, and I think this clown will have occasion to seriously regret he opened up his mouth at all.

[Gary Preston]

Well if i were a Blake Shelton fan maybe i would agree with him . But i'm not but again i'm not a fan of acid rock either but it still is being played where i like it or not ! There will always be an audience of all types of music and thats the way it is . I don't watch the T.V. show that Blake is on either but some do ! I think Alan Jackson said it like it really is '' Murder on Music Row '' ! So i suppose he doesn't know what true Country Music is either right ? He sells a lot of music ! I don't think i would be to arrogant some folks may remember this next year ! Yes Blake does make a lot of money doing what he does but it won't be me doing the buying ! I best stop here . G.P.

[Bill McCloskey]

Sounds like a comment born of frustration. I don't know of any other popular music genre where clinging to the past was so much a part of the fan base. Rock stars don't have to deal with people complaining that what they do doesn't sound like rock, because it doesn't sound like it was made 60 years ago. Audiences for Rock music want it to be new, fresh, and "of their generation".

It sounds like Blake is a bit frustrated that there is so much blowback to moving country forward, or at least move in a direction that is interesting to Blake.

Imagine if Dave Grohl had to deal with everyone telling him that what he does is not rock because it doesn't sound like the Rolling Stones. Or try and pressure him into playing more like the Rolling Stones because otherwise it is not rock. It would be pretty limiting.

Sounds like an artist who feels hampered by a box that people would like to put him in.

[Dave Grafe]

I will add however that it is no secret to marketing professionals that the 13-year-old daughters of America control the vast majority of the nation's discretionary spending....

[Dave Mudgett]

Audiences for Rock music want it to be new, fresh, and "of their generation".

Rock is passé. I don't think there's really been much of anything 'new' or 'fresh' in rock for a pretty long time. The core of mainstream popular music is hip-hop, rap, and pop, which may occasionally dabble in a bit or rock, but rock itself still stands on the shoulders of Elvis and the rockabillies, The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Cream, Van Halen, Petty, and so on. Old rock and rollers are routinely revered by younger rockers - when they induct rockers into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, the big innovators are not routinely overlooked - they finally even got to The Ventures in 2008. They even routinely acknowledge their blues roots.

Add to that the fact that the country music culture has always espoused the idea of tradition and traditional values - this should give an idea why a comment like this has and will continue to raise up a firestorm. It seems to me that any artist espousing to be 'country' whining about 'tradition' in country music is pi$$ing into the wind, and some serious blowback is not only inevitable but richly deserved. He could have just kept his mouth shut and smiled all the way to the bank.

I will add however that it is not secret to marketing professionals that the 13-year-old daughters of America control the vast majority of discretionary spending....

Only as long as we're stupid enough to give them unlimited allowances.

[Dave Grafe]

Sounds like an artist who feels hampered by a box that people would like to put him in

In more ways than one this is true. The real issue is the symantics of the "boxes" that marketers put various styles of music into. Example in point: The hugely polular Bob Wills' Texas Playboys were for many years prohibited from joining the musicians' union because, as far as the union was concerned, saxes and fiddles together in the same ensemble was "not music." Most of us have encountered variations of this genre prejudice in our careers in various ways. I have been a contributor to a number of groups that have played and written music influenced by too many diverse sources to fit into any conventional "box" and thus have been infinitely more difficult to promote in a world full of nervous bean-counters.

It is not the music that the "new" Nashville produces that is so much the tragedy as is the fact that it is marketed as somehow the rightful heir to the American Country and Western tradition - this is the "New" Country, as if it was intended to somehow usurp the "Old Country" (which is effectively the fact with US radio for several decades now) - rather than being a new popular music of its own time, born of American Southern Rock, Texas Blues and West Coast Rock and Roll and brought to Nashville to make a handful of folks a whole more money than they did before. The trouble is, a whole lot of follks were already quite happy playing - and listening to - the music that they loved, well-crafted songs performed in a well-crafted and accessible fashion. These folks did not simply go away, in many instances they were effectively cast aside by the new tide.

It is important to note that this move to Nashville also had much to do with the highly-developed state of the recording industry and musicianship already in place, which made the transition easy and provided a haven for folks who didn't like living in Los Angeles or New York.

[John Billings]

Best/oldest friend is a sound engineer in Nashville. He was with TNN before it aired, and was there until it died. Now he's an in demand on location engineer. Now he records interviews with the "Stars." If you've heard several interviews, you've heard his work. One that comes to mind was with Don Helms. Anyway,,, He say all decisions now come from NYC. All his interview and TV work orders come from NYC. "Watermelon Crawl" was what got me to switch to talk radio.

[Curt Trisko]

This as good a time as any to say that I find that classic country songs were written in a way to have something to offer to both sophisticated and not-so-sophisticated people. Seems like all the new stuff is just aimed at a non-sophisticated audience, which uncoincidentally happens to include a lot of kids and young adults.

[John DeBoalt]

They've pretty much replaced the steel with the key board, and there is no such thing as a clean sounding electric guitar anymore. You can't hum or whistle most of the songs because because there is no discernible melody. I quit trying to listen about 5 years ago, and I don't watch any of the awards shows. I'm in the process of converting my 50 something year old LPs into I pod and CD formats so I can listen to them on the go.

[Donny Hinson]

Who's Blake Shelton?

[Fred Rushing]

Donny When he was at his peak he was an opening act for George Strait. He's been going down hill ever since. ( He's a lip syncer too!!!)

Fred