Defiant Dixie Chicks fly high at Grammys

[stephanie]

:cow: :cow:
By Dean Goodman
SNIP..
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Dixie Chicks, who stirred up a hornet's nest with a jibe at President Bush, won all five Grammys for which they were nominated on Sunday, including the coveted album of the year.

The victory marked a stunning validation for the female country music trio from Texas, almost four years after their dream run as the darlings of Nashville came to an abrupt end.

Singer Natalie Maines told fans during a 2003 concert she was ashamed to come from the same state as Bush, and the group was transformed overnight into pariahs. Radio stations stopped playing their songs, while album and ticket sales suffered.

The Dixie Chicks also won record and song of the year for the appropriately wry single "Not Ready To Make Nice." The last time an act won the album, record and song categories was in 1993 when Eric Clapton led the field.

The last country act to win album of the year was Glen Campbell in 1969 with "By the Time I Get to Phoenix."

"I think people are using their freedom of speech tonight with all of these awards," Maines said.:cow:

The Dixie Chicks also won the Grammys for best country album and country performance by a duo or group with vocal. Their career Grammy haul now stands at 13 awards.

"Taking the Long Way" was the ninth-biggest album in the United States last year, according to tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan, but sales of 1.9 million copies to date were relatively disappointing compared with previous releases.
Meanwhile, former "American Idol" champion Carrie Underwood took the closely watched honor for best new artist, further enhancing the star-making power of the hit TV talent contest.

Underwood, the winner of the fourth season of "American Idol" in 2005, earlier took the Grammy for best female country vocal performance.

"This is absolutely unbelievable! I love country music," the 23-year-old Nashville star said.
You can read the rest of this gut splitting article at....
http://today.reuters.com/news/articl...1-ArticlePage1

[5stringJeff]

Amazing. I never once heard the Dixie Chicks' new stuff on any of our four country stations.

[Abbey Marie]

The Dixie Chicks also won record and song of the year for the appropriately wry single "Not Ready To Make Nice." The last time an act won the album, record and song categories was in 1993 when Eric Clapton led the field.

Wow. That juxtaposition says a lot about the huge drop in quality of grammy winners.

[jimnyc]

I despise them, refuse to listen to them & think NO bands should bring politics into their music. I never liked the Grammy's anyway. Then again, I'm sure my music is offensive to some

[stephanie]

Heck I'm stuck in a time warp music wise...

Classic Rock...

Eagles
Doobies
Roy Orbison
Bob Seger
Creedence



I despise the Twits also...

[red states rule]

Like the Oscars, only the liberal stuff shirts cast the votes

I sure did not get my Grammy ballot in the mail - did you?

[Abbey Marie]

Like the Oscars, only the liberal stuff shirts cast the votes

I sure did not get my Grammy ballot in the mail - did you?

I heard that Jimmah Carter won one as well.

[red states rule]

I heard that Jimmah Carter won one as well.

I rest my case

[Mr. P]

Heck I'm stuck in a time warp music wise...

Classic Rock...

Eagles
Doobies
Roy Orbison
Bob Seger
Creedence



I despise the Twits also...

I think the producers knew folks would be a bit pissed about the twits, did you see the "sorta" disclaimer about votes at the end of the show?

[red states rule]

Saddam's Angels did lose a friend recently

[Sitarro]

I think the music industry is blaming President Bush for their drop in sales so they decided to make a statement. The Grammy's have been a joke for many years as the recording industry has become. The truely great musicians are rarely recognized, I quit watching years ago. That little troll Natalie and the sisters are talented musicians but they put out crap, they need somone to do their writing and arranging for them. And of cpurse they need to get that just like actors, nobody with any sense cares what they think about politics, talk to us about something you know.

I haven't purchased a CD in years and I have about 600 and 4000 individual songs in itunes so it's not like I have never cared about music.

[stephanie]

I think the producers knew folks would be a bit pissed about the twits, did you see the "sorta" disclaimer about votes at the end of the show?

I didn't watch the show Mr. P..

I had more important things to do...

I was watching some paint dry....

[Mr. P]

I didn't watch the show Mr. P..

I had more important things to do...

I was watching some paint dry....

I saw parts, the END was the best part!

[red states rule]

Saddam's Angels have a great following OUTSIDE the US


Gutsy Chicks

TORY ZIMMERMAN/TORONTO STAR


Criticizing the U.S. war in Iraq and the president got the Dixie Chicks in trouble with their core audience, but it opened up a whole new fan base

Feb 11, 2007 04:30 AM
Sharda Prashad

It was an off-the-cuff remark that toppled the Dixie Chicks from their perch atop the country music charts. Their core audience and even their main marketing medium – country radio – abandoned them after the Chicks' leader spoke out against the war in Iraq. For the Chicks and their management team, it was a disaster.

Three years later, the band is still "not ready to make nice" to those they offended. Their new album has topped the music charts and, with five Grammy nominations up for grabs tonight, the Chicks have shown that a public relations blunder can be overcome. All it takes is a good product and strong brand management.

Rewind to 2003, when the Chicks were the top-selling female band of all-time with 30 million records sold and the top-grossing country concert. Then, on a British stop for the Top of the World tour, lead singer Natalie Maines commented: "Just so you know, we are ashamed the president of the United States is from the state of Texas."

The comment created a media wildfire and the public relations nightmare began.

Country fans in the southern United States called for boycotts of concerts. Bins were set up outside radio stations to destroy Dixie Chicks paraphernalia. Country music stations stopped playing their music. Band members even received death threats.

Rather than apologize, the Chicks spent the next three years working on a new album. But they quickly recognized there would be one major problem: They couldn't rely on country radio to market the product.

"For a large portion of the artists out there, everything has traditionally been based upon radio and what happens in radio and attaining mass levels of radio impressions," says Simon Renshaw, Dixie Chicks business manager. "With the Dixie Chicks we really had to start with the premise that there would be no air play. From that basis we could never get hurt, because any airplay would be a bonus."

To market the band's latest album, Taking the Long Road, the band turned to television, print and new media. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, selling 526,000 units in the U.S. alone in its first week last May (their previous album sold 780,000 its first week). The same week, the Chicks were on the cover of Time magazine and USA Today and appeared on NBC's Today show.

The band did get some radio play, says Renshaw, but not enough to drive radio chart success.

New media efforts included a website and advertising on AOL. They even hired a law professor to write a daily blog while they were on tour.

The band was able to capture a new more mainstream audience because the album had more of a rock sound.

It's possible they would have gone in that direction regardless, says Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times pop music critic. But, she adds, because they lost support from country radio, they really had no choice.

"It's almost shocking really. It's almost as if classic rock fans decided to boycott Bruce Springsteen."

The band did more song writing on this album and hired new people, such as Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and other non-country artists, to help deliver the new sound. And they recorded in Los Angeles for the first time, instead of their home state of Texas.

"There's really a strong tradition of country, or shall we say country rock, that comes out of this city (Los Angeles)," says Powers. "The Dixie Chicks fit in very well with that."

There wasn't a deliberate decision to change the music, says Renshaw, it was just part of the band's natural evolution.

Ashwin Joshi, marketing professor at York University, says what's remarkable about the Chicks is they have tackled two major business problems at once: creating a new brand and finding a new customer base.

"Their (original) product is country music and the core audience for this type of music would typically be characterized as cultural conservatives clustered in the American Midwest," Joshi says.

The Bush controversy, however, created brand awareness among other segments of the listening audience and the new brand attempts to capitalize on that.

"Their current actions are designed to communicate with these new audiences (young, urban, progressive politics types)."

Certain brands appeal to "red" Republican states, says Lance Saunders, advertising executive at Leo Burnett. While others appeal to the "blue" Democratic states. Ford pickups, for example, would have red state appeal. Volvos and Subarus would appeal to blue states.

"They've crossed over," says Saunders about the Chicks' blue state transformation. "That's something Johnny Cash, Lyle Lovett and Dwight Yoakam have done."

The new group of fans might be smaller, but it includes blue state and red state fans who respect the women for speaking up, he adds.

Between 2003 and 2006, Renshaw and his team measured which of the band's attributes resonated most with fans.

"We saw things like authenticity and honesty – those scores went through the roof," says Renshaw. "They also continued to score incredibly high in the areas of patriotic and true American."

Brand management involving inanimate objects, says Renshaw, is less problematic than that which involves people.

"It is what it is," he says. "We are limited by the fact one plays the fiddle, one plays the banjo and the other one sings."

Renshaw's job wasn't to change the band but to emphasize to the audience those qualities that resonate most.

The band managed to accomplish this in part with the release of the documentary Shut Up & Sing at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.

The film follows the band in the wake of their problems in 2003.

"You see and feel for them," Saunders says. "You see how one comment snow-balled ... Does one off-hand comment justify that?"

But gradually they won new fans. The new album showcases the trio as strong women who stand by their values and for each other. Their top 40 hit, Not Ready to Make Nice, deals directly and unapologetically with what occurred: "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 ..."

With the rapid descent in Bush's popularity and the waning support for the war, the Chicks are now seen as ahead of their time, adds Jerry Del Colliano, professor of music industry studies at the University of Southern California.

"It was one of their smartest decisions not to give in to the pressures to apologize," the professor says. "You couldn't ask more from management or a band to have the fortitude to stick with your convictions."

The band struggled with sagging ticket sales for last year's Accidents & Accusations tour, particularly in the southern United States where concerts had to be cancelled.

Renshaw points out, however, that while ticket sales were down 30 to 35 per cent from the previous tour, it was still among the top 30 grossing tours of 2006.

And ticket sales in some venues were exceptionally strong. The first show in Toronto sold out in eight minutes.

The tour was rearranged based on where the demand was. In some regions, the radio stations wouldn't sell the band advertising, says Renshaw, so the decision was made to pull out.

"It's about supply and demand," says Renshaw, about adding concerts in Australia. "We looked at where we had access to the mediums to deliver the audience and that's where we went."

While Taking the Long Road may not have sold as many albums, and the Accusations tour had fewer ticket sales, there's still a debate in the industry about the group's success.

Some industry observers say that when one album sells 50 million records, the band is a failure if its second record sells only half that number.

"That's ridiculous," Powers says. The band was once the most successful female act. "Once you achieve that, there's only one way to go and that's down."

What the Chicks have done, she says, could be a new trend.

"Maybe the Chicks are evolving as a new model in which they continue to be successful on a manageable scale and to figure out how to have longevity as artists and to satisfy themselves as artists."

http://www.thestar.com/artsentertainment/article/180443

[stephanie]

I saw parts, the END was the best part!

*sighs*
I definitely can tell I'm becoming an old fart..

I'm sounding like my parents when I was a kid and was listening to Led Zeppelin, the Who, etc...

My parents would shake their head and say, HOW can you listen to that shit..........

Wellllllllll. That's what I'm saying..........

about the music of today....