Disney Is Getting Into the Country Radio Business
In the continued bastardization and exploitation of the term “country music,” the second-largest media conglomerate in the world, The Disney Corporation, has announced they’re getting into the country radio business to brainwash your children and tweens into believing Kelsea Ballerini has anything remotely to do with “country,” and ensure that future generations of über-consumers will be there to lap up corporate country’s benign and vacuous audio algorithms to prop up a crumbling industry bankrupt of ideas.
As you can tell, Saving Country Music is thrilled about this announcement. This is like putting an eye dropper’s worth of audio stupidity in every baby bottle across America.
Radio Disney Country will run 24/7 and feature “chart-bound young artists and today’s biggest country hits including Florida Georgia Line, Hunter Hayes, Maddie & Tae, The Band Perry, Kelsea Ballerini, Thomas Rhett and RaeLynn,” a press release said. But don’t worry, your Disney-listening sons and daughters are too young to understand that lines from Florida Georgia Line like “stick the pink umbrella in your drink” are actually about a man sticking his penis into a woman’s vagina. I can’t wait to explain to my little niece what Thomas Rhett “wants” to do to the girl in his song “Make Me Wanna.”
“As a trusted name in family entertainment (ha ha!), Radio Disney is delighted to introduce a new music outlet dedicated to country music and expand upon the engaging content we successfully deliver through Radio Disney’s multi-platform network,” the Vice President, Programming and General Manager of Radio Disney Phil Guerini said as his eyes glazed over in dollar signs.
The aforementioned Kelsea Ballerini is considered to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the move since she’s already being featured on Disney’s current children’s radio network. “It’s so cool to get a new generation and a new group of ears on my music,” Ballerini said, since you’d have to be prepubescent and high on pixie sticks to ever enjoy her music.
Screw this idea, and everyone involved with it. In the immortal words of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: “What is this Mickey Mouse shit?”
June 13, 2015 @ 9:06 am
ARG! -_-
June 13, 2015 @ 9:18 am
This is a really wide and long nail in the coffin. I don’t know what to say but feeling sorry for a big part of the future generation of listeners.
Anything I can do Trigger? Maybe start a religous group against the degeneration of American music culture… That’ll make ’em listen.
June 13, 2015 @ 9:19 am
Hannah Montana has left quite a legacy.
June 13, 2015 @ 9:59 am
They’re only about 4 years too late to be jumpin’ on the country radio bandwagon…
June 13, 2015 @ 11:05 am
Yes, I think 2014 was the year for everyone to jump on the country music bandwagon. 2015 has been the year of scaling back expectations in the face of declining sales and lackluster radio ratings. Maybe Disney and the industry think if they indoctrinate listeners early, they’ll be better corporate country music consumers when they get older. May be a sound investment.
June 13, 2015 @ 11:12 am
I’m still bummed they only put out one Kidz Bop Country album. Hearing the kiddos sing about pink umbrellas in the your drink would be the height of art.
June 13, 2015 @ 1:49 pm
You make a valid point. This could turn out to be a huge money maker for them though with how other “country” radio stations are faring, it just doesn’t seem smart. But seeing how Disney operates, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have some trick up their sleeve that makes this foolproof.
June 13, 2015 @ 10:41 am
Next article’s gonna be about how the Gorillaz are releasing a country album…
June 13, 2015 @ 10:50 am
Would still be more country than Sam Hunt…
June 13, 2015 @ 4:22 pm
Hell, I’d give it a listen. Damon Albarn has proven to be pretty musically creative with both Blur and Gorillaz, so I think a country Gorillaz album would at the very least be interesting.
April 11, 2017 @ 4:04 pm
A Country gorillaz album? Damon if you listening please make one next! Lol it probably be the only good mix of Country and rap
June 13, 2015 @ 10:55 am
My god…
June 13, 2015 @ 11:08 am
I was channel surfing and came across the cmt awards. Sam Hunt was on doing”House Party”. I just caught the end of it. He’s going to fit in on this station really well. His performance looked like a Disney performance.
June 13, 2015 @ 11:17 am
“This business will get out of control. It’ll get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.”
— Admiral Josh Painter
June 13, 2015 @ 8:44 pm
LOL
June 13, 2015 @ 11:52 am
While Kelsea is not country, she does have some good pop cuts on her album. “Secondhand Smoke” about her parents divorce is great in comparison to her bubblegum stuff. This Disney endeavor is just brutal though.
June 13, 2015 @ 11:54 am
“Disney Is Getting Into the Country Radio Business”
“today”™s biggest country hits including Florida Georgia Line, Hunter Hayes, Maddie & Tae, The Band Perry, Kelsea Ballerini, Thomas Rhett and RaeLynn,”
So Disney isn’t getting into country.
June 13, 2015 @ 12:00 pm
You’re one to talk, Keith.
😉
June 13, 2015 @ 3:41 pm
Dude, lay off Keith. You saw that Sturgill shirt he was wearing on American Idol, didn’t you?
June 13, 2015 @ 2:38 pm
They may be to “country” what Apple Jacks are to “apples”. 😉
June 13, 2015 @ 4:13 pm
I know this probably isn’t the real KU, but by the small chance it is I want you too know how awfully terrible your music has been lately and your not close to country at all. Thanks
June 13, 2015 @ 6:10 pm
So very true
June 13, 2015 @ 8:46 pm
Thanks for the feedback Dan . I REALLY appreciate it as I suspected my music has sucked lately but everyone at the label keeps telling me how GREAT it is ……..
Sincerely , Keith U.
June 13, 2015 @ 12:07 pm
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry — the music I once considered the mature/adult alternative to Top 40 pop keeps skewing younger and younger. :p
What’s more absurd is that, with all of its innuendos and its emphasis on drinking and partying, a lot of the hits from recent years could be construed as way less kid-friendly than any of the ’80s and ’90s stuff I grew up with.
June 13, 2015 @ 12:50 pm
Tomorrow….
….Disney will stand master of the country music world…borne to victory on the wings of the Valkyrie!!!
Our enemies at Saving Country Music will be powerless against us! If they write one negative article hundreds of bro-country songs WILL RAIN FIRE UPON THEM!!!
If they cut off one head….Two more shall take its place….
HAIL DISNEY!!!!
June 13, 2015 @ 8:21 pm
You would say that, Herr Skull. Disney owns the right to use your character in their movies. That is the main difference between us; Disney owns you, but it does not own me! MWUHAHAHA! Then again, Fox is currently creating a bastardized version of me… I’d actually rather Disney procure the right to use me in a movie, it would be better than what Fox is doing… However, I do not approve of this country music endeavor, nor do I approve of this filth that passes for “country.”
One more thing; Captain America defeated you in that movie. I believe Saving Country Music will do the same.
HAIL SAVING COUNTRY MUSIC!!!!!
HAIL DOOM EVEN MORE!!!!!!!!!!
June 13, 2015 @ 2:29 pm
The great irony in all of this……………….is that Disney actually did highlight some authentic country in the scores of some of their earlier productions.
And no, I’m NOT talking about “Home on the Range” (which even then, at the very least, still had Reba McEntire and k.d lang) nor am I talking about “Cars” (which produced the mind-numbing hit remake of “Life is a Highway” by Rascal Flatts).
*
Firstly, there is the most obvious example: the “O’ Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack.
The film was produced by Touchstone Pictures (a division of Walt Disney Studios) and Universal Pictures (owned by Comcast and is a subsidiary of NBCUniversal), and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures (also a division of Walt Disney Studios). Thus while they didn’t directly bankroll the music itself, Walt Disney is nonetheless greatly responsible for the monumentally successful distribution of this great music across generational lines and making traditional country music and gospel heard at large again.
Then there is “Nashville”: which of course is subject to more contentious debate with regards to whether it has been more helpful or harmful to the country music community as a whole. Either way you slice it, though, it cannot be denied that this ABC Studios (owned by the Walt Disney Company) production has helped a lot of solid music find its way to plenty of ears that have otherwise been lost in the dark as to what better country music sounds like.
And while the film adaptation of “The Country Bear Jamboree” was absolutely atrocious and urge you to SKIP IT, the original “Country Bear Jamboree” production (not the revised version, that absolutely SUCKS) at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom was actually enjoyable for the most part. Granted the way they were designed make them look kind of creepy, but the music was authentic country and Americana and while slices of dialogue had suggestive themes, they nonetheless didn’t strike me as hitting you over the head (since Disney shamelessly changed the production several years ago, the banter now lacks subtlety and comes across as gross! -__- )
Finally, as much as I have many, MANY criticisms of the Walt Disney Company for their frequent and shameless deeds of cultural appropriation and regurgitation of stereotypes…………..sometimes they get it right, and one key example was making a miniseries and hit song centered around the life of Davy Crockett a huge success in the mid-50’s. And it was initially popularized by a folk group known as The Wellingtons, and later by decorated country artist Tennessee Ernie Ford.
*
So, I’m overall in agreement that what we should expect in this case is much more likely than not to be more of the same Sam Hunt, RaeLynn and Florida Georgia Line-esque bullshit, much like Rolling Stone Country, that passes off as authentic country music. And I will indeed be outraged if this turns out to be the case.
That said, Disney does deserve credit for its share of rights, and we’ll just have to wait and see where this goes.
June 16, 2015 @ 8:14 am
The O Brother soundtrack is by far the best movie soundtrack I’ve ever heard!
Period!
June 13, 2015 @ 2:35 pm
I agree.
Overall, Kelsea Ballerini’s debut album is fairly solid as a pop album. I was impressed by the nuance in the writing of a handful of the album’s songs: including the title track and “Stilettos”. And I’d also dare argue that while “Little Toy Guns” is still a decent, effective song in its own right (it’s not country, but at least it is a decent pop/rock song that tells somewhat of a story)…………”Secondhand Smoke” does a better job at articulating the emotional consequences of children being within earshot of quarreling parents.
I liked “The First Time” well enough as an album in its own right, and you won’t find me protesting if she “crosses over” to Mainstream Top 40 and Adult Top 40 radio and hits with the title track, “Stilettos”, ir any one of half of the songs on her album. It’s just offensive it’s being marketed as a COUNTRY album is all, and I still loathe “Love Me Like You Mean It”.
June 13, 2015 @ 3:33 pm
I posted about this on the Don Henley article this morning.
The weirdest thing about all of this is that Disney is scaling back their normal Radio Disney brand. There used to be Radio Disney affiliates in most of the major metros but now they are only keeping the LA station and syndicating it as an HD Radio subchannel in select markets. Why would they start this new radio venture if the old was wasn’t working?
Is there any word on if they will play non-Disney commercials on the country version? The original was like Disney Channel, only Disney products were advertized. This is why I suspect the original wasn’t profitable.
Also, if they choose to forgo advertisements, will they have to remove name brands from the songs they play? Like Chevy, Jack Daniels or Igloo? And can they play songs with alcohol references on a Disney station?
June 13, 2015 @ 3:50 pm
Right now, there’s very little information on this venture, and they may not even have those answers. This is CMA Fest week, so you have a bunch of entities making big announcements and on things that may not be fully finished yet. Don Henley had his big listening party, but doesn’t even have a release date yet, but wanted to take advantage of CMA Fest. I’m sure we’ll get a more official announcement in the future.
June 13, 2015 @ 4:58 pm
“All I wanna do today,
is wear my favorite shades and row a boat,
do homework a little less,
play a little more,
that’s what this day is for,
and all I wanna do,
is lace my J’s and lay some ice cream on my cone,
play chase with my cat,
ain’t nothin’ wrong,
with gettin’ my sun daze on…”
*
“We’re just hangin’ around,
having a hoedown,
sippin’ on some cold Capri Suns,
jammin’ to some Lady Antebellum,
with your best friends standin’ right here,
blowin’ big bubbles,
we got lollipop rings,
you know we love to sing,
say we all sound like a bunch of angels,
we about to have a grand ol’ time right now,
c’mon everyone, let’s have a hoedown,
let’s all hoedown,
let’s all hoedown,
let’s all hoedown…”
*
“All them other kids,
wanna go play tag with you on the playground,
but you seem like the type,
who’d rather juggle and boogie with the clowns,
out where the corn rows grow,
row, row my boat,
floatin’ down the Flint River,
catch us up a little catfish dinner,
gonna sound like a winner when we,
get this circus going tonight,
yeah, that’s our kinda night…”
*
😉
June 13, 2015 @ 10:22 pm
Now that’s some funny shit, right there. 😀
June 14, 2015 @ 12:14 pm
Oh, one more. Can’t resist! 😉
*
“Oh, best friend,
you can find me,
in the back of a jacked-up schoolbus,
sittin’ here watchin’ all the pretty pigs,
ROLL AROUND IN THE GEORGIA MUD,
and I’ll find peace,
at the bottom of an ice cold Hi-C,
chillin’ with some One Direction and Drake,
let’s get this field trip started,
that’s my kind of party…”
*
Hey, at least the anger management issues and shameless corporate pandering will still be intact! 😉
June 13, 2015 @ 4:40 pm
The garbage that comes out from “Florida Georgia Line” should not be anywhere near little children.
Radio Disney Country won’t make it off the ground.
June 13, 2015 @ 4:49 pm
Trigger, this is off topic but I thought I’d ask anyway – Have you ever had major label country artists contact you thru personal email, or suspect that major label artists that are serious about real country music may be disguising themselves in the comment section?
June 13, 2015 @ 5:15 pm
Well first off, that is not Keith Urban above, but I think we all know that.
I kind of hate answering these questions because it makes me sound like I’m bragging. But I have had some major label artists post here before. Colt Ford came here and posted. That may have been five years ago now. Shooter Jennings and Hank Williams III both have posted here commonly. They used to be major label artists. Sturgill Simpson used to post here often (not any more), and he’s now a major label artist. Then we know Eric Church came here and that inspired him to write “Country Music Jesus.” A bunch of people give me shit and say I’m conceited for saying that, but it’s been confirmed, and there’s even video of him talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCgma1bMRz0
Saving Country Music is designed to reach the right people. As a Google-based site, the reach is something that a lot of people misunderstand, not necessarily in the volume of traffic (though it’s pretty significant for a one-man operation), but for who it reaches. If an artist is curious about what people are saying about them, it’s almost impossible for them not to end up here.
June 16, 2015 @ 8:18 am
Which article did Colt Ford post on? I’m a little interested to see that.
June 16, 2015 @ 10:40 am
https://savingcountrymusic.com/colt-ford-collaboration-country-music-blacklist/comment-page-1#comment-38852
June 13, 2015 @ 5:04 pm
Florida Georgia Line, Raelynn, and Sam Hunt with Mickey Mouse oh boy! little better than Miley Cyrus is being with Disney. Stick an pink umbrella in your drink that show intelligence to kids.
June 13, 2015 @ 8:43 pm
One of your best ‘breakdowns’ Trigger . I got nothin’ to add to your take on this one .
June 13, 2015 @ 11:44 pm
No mention of Taylor Swift in the press release for this channel? I’d be shocked if they don’t play her songs every hour. There’s also “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus, isn’t that straight out of the Disney closet?
June 14, 2015 @ 10:51 am
They had a publishing company on music row back in the 90’s. I was invited to their office and involved in talks with two guys who were telling me how Disney was just getting into the Country Music game and then one day a month or so later they were gone. I never heard anything else until now. Maybe the music coming out of Nashville finally made it to their level of expertise which is prepubescent at best.
June 14, 2015 @ 5:25 pm
“Maybe the music coming out of Nashville finally made it to their level of expertise which is prepubescent at best.”
As good an argument as anyone could make , I think
June 15, 2015 @ 6:03 am
Disney owned Lyric Street and Carolwood records so they did get into the country game for quite a while too.
Then They promoted Lucy Hale to country last year, so they have had some experience in the industry.
June 14, 2015 @ 1:54 pm
Does this mean they’re gonna bring back Lyric Street Records?
June 14, 2015 @ 7:06 pm
Great. Now Disney can fuck up country radio just the way it’s been fucking up sports coverage since it bought the Endless Self Promotion Network.
June 16, 2015 @ 4:57 am
I actually think that this might be good news. Country Radio cannot, literally, get any worse. Maybe as a result of Country Radio Disney we’ll see a migration of the current country artists to the tween market, where they seem to be positioned anyway, and a return of grown ups – who exist currently as alternative/traditional country artists and many of whom are starting to make real money independently – to Country Radio. Call me a hopeless optimist.
June 16, 2015 @ 8:25 am
BREAKING NEWS FROM DISNEY HQ:
With such the “positive” reaction we have seen on SCM about our Radio Disney Country station, we have decided to launch Radio Disney Active Rock!
We the newest and greatest “family-friendly” hits from your favorites, such as Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, and Marylin Manson!
We hope you have a rocking time with your kids listening to Radio Disney Rock.
Disclaimer: Radio Disney is not responsible for any Satanic lyrics that may make their way into your children’s ears. If you kids indorse into any satanic activity, please rush them to the nearest Skillet concert.
denote acts of sarcasm
June 24, 2015 @ 2:05 pm
With regards to pop artists whose songs contain suggestive lyrics, the standard Radio Disney format usually only plays them in an edited version, if they play them at all. They actually haven’t promoted Miley Cyrus in years or played any singles from her last two albums, despite her association with the brand. Whatever faults the Radio Disney Country format may have, it probably will be family-friendly.
June 27, 2015 @ 2:16 pm
Really, Trigger, dude, what’s your problem? Any parent depending on Disney for guidance in raising their children are ineffective parents with or without DIsney. Hopefully you, if a parent, are more responsible. But who designated you the navigator/savior of Country Music? Want to make a contibution to the genre? Cut an album. Launch a label. Write some songs. Perform somewhere and show us fans how Country should be done. Just spitting your baby Pablum-tantrums does nothing. Now let me get back to the Diamond Reo album I was spinning, as I patiently await something worth listening to by an artist known as Trigger.
June 27, 2015 @ 2:42 pm
Les,
First off, why did you feel inclined to leave a message like this on this particular article that is two weeks old? Why not leave it on the article I JUST posted about Ray Wylie Hubbard, or any of the countless other articles newer than this one that make an effort to support and promote good music?
“But who designated you the navigator/savior of Country Music?”
That’s a very good question. I certainly never said I was the official navigator or savior of country music, and never implied it. If anyone said that of me, I would disagree with them. I’m just a columnist and a critic. In the end it will be the musicians who save country music, and I’ve always said that. But that doesn’t mean we all can’t help out in our own little way.
“Cut an album. Launch a label. Write some songs.”
How do you know I haven’t done all of those things? Frankly, I think there’s too many record labels, but that’s another conversation. But to the rest of your point, I would refer you to Rule #5 in the Saving Country Music Charter:
https://savingcountrymusic.com/charter
“Be responsible with the public platform Saving Country Music has created, and never use it for self-promotion of you, or any of its other principals, including for personal music, creative, or business endeavors aside from specific ones related to the site, or the personal endeavors of friends or other close associates.”
For all you know Les, I’m playing and performing music all the time, I’m working on albums and songs in multiple capacities, including as a writer. Don’t you think it would be unfair to use this forum to promote myself? I’d do a bit more poking around before I’d assume my service to country music begins and ends with this website. But I probably wouldn’t be playing that music under my pen name.
It seems to be there is some spite in your comment. I am proud what this site has accomplished over the years. But it would be pointless without the accomplishments of the artists themselves.
June 27, 2015 @ 4:17 pm
Trigger, in whatever form you ply your creative trades, a nod to you. Any soul who so fervently, though anonymously, expounds a philosophy in support of a noble art has to be, with the veil removed, accomplished and recognized elsewhere. You know you are effective by the responses, whether pro or con. If, unmasked, you peddle melodies, you are likely well worth a listen. On these pages, you are still well worth a read, though the ‘critic’ guise does chafe some of our skins.
In good health, ply on.
(You may still disturb my occasional ire, good man).