Pop Country Clothing, Furniture, Food & Paint Coming from NASH
Saving Country Music has been sounding the warning bell that the big story of 2014 will be the formation of two gargantuan media companies that will absolutely dominate the country music landscape and encapsulate everything from radio, television, print and online media, and social network channels. The Country Music Media Arms Race is being fought by the two biggest radio station owners in the United States: Clear Channel and Cumulus, and during this week’s Country Radio Seminar, we are starting to get some of the specific details of the plans these future massive media companies have, and to say their plans are expansive is an understatement.
Cumulus Media is #2 on the radio ownership totem pole, and to attempt to hopscotch their rival Clear Channel, they are planning massive expenditures, acquisitions, and ventures to push the recognition of their big country music brand: “NASH”. NASH and NASH-FM is the brand of Cumulus’s 70+ station syndicated Top 40 pop country network. We already knew that Cumulus had recently acquired a 50-percent interest in the 17-year-old, 500,000+ circulated Country Weekly magazine to re-brand it as NASH. Now in some recent reports, the beans are being spilled about the extent of just how far Cumulus is hoping to push the NASH brand.
Some of their plans are obvious. Since their rival Clear Channel has now partnered with CMT, Cumulus and NASH are looking for their own television partner, potentially Great American Country or GAC, or re-branding the Destination America and American Heroes cable channels owned by Discovery Communications. Also, after Clear Channel’s streaming service iHeartRadio announced a country music festival in Austin, Cumulus and the NASH brand are looking into doing a festival and/or concert series, as well as a radio-based award show with Dick Clark Productions—the same production company behind the Academy of Country Music Awards, or ACM’s.
But the Cumulus plans go even further than that. Here is a run down of some of the things Cumulus has planned for their pop country NASH brand:
Restaurants
In the vein of Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill chain, or Rascal Flatts’ recently-announced plans for a chain restaurant, NASH wants to open a fleet a family-friendly fern bars to help establish their brand in certain important markets and locations. You could enjoy some Taylor Swift fried cheese, or a Brantley Gilbert blooming onion.
Paint
Yes, you read that right. Apparently NASH wants to get into the home improvement game. This move isn’t unprecedented. Big corporate brands such as Martha Stewart and Ralph Lauren have dipped their stir stick into the pain business to help solidify their corporate brands in the past, but a radio network? How about a nice Tim McGraw taupe to spruce up that breakfast nook?
Clothing
Again, not completely unprecedented since you have big artists like Jason Aldean enjoying a big endorsement deal from Wrangler, and Taylor Swift peddling Keds. Some artists also have their own specific clothing lines. Country music and popular culture is a very visual medium, and being able to sell consumers similar clothing to what they see their favorite artists wearing is shrewd business.
Furniture
Maybe the strangest of the ideas Cumulus is looking into, the company apparently wants to leave no stone unturned, and wants to bring the NASH brand right into people’s homes so they won’t forget who to consume their country music through; a little hard to do when you’re watching NASH TV from your Carrie Underwood signature NASH microfiber couch, muching on NASH leftovers from the night before in a room painted in your favorite NASH colors.
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Cumulus and their NASH brand is out for nothing short of absolute cultural immersion, with the vehicle being the widespread and growing appeal of popular country music. Pop country is seen as very safe and marketable because of its well-liked and clean image. And if Cumulus has its way with NASH, it will become one of the most recognized brands in the United States in the coming years.
Your move, Clear Channel.
February 19, 2014 @ 1:09 pm
Yup….more verification of me calling the effluent coming out of Nashville these days “Cul-de-Sac Country” …. the perfect soundtrack for the planned suburban community and mini-van crowd with all the heart, soul and roots that lifestyle brings….
February 19, 2014 @ 2:58 pm
Well said. Maybe country as we knew it just isn’t viable anymore, because the life experiences that the greats brought to it, which made it so rich and powerful, just don’t exist anymore. It was “roots music”, but we’re all homogenised now. People enter adulthood later now. The “differences” which are celebrated in most of what passes for “country” now are about as authentic and vital as museum artifacts-the accents, the isolation from the mainstream, real poverty (the kind people didn’t get obese from), rural and blue collar work, regionalism (not the Potemkin village kind).
February 19, 2014 @ 6:42 pm
“People enter adulthood later now.”
I disagree. It depends on how you define adulthood. There is more to life than just getting married or getting a full-time job as a corporate cog.
February 19, 2014 @ 6:54 pm
‘People enter adulthood later now’
This is indisputably true, c’mon man! Adulthood is being entirely responsible for yourself and your life. Read the news about the rise of twentysomethings living with their parents and being on their parents insurance until age 26. Prior generations, and certainly the generations of the greatest country singers, were much more independent and were often married with children by age 20. Now it’s a different time but to even contend that people aren’t entering adulthood later is ridiculous.
February 19, 2014 @ 10:39 pm
I disagree with your markers of “adulthood”. As I mentioned, there is more to life than getting married or having children. There is a cultural shift where many people are choosing to stay single their entire lives.
Regarding living with one’s parents: as long as those who are living this way are footing their share of the bill, then there is no lack of “responsibility” here. The whole idea that living away from one’s parents is the only “responsible” path is a very narrow Northern European point of view. In much of the rest of the world, such as Asia or even much of Southern Europe, the extended family generally lives together in the same house.
The same principle is true for health insurance: as long as the young people on their parents’ insurance are footing the extra cost that their parents are paying for keeping them on their insurance, then there is nothing irresponsible about it.
February 19, 2014 @ 10:45 pm
By the way, I would argue that being married with children may actually hinder independence when it comes to career, especially for women. It certainly limits the type and location of the jobs that one can feasibly take.
February 19, 2014 @ 11:10 pm
The main reason families live together in some parts of the world is poverty and at times space for housing. The unemployment rates for the under 30 group in the southern European countries you referred to like Spain, Italy and Greece are 30-40% so that many of these young people have no means of their own and that is nothing to aspire to.
February 19, 2014 @ 11:26 pm
America is also facing a recession, and that may explain the increase in the number of people in this country living with their parents.
February 19, 2014 @ 1:10 pm
Please God, make it fail!!!
February 19, 2014 @ 1:13 pm
NASH paint…Finally!!!
February 19, 2014 @ 1:16 pm
Yes, necessity is the mother of invention.
February 19, 2014 @ 2:41 pm
That would be quite the feat… camouflage in a can.
February 19, 2014 @ 1:23 pm
Dear God, this can’t be real, it’s like we’re living in a Kurt Vonnegut story now.
February 19, 2014 @ 2:18 pm
Country music themed paint? That just sounds weird to me. Next you’ll be telling me that CC or Cumulus have the “brilliant” idea of building a country music theme park.
February 19, 2014 @ 3:17 pm
Next you”™ll be telling me that CC or Cumulus have the “brilliant” idea of building a country music theme park.
Well, Gaylord did it with Opryland, but you see how that turned out…
February 19, 2014 @ 3:23 pm
That damned mall… Opryland trips were the highlight of summer vacation when I was a kid!
February 19, 2014 @ 3:24 pm
I know. That’s why I used the quotation marks around brilliant. 🙂
February 19, 2014 @ 4:40 pm
In my opinion, Opryland went under because it was bought, along with a bundle of other properties, by Gaylord, a broadcasting company who had no real plan for it and who basically didn’t know what they were doing. It was a real shame. Though it might have gone belly up either way for all I know.
Anyone been to Dollywood? 😉
February 19, 2014 @ 4:33 pm
I’d say Dolly’s doing fairly well with Dollywood.
February 19, 2014 @ 2:43 pm
I got stumped trying to write a comment….”Trash”?
February 19, 2014 @ 3:02 pm
This is terrifying.
And I remember when I wasn’t *cool* for wearing Wranglers and plaid shirts to school…
February 19, 2014 @ 3:02 pm
I remember being uneasy when Jimmy Buffett got started with all the Margaritaville restaurants and parrothead merchandising.
February 19, 2014 @ 6:42 pm
Try coming over to the Margaritaville Casino in Biloxi, holy fuck. Also if I may, thank God I’m now able to really listen to Pandora on my phone now when back then I wasn’t able to. It’s amazing how you can control what type of Country Music you want on there with Pandora (mine being 90’s Country and Texas Country while recently putting in both 80’s and 70’s on there) I really don’t need the real radio anymore.
February 19, 2014 @ 4:00 pm
I cant wait to buy the “shake it for me girl paint by luke bryan” or the “Dayum brand jeans by FGL” NASH might just have had the stupidest ideas known to man.
February 19, 2014 @ 4:06 pm
This is fucking retarded!, it’s official now pop country is the nasty ass gin soaked fat ugly whore of the world of music. Will somebody please stop this fucking garbage! What’s even more distubing is there are people in this world that will buy this crap.
February 19, 2014 @ 4:08 pm
This ”¦ it just can’t work. It’s too ridiculous.
I really, really thought this was going to be a fake news parody article.
February 19, 2014 @ 4:40 pm
I, too, was dismayed not to see a “fake news” tag at the bottom. :\
Perhaps the Country Industrial Complex should be more concerned with the quality of its original product than with expanding its “brand.” As it is, what good would all this branding be with a whole lotta nothin’ at its center?
February 19, 2014 @ 5:37 pm
As a history major I appreciate the term “country industrial complex”. Maybe Trigger should write a country music parrelel to Eisenhower’s farewell address.
February 20, 2014 @ 6:49 am
I’ll third that sentiment – and love that term as well lol
WTF kind of comparison is that anyways?
Country music: for (everyone) but especially blue collar / etc
Ferrari: for rich assholes to flaunt / overcompensate for their lack of individuality
February 19, 2014 @ 4:26 pm
What’s this? NASH-brand consumer products?
Look, I didn’t mind when people wanted to name their cities after me. In fact, I enjoy spending time in Nashville, Tennessee. (The music scene is nice, but I’m more into drum and bugle music.) I’m also partial to Nashville, North Carolina and Nashville, Illinois. I’ll also concede that Robert Altman’s ‘Nashville’ was a good film. But the TV series pushed me too far, and this is the last straw!
Name your clothing line after Taylor Swift and leave my good name alone! I fought in the Revolutionary War to liberate your asses!
February 19, 2014 @ 4:58 pm
Thanks for the warning, Trig.
Thinking about this is already stimulating my gag reflex.
I sure hope that I don’t see any driver(s) I like driving the NASH NASCAR ride on the Cup circuit.
This car will inexorably appear on tracks this spring and summer.
I plan on going to a half dozen or so races this year, and I can only take so many Blake Shelton renditions of the Star Spangled Banner.
February 20, 2014 @ 12:56 am
Well, given corporate “country” radio’s executives and their obsession with arm-wrangling the narrow cadre of songwriters in Nashville to incorporate sexual innuendos in their songs…………they might as well go all out and monopolize the sex toy industry too! 😉
February 20, 2014 @ 6:43 am
Trigger you didn’t hear about the stock car racing partnership in the works???
February 20, 2014 @ 9:30 am
A country boy can survive…..
People are soft. It’s not arrested development.
Recent snowstorms are the perfect example. OMG! They sky is falling, the sky is falling.
They drive live bats out of hell on icy roads and spend the rest of their time in the drive-thru. Flash to the national news….an upper middle class home with a mother who has nothing in the house to eat. The camera shows a small child eating potato chips off of the table. “We have nothing to eat”. The power has only been out for a few hours. All of the drive-thru’s are closed. OMG!
Respect your elders.
If you can’t function or survive a snowstorm….speak to someone who’s lived through the Great Depression. Twelve year old boys were working like men.
Spend less time taking ‘selfies’ and playing tic-tac-toe on your “smart” phone.
Quit watching reality shows that are dumbing our kids down to a low functioning level.
A country boy can survive. If a snowstorm can thin the herd in the blink of an eye….what will they do if they lose their “smart” phone?
February 20, 2014 @ 4:46 pm
Heh, believe it or not, as ridiculous and stupid as this is, I don’t automatically hate this idea.
Yeah, it’s shamelessly corporate, but it’s not aimed at us, the hardline country fans that frequent this site. This, especially the clothing lines, are probably targeted at the swarm of young people in their teens/20s/early-30s (in other words, roughly my generation) who have gotten caught up in the bro-country wave and want to try the image. These are the same folks who are lined up in droves in front of new country bars and would blink gormlessly at you if you mentioned Jason Isbell or Linda Ortega.
But here’s the fun side effect: even though so many of these folks are just hopping on a bandwagon and won’t go deeper than Luke Bryan or FGL, there will be enough of them who’ll want to look deeper and will discover better country music beneath the surface – which is ultimately a net positive.
February 20, 2014 @ 7:43 pm
The paint line should have a very limited selection of colors to reflect what radio plays. Plain Vanilla Bro, Hey Girl Blue Jean, Beer, Dirt Road, Diamondplate, Tailgate Tan, Red, Cherry Lip Gloss, Silverado Candy Painted, Luke’s Teeth Ultrawhite, and Dan + Shay Pink. That about covers it.
February 21, 2014 @ 6:57 am
PLAIN VANILLA BRO (also a pretty damn good name for the modern day country / mono-genre…more descriptive imo than bro country / pop country / etc) that just made my Friday (before 9AM) lol the others are fucking awesome too…
Still laughing…I got to help my uncle do some painting this afternoon too I’m gonna be cracking up thinking about this Tailgate fucking Tan jajajaja
February 21, 2014 @ 8:21 pm
I wanna buy a plate of NASH corned beef hash at a NASH Cafe. Hard Rock Cafe didn’t hurt rock.
February 24, 2014 @ 9:56 am
The clothing will be FUBU for white boys.
I can see the baggy pants with NASH embroidered on the back pockets.