Willie Bashes Pop Country in TIME
Willie Nelson is an ever evolving animal. Outlaw, to crossover musician and actor, to an unsavory era where it seemed he was palling around with whoever he could to stay “relevant.” Now maybe he has made it full circle, or he’s moved into uncharted territory. Either way, he’s making good music again, deeply entrenched in the traditions of country music, and is prolific as ever, maybe even to a fault.
Willie’s jabs at the country music oligarchy were always subtle and creative, maybe making them more powerful than overt statements. I always considered his song Sad Songs & Waltzes to be the first anti-Nashville protest song. Now he has a new album out, simply entitled Country Music, with traditional country songs with traditional country arrangements. The first thing I wondered when I saw this stark, obvious title is could he be saying, “No, THIS is country music, and that other stuff their calling ‘country music’ isn’t.”
I don’t know if that was Willie’s intention, but when TIME Magazine allowed readers to send Willie questions, he answered the question, “Is there a point where country becomes so pop that it stops being country music?” by saying:
“Sure. In my opinion, it’s a little watered down now. The mainstream country music that I hear–to me, it’s not really country, and it’s not really anything. So it may be pleasing to the ear, and that’s great, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s not country music.”
Once again this is a country music legend, possibly the biggest living country legend, bashing pop country in a publication that reaches beyond the eyes of hardcore country music nerds. I just can’t imagine how Music Row’s short-sighted direction can be sustainable.
May 22, 2010 @ 3:04 pm
it’s a great LP and i love the sound. hope he does more like it. maybe folks will wake up some day. maybe.
May 22, 2010 @ 3:15 pm
I got it on the way. Like I think I said in the comment section of your blog about it, I probably won’t do a full review of it because so many other outlets will, but its good to see Willie putting out good music, and telling it like it is.
May 22, 2010 @ 3:16 pm
Hell Yeah Willie,…tell’em about it!
May 22, 2010 @ 4:42 pm
That’s cool,I just picked up “country Music”yesterday on the advice of a friend.As soon as I can get Lucky Tubb’s Generations out of my player I’ll be giving it a listen.
May 22, 2010 @ 6:25 pm
Nice, it will be good to hear Willie doing straight-up country again!
May 22, 2010 @ 9:56 pm
We must look to Willie and Merle as well as the last of the true “outlaws” left. But we don’t need a lot of “outlaws & so called rebels”. We need what Willie is doing with this album…. Making real country music. Pop country is what it is. Let it be just that. U, ur readers, and I know what real country music is. Let us praise those artists that are not getting wrapped up in what’s hot. Hell if u watch 10 minutes of CMT it’s like watching what MTV should be like. Waylon, Willie, DAC, Kris, Hank sr., Merle, they were outlaws because they were doing what had never been done. We have to stop focusing on saying Fuck Pop Country… We have to start buying, supporting, and again educating on what real country music. It doesn’t make u an outlaw for smoking weed, doin heroin, or drinking till ya fall down. I’ll take 1 guy that puts out a quality real country record from his basement with a self drawn cd cover over 5 “I’m so rebel look at me” CDs. Do what u wanna do as an artist, hell I can’t play shit musically, but make it real, make it honest, and help every artist u come in contact with do the same. I have said myself, on my show, Fuck Pop Country… But if u have been listening for the past 6 months I haven’t said a damn word about pop country. Why? Because it doesn’t matter anymore! It’s not what we don’t want to listen to but what we r listening to! Make an impact with what ya got… Talent… Screw the rest and ignore it. Miss an opportunity to help raise awarness with the music ur making and help give exposure to those that r doing the same kinda shit or get the hell out of the way. Willie and Waylon and Hank too, hell Wayne the train, Joey Allcorn, bob Wayne, SLR, Justin Townes Earle , I can go on forever…. They r And have makied the best with the talent they have and the opportunity that have presented themselves. I love music. I bleed music. I have a song for every moment in my life every pain I have ever had and ever happy moment as well. That my friends defines what real country music is! Thanks for ur time and praise the music that touchs us, that inspires us, and that has paved the way for moreusuc to come.
May 22, 2010 @ 10:17 pm
Good stuff Blake. I really think that is what Willie was trying to say with his album title. THIS is country music, nuff said. Set an example. Like Gandhi said, BE the change you want to see in the world.
May 22, 2010 @ 10:38 pm
Sorry for the ramble trig. U know I just get to going some times and let it all out
May 23, 2010 @ 1:00 am
I’m thinkin bout puttin together a band that does that but I know it’ll turn out to be too snotty and be ‘crossover’. Hard to make pure country with years of punk roots but I damn sure know it won’t be pop
May 23, 2010 @ 7:19 am
I think we all miss the boat when we look at the mainstream industry, be it Nashville, New York or LA and expect or hope or wish that one day it will all change and the commercial junk of today will one day be replaced with the real deal. It will never happen. That is why we have Independent artists, radio stations, distributors,record labels and websites such as Saving Country Music. It is all out of the hands of the conglomerates and firmly in ours to do with as we please, confined and held back only by our lack of will or passion. I actually prefer that Nashville keeps churning out the swill they do, as it only makes us real independent outlaws, renegades, and bar singing misfits look better. My fear, reflected so well by Triggerman on his Eric Church article, is that if Nashville reacts to the backlash and everyone on music row scrambles to sign the next big “outlaw” in the same way they were are all falling over each other in the early to mid 90’s to sign the next “Garth Brooks,” then what we will have is a sickening clusterfuck of Eric Church’s and Gretchen Williams and Big & Rich hacks, singing songs about “being an outlaw’ and “I was outlaw before outlaw was cool” and on and on and on. The studios just may experiment in getting back to basics, but the Nashville sound is the Nashville sound, and profits are profits, so my belief is that there would be a compromise, in that the “new outlaw sound” (I can just envision the industry calling it just that) would be a hybrid of old school and pop, indeed a compromise, in the way the early church and Roman empire tolerated the new religion of Christianity, as long as it was morphed and joined in unison with the pagan and mythological beliefs and traditions also prevalant at the time.
I don’t wish to upset or piss off anyone here, but I actually prefer that Nashville continue to do what it does best, and that is to sell records in the same manner that Mcdonalds sells hamburgers. We must all understand, the entertainment industry always caters to the masses, and seldom the other way around. If it was the other way around, “American Idol” would have been dropped after the first season and Steve Earle would be scooping up Grammys year after year instead of Taylor Shit and Rascal Faggs.
A dog cannot become a cat simply because it wants to, and I shudder in disgust at the thought of the phony bean counters on music row marketing and promoting “outlaw music” as the next big thing.
The real outlaws will always be the ones who have always been doing it because it was all we knew. Country outlaw music goes hand in hand with punk rock, as it is all the same work wthic attitude. You accept and respect your limitations, write straight from the gut and heart, and take it out on the road and your hometown, pounding away year after year in every smoke filled shithole dive and dump that will let you play, taking the good and the bad, driving half a day just to play for thirteen people for a hundred bucks and free beer, and sleeping in your car.
That’s outlaw. That’s rock n roll.
And if Willie had never made it big, we can all gaurantee he would be doing it just the way all us independent scrappers are.
May 23, 2010 @ 9:10 am
No need to apologize IBWIP, your opinions are always valued here.
May 23, 2010 @ 9:19 am
Pete,
I hear new artists say they don’t want to be famous or rich, it is about the music. I just posted an interview with Leroy Virgil where he said that pretty much verbatim. Willie never wanted to be famous or rich either. He had 7 kids to feed and wanted to have his music heard, but Willie is famous by mistake.
I agree, let the masses have their McDonald’s but great artists and songwriters deserve to be able to eat McDonald’s too (at the least) for making their music. I don’t know that it is important that we take control of the mainstream so to speak, but it is important that the great art of our time rises to the top. It must be an insistence of our culture, instead of insisting that the masses bad habits be catered to. As Blake of IBWIP says, we must educate. REAL country music should at least have enough support that it is possible for it to be exposed to anyone looking for it.
May 23, 2010 @ 6:38 pm
Well said, everybody. Excellent rant ibwip. Here’s to the music.
May 25, 2010 @ 6:53 am
Some folks have commmented on other blogs on this site about Jamey Johnson. Seems that Jamey is doing what is being called for (real outlaw country), making a bit of a dent on the record execs., but some of you are saying he isn’t true enough outlaw like some others.
If he gets the record companies attention is he not a true outlaw? He is doing his own music. He has rediculous talent and voice. Blows most anyone else away that has come along in the last 10years. (pop country or any country)
Yea, he did a few things in the past that were towing the company line, but **** Less all you forget, Waylon, Willie, Cash, all started out playing by the rules of the industry.(they were all patsys in the begining) Just as Jamey did when he arrived. Then they changed and brought their style out. Jamey appears to be doing the same thing.
*** Also, don’t hang the Badonkadonk song on him to much. You ever think that maybe Jamey was so taken back by what the “industry experts” thought was good, that he sat back and said, “watch me write the worst country song of all time, ”˜Badonkadonk”™, and these fools will push it to #1.”
Jamey is just toying with them right now with his talent.
The new stuff is coming!
Eric Chruch aint no outlaw savior. But neither are some of the independents that haven’t cracked the music row code yet. Jamey might be the one to crack it open.
May 25, 2010 @ 7:52 am
I don’t really know anything about him except that song you spoke of which I’m sure he got rich off of and ‘You Shoulda Seen it in Color’……which is kinda the typical ‘I miss my grandma and grandpa’ song. From both of those I can tell there’s better stuff out there I can listen to, old and new. You take him and I’ll take Dale Watson.
May 25, 2010 @ 8:14 am
Honestly, like I’ve said here before, my jury is still out on Jamey. I’ve kept both eyes on him, waiting for him to either sell out, or fight the system from within, and so far, I have seen neither. Now maybe with this new double album he has coming out, he will try to make his move, we’ll see.
Unlike 90% of the other stuff coming out of Nashville, I do not find his music objectionable, and though I do like a few of his songs, still to me it pails in comparison to what some of the underground Outlaws are doing. But you make a good point Waylon4Ever, we can’t criticize Jamey IF he is trying to take the system from the inside, and I do wish that more underground artists would try to do the same thing, for better or worse.
I’ve been ripped on here by readers for not being critical enough of Jamey, AND for not giving him enough credit. That’s probably because my jury’s still out, and until Jamey makes a solid move in one direction or another, it will remain that way.
May 25, 2010 @ 8:45 am
Perhaps the long period of time between the huge success of his “That Lonesome Song” album with High Cost and In Color, is a GOOD sign he is not being rushed to cash in on the 15min. of fame. I am hoping he is really crafting things for the double album, as I am a big fan.
I would caution those that are not impressed with In Color (which got a lot of radio play) I wasn’t all that moved myself. Radio doesn’t always play the best cuts. And in Jamey’s case, you can understand why with some of his lyrics and the sound. The cut “That Lonesome Song” might as well be Waylon singing from the grave. That song should have gotten play and hit #1 just like his newest one “My Way To You”. But he was shutout.
Also, if you check out some of the youtube on Jamey…songs that aren’t on albums, “You Can’t Cash My Checks”, “Lonely at the top, but a bitch at the bottom” and “That’s Why I Write Songs” to name a couple… judge him based on that. I think your jury will come back with guilty of being an outlaw.
May 25, 2010 @ 8:47 am
Shot Jackson… he also got pretty rich off of “Give It Away” that a guy by the name of Strait cut. That thing was rock solid.
May 28, 2010 @ 8:40 pm
I would say that Willie was ‘bashing’ pop country. It sounds like he was only expressing his opinion. He didn’t really say anything truly offensive.
June 22, 2010 @ 7:15 am
I love pure country music from Willie, Merle, Lefty, Ernest and the others, but I also love country folk fusion from Dan Seals, Michael Martin Murphy and others. I love country pop fusion from Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts and others too. Country music has evolved. Country music had to evolve or die. In the old days; country music records that sold a million copies was rare. Today, it’s far more common. The Grand Old Opre almost had to close it’s doors at one time. Country music evolution to country folk, country pop and country rock has been good for country music. However, having said that, it is disturbing to me when artists like Kid Rock are played on country music radio stations.
June 22, 2010 @ 11:27 am
shut the hell up jim if you like taylor swift & rascal flatts your on the wrong site hoss it not evolving when you destroy what it was all about the only flatts i listen to in country music first name is lester
June 29, 2010 @ 1:51 am
The new Willie album is amazing, as is “Naked Willie”, which is a recently released collection of a lot of his old stuff from the 60s stripped down to the type of arrangements that we now know and love the red-headed stranger for. Highly recommended.
I see a lot of mentions here about Jamey Johnson, and have heard a few things of his, and haven’t been that impressed thus-far. His writing seems to be average, to me anyway. But then again, that echoes what the writer of this article stated: the entertainment industry caters to the masses, and I guess Mr. Johnson is just apt to tow the line enough to be a commercially acceptable outlaw. As Shot wrote, ya’ll can have Jamey Johnson, give me Dale Watson (or Jesse Dayton) any day!
By the way: Johnson will have to write a song that could make Townes Van Zandt cry to redeem himself for that “Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk” shit.