Dixie Chicks - "Taking The Long Way"
(Open Wide / Columbia, 2006)
Right from the start, Taking The Long Way shows the Dixie Chicks as a band wanting to show just how non-conformist they are. "My friends from high school married their high school boyfriends, moved into houses in the same zip code where their parents lived," Natalie Maines sings on the album's title track. "But I could never follow ... I hit the highway." And with that, country's most antagonistic trio flies the coop. Already banished by the country industry for what amounted to treason in a genre known for support of outright lyrical jingoism, the Chicks claim that they don't need country music anymore. They've evolved.
But have they? The band built its reputation on layers of neo-traditionalist country, bluegrass and acoustic Americana, producing slick slices of life that appealed to a wide audience. Since their debut in 1998 they've continued to evolve musically with each effort, even dabbling in turning bluegrass into pop country. But their sound, as much as it has evolved, is still a country sound. And by elminating that core segment of their audience, the Chicks have isolated themselves in a genre known for lack of support for veteran acts. This begs the question: if Taking The Long Way isn't aimed at a country audience, who is it aimed at?
The album's full of catchy heartfelt music, something that’s become a trademark of the Chicks. But by releasing "Not Ready To Make Nice" as their first single, the band has re-opened their war wounds and poured peroxide in. And though the album itself opened with sales of 526,000, netting the band a third straight #1 album on Billboard's 200, the single has been incredibly disappointing, peaking at #36 on Hot Country Songs and #32 on the Adult Contemporary chart, two places the band has been unbeatable in the past. "Lullabye," the album's second single, hasn't even cracked the country chart, peaking at #76 on the Hot 100 only because it had a Hurricane Katrina tie-in, and "Everybody Knows" peaked at #48 on the country chart. Yet Natalie Maines has said the band is poised to cross over to pop, country be damned.
Yet at its core, this is an album of country, or at least Americana, music regardless of how the band sees it. And without the country audience, and with it highly unlikely to spawn any crossover hits, Taking The Long Way will almost surely lack the impact of the band's previous efforts. Is this fair? Certainly not. The album's as earcatching as ever, and "Lullabye," "Everybody Knows" and "Lubbock or Leave It" would have been surefire #1s for the band had they not decided to pour salt in the wounds they incurred after bashing Bush.
By releasing "Not Ready To Make Nice" as the first statement from this album, they (in the eyes of country fans and station programmers) made a clear statement. The band saw the song as a defiant answer to the people who said they should "shut up and sing" ... but instead it was received by the fans, and many in the industry, as a complete slap in the face to country music's fans. And while the band's free to say what they feel, and as a listener I choose to fully support that, they've surely got to be aware that they can't poison their water supply and then expect to drink from it.
Taking The Long Way is indeed a confident album from the Dixie Chicks that artistically lives up to the best they've produced. But the way the tide's turning, if the band doesn't find a way to sonically evolve beyond pure country music, they're never going to live up to their past successes. It's time to leave the past behind and make decisions that support the future, if the band doesn't want this to be its swan song.
Right from the start, Taking The Long Way shows the Dixie Chicks as a band wanting to show just how non-conformist they are. "My friends from high school married their high school boyfriends, moved into houses in the same zip code where their parents lived," Natalie Maines sings on the album's title track. "But I could never follow ... I hit the highway." And with that, country's most antagonistic trio flies the coop. Already banished by the country industry for what amounted to treason in a genre known for support of outright lyrical jingoism, the Chicks claim that they don't need country music anymore. They've evolved.
But have they? The band built its reputation on layers of neo-traditionalist country, bluegrass and acoustic Americana, producing slick slices of life that appealed to a wide audience. Since their debut in 1998 they've continued to evolve musically with each effort, even dabbling in turning bluegrass into pop country. But their sound, as much as it has evolved, is still a country sound. And by elminating that core segment of their audience, the Chicks have isolated themselves in a genre known for lack of support for veteran acts. This begs the question: if Taking The Long Way isn't aimed at a country audience, who is it aimed at?
The album's full of catchy heartfelt music, something that’s become a trademark of the Chicks. But by releasing "Not Ready To Make Nice" as their first single, the band has re-opened their war wounds and poured peroxide in. And though the album itself opened with sales of 526,000, netting the band a third straight #1 album on Billboard's 200, the single has been incredibly disappointing, peaking at #36 on Hot Country Songs and #32 on the Adult Contemporary chart, two places the band has been unbeatable in the past. "Lullabye," the album's second single, hasn't even cracked the country chart, peaking at #76 on the Hot 100 only because it had a Hurricane Katrina tie-in, and "Everybody Knows" peaked at #48 on the country chart. Yet Natalie Maines has said the band is poised to cross over to pop, country be damned.
Yet at its core, this is an album of country, or at least Americana, music regardless of how the band sees it. And without the country audience, and with it highly unlikely to spawn any crossover hits, Taking The Long Way will almost surely lack the impact of the band's previous efforts. Is this fair? Certainly not. The album's as earcatching as ever, and "Lullabye," "Everybody Knows" and "Lubbock or Leave It" would have been surefire #1s for the band had they not decided to pour salt in the wounds they incurred after bashing Bush.
By releasing "Not Ready To Make Nice" as the first statement from this album, they (in the eyes of country fans and station programmers) made a clear statement. The band saw the song as a defiant answer to the people who said they should "shut up and sing" ... but instead it was received by the fans, and many in the industry, as a complete slap in the face to country music's fans. And while the band's free to say what they feel, and as a listener I choose to fully support that, they've surely got to be aware that they can't poison their water supply and then expect to drink from it.
Taking The Long Way is indeed a confident album from the Dixie Chicks that artistically lives up to the best they've produced. But the way the tide's turning, if the band doesn't find a way to sonically evolve beyond pure country music, they're never going to live up to their past successes. It's time to leave the past behind and make decisions that support the future, if the band doesn't want this to be its swan song.
posted by Jonathan Sanders @ 12:10 AM
1 Comments:
I was actually pleasantly surprised by this album, having bought/dumped a couple of their previous ones. I don't care WHO it's aimed at and it doesn't sound like they do either. That's probably why I like it so much.
[Nice blog.]
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