Is Country Music Dead, Asks Collin Raye

Well, sure.

That's not exactly news.

It's not that country music is dead, really. It's that "country music" is dead.

Country music is just different now. It's a whole different genre from what many of us used to call "country". I'm okay with that. I know that the music I like, those two words that used to trip off my tongue, is now called Americana. It just takes some getting used to. Old habits die hard.

I never wanted to become one of those old-timers, the ones who say, "In my day..." Because the people who say that are simply sugarcoating the past. I've been listening to country music since the sixties. Sure, there were some poetic songs - simple poetry like the kind Merle Haggard wrote, and the more literary stuff that Kris Kristofferson penned. But there was also a whole lot of junk - throwaways - kinda like most of the Top 40 songs of today. Those songs didn't set out to be timeless; they set out to make a buck - kinda like most of the Top 40 songs of today. Collin Raye is romanticizing the past, which is what all of us do.

However.

Taken as a whole, yes, the country music of yore was eons better than the country music of now. I agree with Collin that there's far too much of the "yee haw", pickup truck, redneck blah blah blah stuff on the radio today. C'mon people! You can't possibly be that shallow? Can you? People today still have "feelings", right? How about writing about that?

What? You're telling me that the whole "feelings" stuff can't get played on the radio? Well, shame on corporate broadcasting! You're making kids look like a bunch of possession-obsessed androids. Kids aren't really like that. I have kids, so I know.

But enough railing. It simply is what it is. What do I care, really? I have all the "good songs" on CD and safely tucked away inside my computer. I can listen to them anytime I want.

Nevertheless, if you would like to read what Collin Raye has to say on the topic, click on "Is Country Music Dead?"

I could have thrown in a bunch of awesome country music videos here, but really, you can just envision your own. Mine would be different from yours anyway.

I do want to add, however, that if you think Collin Raye doesn't know whereof he speaks, then you haven't heard "In This Life".

Oh, shoot. I have to include it here, since I just mentioned it:

Us Weekly Magazine? Who Reads This Rag?

This post is not about politics. It's about "journalism".

I personally don't consider rags such as Us Weekly or People Magazine or the National Enquirer to be "journalism", but apparently some people do. Sadly, this fact just serves to point out the "stupidification" of the US population these days.

"What did you do yesterday?"

"Oh, I just stayed home and read."

"Good book?"

"No, Us Weekly Magazine."

What??

Magazines certainly serve their purpose. Oddly though, if I'm reading a magazine article, I actually want it to be true. It's just a quirk of mine. Or, if it's opinion, I like it to be stated as such.

I actually used to subscribe to People Magazine. I like to read while I'm eating, and it's difficult to read a book and eat at the same time. So, a little light fluff with one's meal isn't a crime.

I stopped subscribing once I realized that I didn't know any of the people they were writing about. I think they sort of "invented" celebrities, and then tried to get people to care about them. Well, I didn't.

Did you ever thumb through an Us Weekly magazine at the checkout counter? It's almost all pictures! It's as if they don't think their readers can understand words more complicated than "the" and "it".

Well, live and let live, I say. If you want to "read" (or "look at") Us Weekly, it's your dollar. But, unfortunately, good old publisher Jann Wenner (my old friend and yours) just couldn't manage to limit his heaving left-wing fervor to his "music" magazine, Rolling Stone. No, he had to go after the general grocery-buying public, and smear Governor Sarah Palin with this magazine cover:

Wow. Classy.

What are the "babies, lies & scandal", you ask?

Well, let's hear from an editor at Us Weekly, interviewed by Megyn Kelly on Fox News (thank God for Fox News!)



The guy does seem to stumble over his words a lot. But, if you get past his extreme discomfort in trying to respond to Megyn's questions, you eventually get to his bottom line: the magazine "didn't have time" in the article to clarify the scurrilous headline that was splashed across the Us Weekly cover.

Dang. I hate that. I hate it when I run out of time. That often happens to me when my boss asks me to write up a document to present at a meeting. I end up just giving her whatever I had time to write. Sometimes I don't even have time to complete a sentence. It just sort of stops abruptly. She doesn't mind. I just tell her I ran out of time.

So, you might wonder, was there any fallout from this whole debacle? Seems so:

Angry Readers Dump Us Magazine Over Palin

And this comes from that bastion of objectivity, MSNBC!

An excerpt:

Five thousand might not seem like a large number at first glance, but it’s significant in the context of Us’s printing schedule. The magazine goes to press Monday night, which means subscribers don’t receive their issues until Friday or Saturday. In other words, the cancellations are coming from subscribers who, in many cases, haven’t even gotten their hands on the actual issue.

“When Us went to print Monday night, it looked like the ticket was falling apart," says one magazine editor. “They went to print thinking Palin was dead in the water, and their mistake was thinking everyone who reads Us is a Democrat, when they’re not. Readers are loyal, but the base of a political party is more loyal. They don’t need to read the magazine when there’s so much press around it to know to be upset.”

Upset might be an understatement: One Us advertiser has admitted that they’ve received calls from angry former subscribers threatening to boycott their products. “(Us publisher) Jann Wenner supports Obama, Wenner media decided to follow the buzz around Palin before her speech, and now subscribers feel like a vote has been cast on their behalf," says another magazine editor. “It’s going to be tough to bounce back from this one. Especially if the advertisers get involved. If they get nervous, that can hurt all of us.”

Wow, can you imagine the fallout if this actually hurts the sales of Us Weekly?? What a blow for "journalism".