Da Chicks Strike Back

[SGB]

I went to a Dixie Chicks concert on Friday night, and got a big kick out of the intro music they played before the concert started. I'm not sure ¾ of the audience got it, though....

Here's the play list:

Elvis Costello: "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding"
Tears for Fears: "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"
The Go-Go's: "Our Lips Are Sealed"
REM: "It's the End of the World As We Know It."
Paul McCartney & Wings: "Band on the Run"
Tammy Wynette: "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad"
Bruce Springsteen: "Born in the USA"

 

[biscuit]

HA, HA! Subversive...I love it!

 

[SGB]

Good article from the Salt Lake Tribune

Civics lesson or country music concert? You decide.

 

[PlannerGirl]

wooohhhwwhhooo! AWSOME!

Ive been more and more worried about the overtones of censorship as of late-this rocks and i love how they made their point.

 

[El Feo]

Yeah, the Dixie Chicks. I feel real, real bad that they're so oppressed by The Man. Any minute now, John Ashcroft and the Zombie Hallburton Army will swoop down and cart them off to Mordor.

Seems to me they like free speech a hell of a lot, when it's their own, but if you express your opinion about them, well, that's "Censorship (TM)."

 

[Repo Man]

Seems to me they like free speech a hell of a lot, when it's their own, but if you express your opinion about them, well, that's "Censorship (TM)."

Kind of like when people criticize or disagree with Bush, they are labeled as anti-American or unpatriotic?

 

[Belle]

Kind of like when people criticize or disagree with Bush, they are labeled as anti-American or unpatriotic?

Amen to that. Go Chicks!

 

[El Feo]

Kind of like when people criticize or disagree with Bush, they are labeled as anti-American or unpatriotic?

Yeah, EXACTLY like that. When someone is called anti-American or unpatriotic in response to a comment that the respondent considers inane, it may not be especially sophisticated, but it's still free speech - NOT censorship.

Politics ain't beanbag, and democracy ain't easy. If a person's not up to the rough-and-tumble, maybe they should stop and consider that for two seconds before they open their pie-hole. And they damn sure shouldn't act surprised and hurt when folks react.

 

[Repo Man]

My comment was not meant to say that I think they are being censored. They are not being censored. The radio stations banning them may be an idiotic, knee-jerk reaction to their anti-Bush comments, but it is by no means censorship.

 

[El Feo]

RM, I agree that the way a lot of folks have reacted to the Chicks has been idiotic. Not a fan of it. But I just chuckle whenever the Chicks try to portray themselves as noble warriors against censorship and oppression. Actually, I chuckle whenever ANYONE acts like being countered, or even ridiculed, for their opinion/position on a particular issue is somehow censorship. Folks that argue that are either effete, lazy idiots (not up to the burden of defending their own opinion) with no understanding of free speech or history, or manipulative, lying partisans (that's true of both sides of the political spectrum, BTW).

I think there are folks that think this little tempest in a teapot is the same as the Civil Rights Movement. They see bulldozers rolling over Dixie Chicks CDs, or see stations refusing to play their records, and think that's somehow the same as brownshirts burning books or Waffen SS shattering shop windows. It's not. One is private expression, the other is state repression. I don't believe in any slippery slope crap either - I don't see the former leading to the latter. I think we control our own destinies, and that as a people we are perfectly capable of discerning between the two.

That's all I'm talkin' 'bout.

 

[BKM]

Just like artists who claim that not receiving a government grant (or even better yet, a grant from some large corporation) is somehow "censorship." They are perfectly entitled to their Christ-picture-covered-wth-scat-from-an-AIDS-patient, just not at the taxpayers' expense.

 

[Budgie]

I might be wrong

I don't usually play "stereotype" cards, but I think SGB's summation that 3/4 of the audience didn't have a clue what was actually taking place has merit. Would this percentage play across all audiences or would cluelessness be more prevelant in fans of the "country music" genre? I grew up on bluegrass and can appreciate their abilities as musicians. But I think the current "hipness" of NASCAR, Pick-em' up trucks (with plastic bed liner) and the over commercialization of "dime a dozen" country music "stars?" has brought in a bunch of "pop" culture seekers, who wouldn't know a political message if it kicked them in the ass. Most of these morons have trouble consolidating the recent popularity of Shrub and the popularity of the Dixie Chicks, thus we have boycotts. I guess in America everyone has the right to remain ignorant. Hell, there's a male country music "star" on the cover of Redbook this month. I'm sure Johnny Cash would have loved to appear on Redbook in the late 60's. What a joke.

 

[SGB]

Re: I might be wrong

I don't usually play "stereotype" cards, but I think SGB's summation that 3/4 of the audience didn't have a clue what was actually taking place [h]as merit. Would this percentage play across all audiences or would cluelessness be more prevelant in fans of the "country music" genre?

My comment, actually, was directed at the audience of that particular Dixie Chicks concert I attended. It was not intended to be applicable to all of the DC's audiences, or the country music fan base as a whole.

I haven't any guess what percentage of all audiences wouldn't get the messages that were conveyed in the intro music. I just know that at that particular show, most of the audience thought the music was just filler to be ignored between the opening act (Joan Osborne - excellent BTW) and the DC show. If they were looking for messages to be conveyed, most expected it during the show, not before.

 

[El Feo]

Re: I might be wrong

I don't usually play "stereotype" cards, but...the current "hipness" of NASCAR, Pick-em' up trucks (with plastic bed liner) and the over commercialization of "dime a dozen" country music "stars?" has brought in a bunch of "pop" culture...morons...[who] have trouble consolidating the recent popularity of Shrub and the popularity of the Dixie Chicks, thus we have boycotts. I guess in America everyone has the right to remain ignorant...[w]hat a joke.

New "RANT" (TM) technology now allows us to pack twice the unfiltered opinion in half the space!

 

[Budgie]

Wouldn't the crowd have thought the pre-performance filler selection to be a little odd for a Dixie Chicks concert? Not that I think the Dixie Chicks (themselves) have a shallow musical taste, I think quite the opposite. Surely there was a buzz through the crowd about it or is modern country music more like soft rock of the 80's rather than country music of the 80's. Ala Ricky Skaggs, Nelson and Price, Ann Murray, etc... I guess Bocephus was more on the soft rock side.

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Rant lite is not my style of rant. It's more like the random scratching of multiple neuron charges from various subregions of my cranial lobes. All things exist in webs with multiple relevant tangents. Call it extravagance. I'm sorry. I guess my recent readings of George Eliot and Jane Austen have further warped my communication skills.

rant ( P ) Pronunciation Key (rnt)
v. rant·ed, rant·ing, rants

v. tr.
To utter or express with violence or extravagance: a dictator who ranted his vitriol onto a captive audience.

 

[plankton]

My guess is that the Bush Adminsitration is good friends with Earl.