Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Wed, 29 Jul 1992 10:38:12 EDT
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Achy Breaky Charts

From:         David Malbuff <SPGDAM@UCCVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Warning: contains blatant overgeneralizations.

> Haggard is one of the greats, and he deserves to be remembered for more
> than one novelty tune that was written, at least in part, as a rather
> mild joke.

The way I see it, once is a joke, twice ("Fighting Side of Me") is ingrained
redneckism. Unless he subsequently recorded "Let's Kiss and Make Up with Jane
Fonda" and I just never heard it.

>                                   ... A better "answer tune" to "Okie",
> BTW, was Nick Gravenites' "I'll Fix Your Flat Tire, Merle".

I'll try and get ahold of that one.

> It's no more hypocritical than any other form of entertainment. The DEA
> thing was Nixon's idea anyway.

No, the DEA thing was to give Elvis a get-out-of-jail-free card if anyone ever
threatened to search him while he was holding those mega-prescriptions from
Doctor Nick. And what part of the hypocrisy of the entertainment business do
you mean to defend here, and why?

> I think you're letting labels (omigawd! not that word again!) get in the
> way of the music. The "country music" you describe so well- the
> dumb, formula, prepackaged crap that gets all the airplay- is no more
> representative of real country music than MTV is representative of
> real rock & roll. Way less, as a matter of fact.

I'm aware that the stuff that tops the charts is seldom the really interesting
example of any genre (I've even heard disco that didn't suck, but I had to ask
a real fan). I'm sure real country fans are outraged by the success of "Achy
Breaky Heart." But country is *supposed* to be populist, as is rock, and the
rules for elitist musics like jazz don't apply-- you have to take the big hits
seriously, not necessarily as ideals but certainly as paradigms of some of the
genre's aesthetic considerations. I think it's fair game to examine, or blame
if you will, country music in light of "Achy Breaky."

> I was making the point that country music derives from the same source
> as the blues. Bluegrass and old-time folk music are the antecedent to
> country music.

I still insist that bluegrass is a divergent strain.

And anyway, I think country and blues are vastly different in their effects.
I went home after yesterday's Cowpoke Wars and thought about Gram Parsons.
Here was a guy who had it all-- the brilliant first Burritos album, and his
work with the Byrds before that, which collectively gave him the stature to
craft country rock in his own image; plus a musical partner and lover anyone
might envy (Emmylou Harris)-- and he goes and OD's on heroin and cocaine like
a dumb shit, and country rock decayed into Kenny Loggins as a result. I think
blues, when it works, brings you to catharsis, picks you up out of your funk--
it exists to defy bad vibes. Country invites you to wallow in them-- "Tonight
the bottle let me down," etc.-- so you marinate in your pathos until you just
suck the gas pipe. Or you cope by beating your kids.

From:         David Malbuff <SPGDAM@UCCVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      re: RE: re: re: Re: Country Music

> Rosanne is great, but it took her YEARS to get airplay on country radio.
> Her first album was released in 1978.

Part of what I mean about country's conservatism... although rock'n'roll can
certainly be just as exclusionary.

> Was the spelling of "apart" in your last sentence intentional? (I'm
> jumping on this one before MHB has a field day with it!)

Gee, do you really think I'm the kind of dweeb who picks on spelling mistakes?
I'd hoped you'd think I was a worthier debater than that.

From:         "W. John Weber" <WWEBER@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      RE: re: RE: re: re: Re: Country Music

>                      ...  America's popular taste tends toward the vulgar
> (watch the flames), and the "hick"ization of perfectly good songs by artists
> with no interpretive talents--and their producers) is a part of that.

No argument from me on that. The down side of democracy is the notion that all
opinions are equally valid, that the random impulse to pull the lever for Bush
because you liked "Millie's Book" is equivalent to a careful consideration of
all the issues and a reasoned decision that maybe the economy will still be
better off under four more years of Republicanism (which is certainly not *my*
position, this is just for argument's sake, you understand).

Now voting is free (barring whatever incidental costs are incurred in getting
to the polls), whereas when you "vote" for a hit record, you do so by buying
it. Among other incidental effects, like financing the people who created the
music so they can do it again :-), this cost is supposed to restrict the "vote"
to the people who really have an interest in the answer. But, as I've stated
many times in my long-winded manner, the entrepreneurs responsible for most of
what America listens to have figured out ways to sell you music for non-musical
reasons, so voters who don't know squat about music and care less end up with a
numerically proportionate, but aesthetically way overboard, say in the matter.
And that in short is where your "Achy Breaky"s come from, the lowest common
denominator. I think I'm entitled to resent this state of affairs, not that
I'm capable of much real corrective action. (I do my bit, anyway: I argue on
the net.)

From:         DMetcalf%IC-LOG@WALKER-LTT.ARMY.MIL
Subject:      VARIOUS

> Having been in Thailand, Middle East (Yemen & Saudi), Germany, Korea, Japan
> & LOTZ o' other places, I REALLY agree with the above, as it pertains to music
> being the place to START understanding (or trying to) a culture... but WHY is
> it that the good ole' Yew-ess-of-aay breeds so many CLOSE minds?  Or have I
> just been AWAY too long?

You didn't find that in, say, Germany? Maybe it's self-selecting: the people
who will talk civilly to a furriner might just be those who are most open to
new ideas, or something like that...

If you're looking for a real mechanism, you could try blaming religion. Thai
Buddhism (called "Theravada") is unusually tolerant. You've already mentioned
your distinctly different experience with the Baptists.

> CONSERVATIVE?  Drugs..., sex..., screwin' 'round with neighbors wives... etc.,
> etc., et. al., ad nauseum... NAW, Michael, I don't AGREE, it's not the
> conservative form you think it is... it's the ACCEPTANCE of that kind of a
> flaky & knee-jerk lifestyle as man's/woman's CONDITION that I object to in
> country!  It PROMOTES such thinking, rather than trying to offer an
> ALTERNATIVE to it...

And now that I've brought up religion, let us consider the real function of all
this lavishly documented sinning in country music, as opposed to rock'n'roll.
Yer typical lame, puerile, sexist pig rock song, like AC/DC's "You Shook Me,"
is coming from the perspective that hey, this stuff is FUN! it's PLEASURABLE!
It is in some sense in harmony with my basic purpose for being on this planet.
Whereas the country version is often tied up with that sinning and redemption
shell game of organized religion. Country defends traditional establishment
values by the very nature of the way it purports to flaunt them, it says YOU
WILL PAY for these various transgressions, which we will now describe in great
and lascivious detail-- just like Jimmy Swaggart (cousin to that great country
figure Jerry Lee Lewis), it's so obsessed with sin, it can't resist temptation.
The outlaws, Willie Nelson et al, were morally ambiguous secular humanists by
comparison...

> AGREED, think the average child should be REQUIRED to watch a few (*good*)
> sex acts - violence promotes violence?  sex promotes sex?  Which is the
> better of the TWO?

Well, I don't want to *require* anyone to do anything. But I think it would be
a good thing if sex education included some how-to as well as the why-not and
what-happens-if. (Wish I knew the tantric techniques to keep it up all night,
for example.)
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU