The Dixie Chicks win 5 Grammys

[Brian Damage]

Nobody is going to tell me they had the best album of this past year. It was all political. What BS was that?

[Already Gone]

Nobody is going to tell me they had the best album of this past year. It was all political. What BS was that?

The kind of BS that makes you want to send the alarm clock flying across the room. ;)

[Janice]

A pure political statement. Their album and tour did poorly (compared to their previous showings). It's libs propping up libs. Nashville didn't give them this award, Hollyweird did. They're not country anymore, as they've stated themselves.

[TVJunkie101]

Meh.

They're talented and that's what matters.

Did I like what they did? Nope. Do I enjoy their music? Yep.

[AKA]

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but maybe they won because the album was good (I haven't heard it, so I can't comment).

[bossradio93]

A pure political statement. Their album and tour did poorly (compared to their previous showings). It's libs propping up libs. Nashville didn't give them this award, Hollyweird did. They're not country anymore, as they've stated themselves.


I'm glad they won and stuck to their guns! The Country world doesn't need them, anymore if they continue to feel that way.* The Pop, Rock world (and maybe R&B) will welcome the Chicks with open arms.

It's only those factions who strongly support the war don't want to have anything to do with The Chicks, whatsoever.

A large majority who are dead-set against this war, will now support The Chicks any way they can, whether they're Country fans or not.

I live in the Los Angeles area and have two Country radio stations KKGO-AM (1260) and AM (540) (simulcast) from San Diego/Tijuana and I'm sure the owner of those stations wouldn't mind putting any of the Dixie Chick's songs on the playlists.

KKGO-AM website:
http://http://gocountry.am/

The Dixie Chicks will become more successful in the Pop/Rock genre and album sales will skyrocket. Watch. Had the Dixie Chicks been around in the '60s, they would've done the same thing by speaking out against the Vietnam war.


*Varies from radio station to radio station and media market.

[HuntingtonM15]

A large majority who are dead-set against this war, will now support The Chicks any way they can, whether they're Country fans or not.
[/SIZE]

If this were the case, I think their album sales would have been much higher, and their tour much more attended. Winning Grammys isn't going to automatically give them all this new support, and skyrocket their album sales. Yeah, the album will probably sell pretty well in the next week or so, due to the Grammys, but it more than likely will not produce any long-term effects.

[Scoobiedoo30]

Congrat's

[eltonfan80]

well i am so happy the dixie chicks won also christina aguleria perfromces was amazing i loved it justin timberlakes perfromces great too

[JuicyCoutureGirl]

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but maybe they won because the album was good (I haven't heard it, so I can't comment).

LOL, plain and simple, i'm tired of the 'conspiracy theory' junk. They won fair and square. What they said was a few years ago, get over it. It's the grammys, not I love Bush awards.

[Bobby F.]

Hmmm. If that album was so great I wonder how come they didn't win any awards or even get nominated for any awards at the last Country Music Awards show.:confused: :lol: No matter how much they say they don't want to be country anymore that's how they are still recoginized. Pure Hollywood politics.

[Brian Damage]

LOL, plain and simple, i'm tired of the 'conspiracy theory' junk. They won fair and square. What they said was a few years ago, get over it. It's the grammys, not I love Bush awards.


Aaaaah, but it isn't the I love Bush awards, it is the I HATE Bush awards and the Dixie Chicks were rewarded for speaking up by Hollywood standards.

[Superstar]

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but maybe they won because the album was good (I haven't heard it, so I can't comment).
exactly :lol:

[Brian Damage]

exactly :lol:


So what's your favorite song off the album?

[Mr. Cranky]

At two million in sales, considering their latest album sold 10 million less than their last one and they had to cancel half their tour (no takers), I'm going out on a limb here and say this was a political deal. The chickadees are the biggest whiners going and even criticized their own fanbase. The libbers can give them all the awards in the world. Doesn't change the fact that their country fanbase is gone. They blew it, grammys or not.

[Courtnee]

I thought that their proformace was good last night. I haven't heard the entire album though. I think my dad has it somewhere.

[dawsongirl]

Natalie Maines is a bitch and can't even shut up long enough to accept an award they didn't deserve without rubbing it in. That whole Ha Ha! thing she did was just totally not necessary.

[Mr. Cranky]

Natalie Maines is a bitch and can't even shut up long enough to accept an award they didn't deserve without rubbing it in. That whole Ha Ha! thing she did was just totally not necessary.
LOL I knew I liked you.

[Brian Damage]

exactly :lol:


...still waiting

[Jrnygrl]

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but maybe they won because the album was good (I haven't heard it, so I can't comment).

I agree! There have been plenty of albums that I thought, who the heck listened to that, which have won album of the year.

[AKA]

:lol: You people who think there's some sort of vast left-wing conspiracy are as nutty as the 9/11 Loose Change fruitcakes.

People are known to get upset when people they don't like win awards, and make up conspiracies. I remember when people accused June Carter Cash of winning a Grammy merely because she was dead (http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=98755).

[Brian Damage]

:lol: You people who think there's some sort of vast left-wing conspiracy are as nutty as the 9/11 Loose Change fruitcakes.

People are known to get upset when people they don't like win awards, and make up conspiracies. I remember when people accused June Carter Cash of winning a Grammy merely because she was dead (http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=98755).


Denial by a flaming lib. Typical.

[KissMyGrits]

Country music doesn't need the Dixie Twits. They have enough stars in Reba, Toby and Martina that they are hardly missed.

I tolerated their music before the comments, now I switch the station whenever they come on. Some call it hate, i call it my right not to listen to the garbage they call music. They have all the rights to say whatever they want, I have the right not to listen to them. Point closed.....

[Mr. Cranky]

:lol: You people who think there's some sort of vast left-wing conspiracy are as nutty as the 9/11 Loose Change fruitcakes.

People are known to get upset when people they don't like win awards, and make up conspiracies. I remember when people accused June Carter Cash of winning a Grammy merely because she was dead (http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=98755).
Nobody but you said anything about a conspiracy. If you think there's no political component to this then you're as nutty as a Snickers bar. Then again you claimed that Keith Olbermann isn't a conservative bashing liberal. :lol:
I can't speak to the June Carter deal but there's no denying that there's often a sympathy factor when giving out awards. Actors who have never won Oscars over long careers get them when they're 70 for a small role in a lousy movie. Or singers and actors get awards after they die. Or politics comes into play. It happens all the time. Call it what you want but conspiracy isn't the right word for it.

[Brian Damage]

Nobody said anything about a conspiracy. If you think there's no political component to this then you're as nutty as a Snickers bar. Then again you claimed that Keith Olbermann isn't a conservative bashing liberal. :lol:
I can't speak to the June Carter deal but there's no denying that there's often a sympathy factor when giving out awards. Actors who have never won Oscars over long careers get them when they're 70 for a small role in a lousy movie. Or singers and actors get awards after they die. Or politics comes into play. It happens all the time. Call it what you want but conspiracy isn't the right word for it.


Well said! :clap

[James"Thunder"Early]

I don't think there is any conspiracy, but I think that the Dixie Chicks winning 5 awards was motivated by their statements about the President. These artist are voted on by some of their fellow artists and producers and some of those people hold the same views as the Dixie Chicks.

[Mr. Cranky]

I don't think there is any conspiracy, but I think that the Dixie Chicks winning 5 awards was motivated by their statements about the President. These artist are voted on by some of their fellow artists and producers and those some of those people hold the same views as the Dixie Chicks.
Now that's telling it like it is. Always refreshing when a person is honest about the workings of their political party. It gives me respect for the person's honesty and the fact that they're not wearing blinders. Good going Thunder.

[Brian Damage]

I don't think there is any conspiracy, but I think that the Dixie Chicks winning 5 awards was motivated by their statements about the President. These artist are voted on by some of their fellow artists and producers and some of those people hold the same views as the Dixie Chicks.


Well said dude, I am proud of you! ;)

[Ireneparalegal]

Nobody is going to tell me they had the best album of this past year. It was all political. What BS was that?
I threw an old unwanted VHS at the television...

[dawsongirl]

Nobody but you said anything about a conspiracy. If you think there's no political component to this then you're as nutty as a Snickers bar. Then again you claimed that Keith Olbermann isn't a conservative bashing liberal. :lol:
I can't speak to the June Carter deal but there's no denying that there's often a sympathy factor when giving out awards. Actors who have never won Oscars over long careers get them when they're 70 for a small role in a lousy movie. Or singers and actors get awards after they die. Or politics comes into play. It happens all the time. Call it what you want but conspiracy isn't the right word for it.
Awards are basically a crock for the reasons you stated and many more. The Dixie Chicks winning for a poor selling album that I know I never heard anything from on the radio on any genre of station is just another example.

Nothing political about it; just a bunch of rich people patting each other on the back.

[Brian Damage]

I threw an old unwanted VHS at the television...


Justin Timberlake, Mary J. Blige were both waaaay more deserving.

[Ireneparalegal]

Justin Timberlake, Mary J. Blige were both waaaay more deserving.
Especially Mary J. I love them both, but my heart went to Mary J. She worked so damn hard and deserved the accolade. It's ok Mary, your fans know that you deserved the awards...Mary is our generations Aretha Franklin.

[Brieannas21]

well i am so happy the dixie chicks won also christina aguleria perfromces was amazing i loved it justin timberlakes perfromces great too


They both did a fantasic job. Christina ROCKED "It's a Man World"

[AKA]

Denial by a flaming lib. Typical.

What constitues "flaming lib?" I'm just saying that maybe - just maybe - the awards are on the up-and-up and the Dixie Chicks aren't being awarded for their political beliefs, but for the content of their latest album.

And I really wouldn't consider myself a liberal anymore. I haven't debated on the politics board in the last year and a half, so you really have no idea where I stand. For all you know, I could be a card-carrying member of the Whig Party now.

Nobody but you said anything about a conspiracy.

Nobody used the word "conspiracy," but what's being alleged here (the Dixie Chicks winning Grammys based on their famous 2003 remarks rather than for their music) certainly would constitute one.

If you think there's no political component to this then you're as nutty as a Snickers bar. Then again you claimed that Keith Olbermann isn't a conservative bashing liberal. :lol:

For all I know, there was a political component to this, but it seems silly to jump to those conclusions all the time and see some sort of political agenda in everything. I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I just don't see the left-wing and right-wing in everything anymore (although I admit that I used to).

So I guess I'm packed with peanuts and caramel with a milk chocolate covering. Just don't let two guys eat me at once, because that would be totally gay.

And my stance on Olbermann isn't the issue here, but I do stand by what I said about him a few weeks back. That's all I'm going to say on the matter in this particular thread. If you'd like to bring that topic back, you're more than welcome to bump the thread back up (http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?p=3437774), and I'll discuss it with you there.

Awards are basically a crock for the reasons you stated and many more. The Dixie Chicks winning for a poor selling album that I know I never heard anything from on the radio on any genre of station is just another example.

I don't know - it's not the "Music That Moved The Most Units Awards." I know that the girls swept the awards, and I'm not sure who they were up against, but I don't think this was political. I think someone felt that their music was better than what they were up against.

In the interest of full disclosure, I don't listen to the Dixie Chicks, so I'm not sure if their album was any good, and the only portion of the Grammys I watched was the Police reunion.

[platinumblondelife]

Mary J. Blige and JT were robbed.

[Tymps]

Mary J won 3 awards, how is she robbed? I think the Dixie Chicks are great (both before and after this remark), but they didn't deserve FIVE awards! I think Corinne Bailey Rae deserved Song of the Year for Put Your Records On. She also deserved Best New Artist over Carrie Underwood who released her album in 2005!

The Dixie Chicks had a right to their opinion, I don't understand why such a big deal was made of it in a country that is about free speech. Do country singers have to be Republican? Dolly Parton is very popular with the gay community and is very camp, I'm surprised she hasn't been blacklisted yet.

[HuntingtonM15]

She also deserved Best New Artist over Carrie Underwood who released her album in 2005!


Off topic of the DC, but Carrie's album was released in November. I believe the cut off for the Grammys is September, so Carrie was not eligible last year.

[Janice]

Dixie Chicks, dissent, and "Whacked" Paranoia
By Jon Sanders

"I think people are paranoid" was how former Grateful Dead member Mickey Hart's comments to Reuters began. Hart was speaking about this year's Grammy Awards and the Dixie Chicks. Then he provided a sterling example of that very paranoia.

"I think that if they speak out, they think they're gonna get whacked by the government. It's pretty oppressive now. Look at the Dixie Chicks. They got whacked."

What? The government did nothing concerning The Dixie Chicks after they "spoke out" against President Bush while they were in concert in London.

The singers were free to say whatever they wanted, just as the buying public was free to say whatever they wanted with respect to what the Dixie Chicks said.

There was public outcry, and indeed the Dixie Chicks lost fans and concertgoers. But they also garnered new fans, including fawning press. Their "naked" cover on Rolling Stone seems to have started a new fad: the Multimillionaire Artist As Suffering Figure of Persecution.

They would be followed in magazine-cover martyrdom by Kanye West, who nearly ruined a Hurricane Katrina fundraiser with his off-the-cuff remarks about Bush hating black people. His cover shot on Rolling Stone showed him wearing a crown of thorns.

Madonna, as is her wont, took the fad to its logical extremes; comparing Bush to Hitler and Osama bin Laden and then hanging herself on a crucifix.

But it's all vanity. Hart's comments, the "musical martyrs," the paranoia — it's just self-congratulatory hooey. Musicians aren't getting "whacked" by the Bush administration for "speaking out." But it's fun to believe it, because only then could the very mundane act of speaking out in this, the Land of the First Amendment, appear dangerous and brave instead of merely mercenary.

Perspective is sorely lacking when fabulously wealthy, celebrated recording artists somehow believe that the fabric of free speech in a community is in danger because they said something political and a bunch of folks replied in no uncertain terms that they didn't like what they said. They're seeing free speech at its most vibrant and they think it's in peril.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago provides countless examples of a government "whacking" an artist for speaking out. Compare these few lines, for example, to the worst of Dixie Chicks "whacking" anecdotes:

Tanya Khodkevich wrote:

You can pray freely

But just so God alone can hear.

(She received a ten-year sentence for these verses.)

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (www.thefire.org (http://www.thefire.org/)) provides numerous examples of Americans being "whacked" for speaking out in government schools. Just a perusal of the top items, one finds:

— San Francisco State University investigating the College Republicans for stepping on Hamas and Hezbollah flags during an anti-terrorism protest.

— A challenge to Michigan State University's "Student Accountability in Community" program that forces "mandatory ideological re-education" on students, at their own expense, if they are found to have "behaviors or attitudes [that] are considered unacceptable."

— The discovery that the University of Central Florida bars free-speech on campus except for a few "free speech zones."

— College administrators policing and punishing students for their entries on social-networking Internet sites such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com.

And then there are Americans under threat of government "whacking" for speaking out about global warming. Just ask ExxonMobile CEO Rex Tillerson, who recently received an ominous missive from Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe. The letter tells Exxon to "end its dangerous support of the [global warming] 'deniers'" and "repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history." Then Exxon, "one of the world's largest carbon emitters," should put those dollars toward "global remediation efforts" instead.

Or ask climatologist George Taylor in Oregon, where the governor, Theodore R. Kulongoski, wishes to strip him of the position of state climatologist because Taylor is skeptical of the origins of global warming. Other apostate climatologists, such as David Legates in Delaware and Patrick Michaels in Virginia, could also recount experiences from their principled refusal to toe the climate-change line that would leave the Dixie Chicks in a sniveling heap.

Now, it would be wonderful if popular recording artists put their faddish fear of being whacked by the government to good use — taking up the cause of free-speech victims on college campuses, for example, or supporting climate-change dissent. But of course that shouldn't be forced on them like some crazy Michigan ideological re-education plan. After all, it's a free country.

[Janice]

The Dixie Chicks had a right to their opinion, I don't understand why such a big deal was made of it in a country that is about free speech.
Nobody's freedom of speech was violated. In fact, the Dixie Chick's episode illustrated freedom of speech at its finest. The Chicks had every right to voice their opinion, and those who didn't like what they said exercised their freedom of speech where it hurts the most for celebrities -- the wallet.

Freedom of speech works both ways. Something the Dixie Chicks learned the hard way. They can fill a warehouse with awards. They can't book a solid tour anymore, and they sell only a tiny fraction of albums that they used to sell.

[catlover79]

Natalie Maines is a bitch and can't even shut up long enough to accept an award they didn't deserve without rubbing it in. That whole Ha Ha! thing she did was just totally not necessary.
Tell us how you really feel, now. LOL

[AKA]

According to Wikipedia, they did well at the 2003 Grammys, too. This was before the Bush comments.

2003
Best Country Album - Home
Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal - "Long Time Gone"
Best Country Instrumental Performance - "Lil' Jack Slade"
Best Recording Package - Home

They also did quite well in 1999 and 2000, taking home two Grammys both years:

2000: Best Country Album - Fly
2000: Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal - "Ready to Run"
1999: Best Country Album - Wide Open Spaces
1999: Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal - "There's Your Trouble"

So I pose this question: is it possible that they're winning Grammys because they're good?

[HuntingtonM15]

Interesting quote from Natalie herself:

Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, admitted that their win had to do with more than music. "People had different motivation behind voting for us," she said. "To win 5 of 5 (awards), is unbelievable. And it is people using their voice. This is the greatest awards experience I've ever had - on a multitude of levels."

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/129/story/48656.html

[Superstar]

So what's your favorite song off the album?
the song with all the singing and all the instruments totally has to be like, my favorite one. k?

[Brian Damage]

the song with all the singing and all the instruments totally has to be like, my favorite one. k?


That's exactly what I thought thanks!

[platinumblondelife]

Mary J won 3 awards, how is she robbed?
She lost the big awards to the Dixie Chicks and she was more deserving. It's obviously many of the voting people voted for the Dixie Chicks because they agreed with them politically, and not because they were the best...

[Bobby F.]

According to Wikipedia, they did well at the 2003 Grammys, too. This was before the Bush comments.

2003
Best Country Album - Home
Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal - "Long Time Gone"
Best Country Instrumental Performance - "Lil' Jack Slade"
Best Recording Package - Home

They also did quite well in 1999 and 2000, taking home two Grammys both years:

2000: Best Country Album - Fly
2000: Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal - "Ready to Run"
1999: Best Country Album - Wide Open Spaces
1999: Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal - "There's Your Trouble"

So I pose this question: is it possible that they're winning Grammys because they're good?

I'll ask again...if they were sooooo good why didn't they win, let alone nominated at the last CMT awards?? They won in the country categories so you would think that they would win at a Country Music Award show. Right there shows that their winning was nothing but a political statement.

[AKA]

I honestly don't know why they weren't nominated at the CMT Awards. You say the fact that they won multiple Grammies, even though they weren't nominated for a CMT Award was a political statement, but perhaps them not being nominated for a CMT Award was a politcal statement, along with their music being shunned by country radio.

[Mr. Cranky]

And my stance on Olbermann isn't the issue here, but I do stand by what I said about him a few weeks back. That's all I'm going to say on the matter in this particular thread. If you'd like to bring that topic back, you're more than welcome to bump the thread back up (http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?p=3437774), and I'll discuss it with you there.
Nah you're up on that thread. Besides it's no fun arguing if the sky is blue.

According to Wikipedia, they did well at the 2003 Grammys, too. This was before the Bush comments.
They had a huge fanbase then so it makes sense.
I honestly don't know why they weren't nominated at the CMT Awards. You say the fact that they won multiple Grammies, even though they weren't nominated for a CMT Award was a political statement, but perhaps them not being nominated for a CMT Award was a politcal statement, along with their music being shunned by country radio.
They weren't nominated for the CMT Awards because they insulted their country fans and yes their former fans were also making a political statement. This isn't brain surgery and admitting the obvious isn't painful.
Interesting quote from Natalie herself:

Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, admitted that their win had to do with more than music. "People had different motivation behind voting for us," she said. "To win 5 of 5 (awards), is unbelievable. And it is people using their voice. This is the greatest awards experience I've ever had - on a multitude of levels.".
The Chicks admit there was more going on with their wins. Now it's just getting AKA to see the light. :lol:

[GoldenGirlsFan92]

Congrats to the Dixie Chicks on them winning 5 Grammys.

[Shine]

The Dixie Chicks winning five Grammys isn't any political conspiracy. I'm sure that it has nothing to do with politics at all. It is just another example of how the people who awarded the Grammys make poor choices. In 1984 the Best Album award was given to Can't Slow Down by Lionel Richie when it either should have gone to Bruce Springsteen for Born In the USA or Prince for Purple Rain. As far as why the Dixie Chicks didn't win any Country Music Awards? It is because the people who pick those have better taste.

[dawsongirl]

I don't know - it's not the "Music That Moved The Most Units Awards."

I know. That's one reason I'm not a fan of award shows. You could take an album that the public thought stunk and it could win all sorts of awards because a handful of industry people thought it was brilliant. But c'mon, these people are making music for fans...if they weren't, they wouldn't be under major record labels and playing arenas.

Oh well. I'm going back to listening to music that came out when I wasn't even alive yet, award winning or not.

[AKA]

I know. That's one reason I'm not a fan of award shows. You could take an album that the public thought stunk and it could win all sorts of awards because a handful of industry people thought it was brilliant. But c'mon, these people are making music for fans...if they weren't, they wouldn't be under major record labels and playing arenas.

Oh well. I'm going back to listening to music that came out when I wasn't even alive yet, award winning or not.

Putting the Dixie Chicks aside for a moment, a lot of times, it's not that the general public thinks an album stinks. It's that the public doesn't even know an album existed, because it wasn't released by a mainstream label, or because it wasn't promoted well.

There have been countless times an artist has been nominated for a Grammy that I'd never heard of, or a movie gets nominated for an Oscar that I'd never heard of.

And a lot of times, country Grammys go to people who aren't really hot in Nashville: Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn and June Carter Cash have all won particular country awards in the last three years.

[ABlairican Pie]

CONGRATULATIONS TO SLAYER ON WINNING THE BEST HEAVY METAL PERFORMANCE FOR "EYES OF THE INSANE"!!!!!!! :rock:

[SBTB Geek]

"Not Ready to Make Nice" is actually a very good song. Well produced. But it won over a song which truly deserved to be called Record of the Year... "Crazy."

[Brad Russ]

I heard their album on Rhapsody, and in my opinion, it definitely wasn't the best I've heard this year. Did have a couple catchy songs, but I didn't think it was even close to being the best. I didn't even think it was their best album, as I liked their first one much more. This is my opinion based on the music alone, and leaving all the political nonsense out of it. Afterall, the Grammy's are for awarding people's music, not their political beliefs. I think alot of people are forgetting that. LOL!!

[Bobby F.]

I honestly don't know why they weren't nominated at the CMT Awards. You say the fact that they won multiple Grammies, even though they weren't nominated for a CMT Award was a political statement, but perhaps them not being nominated for a CMT Award was a politcal statement, along with their music being shunned by country radio.

I'll accept that theory with no problem. You're the one who can't seem to accept it.

[AKA]

I heard their album on Rhapsody, and in my opinion, it definitely wasn't the best I've heard this year. Did have a couple catchy songs, but I didn't think it was even close to being the best. I didn't even think it was their best album, as I liked their first one much more. This is my opinion based on the music alone, and leaving all the political nonsense out of it. Afterall, the Grammy's are for awarding people's music, not their political beliefs. I think alot of people are forgetting that. LOL!!

Did it seem like it wasn't on-par with their earlier efforts? From what I read, they had Rick Rubin produce it, and they were going for more of a heartland rock sound, a'la John Mellencamp.

I'll accept that theory with no problem. You're the one who can't seem to accept it.

I'm not ruling it out as a possibility, Bobby. But again, I looked at some of the fact that they won eight Grammys before the Bush incident, four of them in one ceremony. So it doesn't seem far-fetched that they'd win five in another. It just seems that the academy likes their music.

Again, I'm not saying it's entirely impossible they won as a political statement; I'm just not jumping to that conclusion.

[Bobby F.]

Again, I'm not saying it's entirely impossible they won as a political statement; I'm just not jumping to that conclusion.

You're in a small minority then. A big loss of record sales. Concerts having to be canceled. The entertainment industry with "just a little lean to the left"...looks like they're standing up for one of their own. If it walks like a duck....:D

[Janice]

Sour notes from the Dixie Chicks

Chris Ayres: LA Notebook

As I watched the Dixie Chicks win their five Grammy Awards on Sunday night – for an album staggeringly inferior to its rivals in the same categories – I couldn’t help but think back to the same night four years earlier, when I was being taught how to apply a tourniquet to a gunshot wound, as part of my pre-Iraq journalists’ training. Back then, I’d never even heard of the all-female country music trio from Texas. That changed a few weeks later – the morning after Natalie Maines, the group’s lead singer, told an audience in London that she was ashamed to be from the same place as George W. Bush.

Overnight, Maines became a pariah: treated back home as a traitor on the scale of Mata Hari. By then, I’d relocated from an SAS training centre in Hereford to a military camp in Kuwait, where I was being taught how to use a gas mask. I was terrified. Within days of Maines apologising to President Bush (too late to stop the threats, the CD-crushings and the careers of DJs who played the Dixie Chicks’ records), the invasion had started and I was on my way to Baghdad, embedded with an artillery division of the United States Marines.

I mention all this because there’s something about the way the Dixie Chicks handled the Iraq war controversy (which included a naked appearance on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, a documentary called Shut up and Sing and the allegation that the Red Cross turned down a $1 million donation from the band, when in fact the donation was conditional on the Red Cross endorsing their tour) that makes me reluctant to cheer them too loudly. In fact, the band’s carping about the lack of freedom of speech in America always struck me as a bit dishonest.

What they really seemed upset about was the cost to their popularity. Certainly, the threats, the blacklists and the CD-crushings were appalling, but anyone who trades in opinion (columnists included) understand this as a necessary cost of doing business. The Dixie Chicks, on the other hand, seemed to believe that they should be able to say exactly what they want, no matter how divisive, and that the public should unquestioningly continue to contribute to their millionaires’ lifestyles.

Perhaps I’m biased: when you’re on the front lines of an invasion, the last thing you want to hear is a celebrity back home, miles from the bullets, telling you the conflict itself is wrong or pointless. I remember the morning of March 24, 2003, when I woke up in a trench in the Iraq marshlands, mortar shells flying overhead, listening to Michael Moore giving his infamous antiwar Oscars speech. He had every right to express his opinion. But the Marines I was with also had every right to be riled by it.

And that, to me, is what the Dixie Chicks utterly failed to grasp. In a democracy, speech may be free. But wherever you go in the world – Texas included – an opinion worth holding will always cost you something.

[Mr. Cranky]

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