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Home Front: Culture Wars
Even the Arizona Cardinals Are More Popular Than The Dixie Chicks
2006-11-18
After boycotts of their music, attacks by conservative pundits (Pat Buchanan is shown calling them "bimbos") and the release of a new rock-oriented album, the most successful female group in country-music history is struggling to fill venues like Glendale's Jobing.com Arena. The 19,000-capacity arena will be less than half-full Sunday, according to one estimate.

Shut Up & Sing shows the group's management scrambling to cancel or postpone shows as early sales numbers for the Accidents & Accusations Tour prove disappointing. The Glendale show, originally set for Sept. 3, was postponed 11 weeks, but even that extra sales time didn't provide much of a boost.
"Well, we did manage to sell another ten seats! 2 of 'em were even full price!"
Officer Mike Barnett said Glendale police will be more concerned about traffic than protests because 63,000 people are expected at nearby University of Phoenix Stadium for the Arizona Cardinals game Sunday afternoon.
Ooh, that's gotta hurt when even the Cardinals have better attendance!
Anti-Chicks events depicted in Shut Up and Sing, including one radio station hiring a steamroller in 2003 to smash listeners' CDs, have ceased. Still, the group is getting almost no airplay on country radio. Sales of its latest album, Taking the Long Way, have failed to hit 2 million, a disappointing number for a Grammy-winning group that sold 12 million copies of its 1998 debut, Wide Open Spaces.
But on the bright side, at least they don't have ten million fans holding them back musically any more....
And Natalie can always go back to her old job at the truck stop off I-35 ...
But Los Angeles-based author Anthony Mora, who studies "spin" in the media, argued that the group's politics remains the biggest factor. That polarization of fans will make it impossible to regain many estranged listeners, he added. "The loss of their audience had absolutely nothing to do with their music, their shifting of styles," said Mora, author of Spin to Win. "It had to do with their political stand, which means that (for) the people who abandoned them, it doesn't matter if their music is good or not anymore."

As the Dixie Chicks lose almost all a large chunk of their country audience, they have a chance to become more of a mainstream pop act, according to Dan Wool, a senior manager at Valley advertising firm Moses Anshell.
Riiiight. That's about as likely as Natalie becoming the next Playboy centerfold.
"The Dixie Chicks have inadvertently backed into the legacy of country music's 'outlaws' - folks who have expanded out of country to reach mainstream audiences," Wool said, listing Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and Dwight Yoakam as examples.
I don't recall any of those singers going out of their way to insult their fans like the Ditzy Chix have, however.
There's no question that the group has attracted new rock-oriented listeners with its edgier sound and participation with acts such as Bruce Springsteen and Dave Matthews in the anti-Bush Vote for Change Tour of 2004. But, so far, that new crop of fans hasn't replaced the alienated country crowd.
It is about ten million short of their previous fan base....
Posted by:Swamp Blondie

#10  Me personally? I liked them before. Won't buy any new albums though. As one of those right-wing, fundamentalist country fans, I almost want to forgive them. But, the biggest part of forgiveness is them asking for it. Don't see that happenin' any time soon.

Meanwhile, Toby Keith kicks their tail. And, Kenny Chesney came here to Atlanta, sang his "Freedom" song (with a stirring spoken phrase at the end) and he sold out the Phillips Arena 2 nights in a row. They added a 3rd night, and it sold out in record time. Three nights straight is some sort of record for Atlanta for ANY type music.

And, bad (re: #2), I don't think it's a marketing screw-up. It's an ego/worldview screwup. Country music fans wouldn't forgive them for saying that here at home. Saying it overseas during a time of war is unconscienable.
Posted by: BA   2006-11-18 21:08  

#9  And Natalie can always go back to her old job at the truck stop off I-35 ...

Looks like truckers are prepared for her:

Posted by: gorb   2006-11-18 18:00  

#8  One local politician has named properly named the University of Phoenix in Glendale stadium as "the U-PIG stadium".

The Cardinals, BTW, suck eggs. But that is no surprise, because their owner wants them to be third from last every season, so he can make money by selling their good draft picks.

Since this is a new stadium, however, he is celebrating by ordering them to come in dead last, as low attendance will permit him to contracturally demand even more money from those Glendale suckers.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-11-18 17:56  

#7  The Washington Post has not exactly been overly kind to the Chicks with Dicks Dixie Chicks: See review of lefty Barbara Kopple's movie "Shut Up & Sing":

"One of the excellent attributes of "Shut Up and Sing" is that it lets the cards fall where they may and really doesn't try to spin the Chicks themselves. It's quite possible, then, to watch the film and come to the conclusion that Natalie Maines has a big mouth. Spectacularly talented, the young singer is also a spectacular blowhard, and documentarian Barbara Kopple almost subversively focuses on Maines blabbering away at meetings without a serious thought in her head, no impulse control anywhere in sight, and, for some reason, always supine, as if her great status grants her the right to encounter the world from bed.

As for the other two Chicks, Emily Robison and Martie Maguire, they are far more guarded in their accessibility to the camera; at times their support of the loudmouthed Maines seems somewhat hedged. Possibly they have a reason for their ambiguity: Really, truly having made it in the biggest of big times, they watched as sales of albums and concert tickets shrank visibly (and disturbingly), as did radio airplay, in the wake of Maines's off-the-cuff comment.

Kopple (credited as "co-director" with Cecilia Peck) is a superb documentarian; she won Oscars for her features "Harlan County, U.S.A." and "American Dream." You feel in this film the strain -- it's a healthy strain, I think -- between her liberal politics and her nose for the truth. She could have represented the Chicks as martyrs to right-wing blowhard anger; but that's too simple. Instead she takes us inside big-dollar professional entertainment and lets us see ego and stupidity and self-indulgence at play just as fiercely as artistry".

Posted by: Lancasters Over Dresden   2006-11-18 17:47  

#6  Was only lukewarm to their whiney sound when they first hit the radio, then comes their anti-Bush comment, and I won't listen to their drivel, even if it were on our local station (KMPS, Seattle). And now, just to prove that there is no limit to stupidity, good old Dan Wood has the balls to compare them to "..Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and Dwight Yoakam," as gaining that 'country outlaw' status.
I suppose with a bit more spin, we can look for wire frame illuminated stand ups of them for placement with our Christmas Nativity yard decorations as a foil to the Three Wise Men: "The 3 Stupid T@ats."
Posted by: USN, ret.   2006-11-18 12:19  

#5  I live in the LIBERAL Sacramento Valley and they can't fill 14,000 seat ARCO arena.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge   2006-11-18 11:46  

#4  As the Dixie Chicks lose almost all a large chunk of their country audience, they have a chance to become more of a mainstream pop act, according to Dan Wool, a senior manager at Valley advertising firm Moses Anshell

well, there's an expert
Posted by: Frank G   2006-11-18 11:31  

#3  Weren't they booked for any Democratic victory celebrations?
Posted by: Penguin   2006-11-18 11:15  

#2  In terms of sheer PR, this is what happened to the Dixie Chicks.

They go to Eurostan and the fat one says she hates Bush, so their publicist sees a chance during the backlash to gain credibility with another, equally large fan base.

Forgetting country music fans when they show up in a risque magazine cover unrepentant they have done anything wrong, hoping against hope their country music fan base would still be with them afterwards.

This has got to be one of the biggest marketing screwups in the modern age, to alienate your customer base to go after an equally large customer base only to find the new base cares even less for your product than your original base.

And now your original base is gone.

A tip to the Dixie Chicks. Country music fans, being for the most part Christian, will forgive but may take many years to return.

The tip?

Love your country.
Posted by: badanov   2006-11-18 11:07  

#1  Too bad they're so stupid; I actually like their music. I don't buy it anymore though - don't like it enough to subsidize their behavior.
Posted by: Glenmore   2006-11-18 10:31  

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