...or, My expectations are apparently too high, because I honestly expected better from Brad Paisley than this:
"It's a very smart, progressive bunch, these people that make country music," he says. "They're not country hicks sitting behind a desk with a big cigar giving out record deals and driving round in Cadillacs with cattle horns on the front grille: it's a bunch of really wonderful, open-minded, great people down on Music Row that make this music."Goodness. I don't think Paisley could have been more offensive if he had made an honest effort to do so. I am at a complete loss as to where he would get off saying something like that. Perhaps I had higher expectations because of Paisley's (allegedly) traditional leanings and respect for the old country. But really, Brad? Big cigar? Cattle horns on the front grille? Is there anyone who really, honestly thinks that's the way deals go down in Nashville?
And "open-minded"? What the hell does that have to do with anything? The only time I ever see that phrase come up in a country music discussion is when I am told that acts like Rascal Flatts and Sugarland are "country, just a new kind of country." And, well, it honestly pisses me off; it's like they're saying, "if you don't agree with me, you're closed-minded." It's almost as if Paisley is saying, "It's not just that twangy, whiny shit anymore, y'all." Which is quite ironic, given the original meaning of the term "progressive country."
In light of that, I wonder if Brad would also think '80s rocker Kenny Loggins going country is progressive. It wouldn't surprise me so much if he did. (We won't even get into the fact that there really aren't that many singers over 40 who have managed to keep their songs in the top 40 on country radio playlists these days, or what happened with the old guard when all the new singers came in the early '90s...)
(h/t Country California)
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