rialb said:

JoeTyler said:

pleasantly surprised

I advise cautious optimism. This new music might suck.

or perhaps it will be downbeat, personal, but still catchy traditional country

JoeTyler said:

rialb said:

I advise cautious optimism. This new music might suck.

or perhaps it will be downbeat, personal, but still catchy traditional country

Well, she did get remarried fairly quickly so I'm not sure how downbeat she is feeling.

Even her first, pre Mutt album was very country/pop.

rialb said:

JoeTyler said:

or perhaps it will be downbeat, personal, but still catchy traditional country

Well, she did get remarried fairly quickly so I'm not sure how downbeat she is feeling.

Even her first, pre Mutt album was very country/pop.

what?

I still had hopes...

SEANMAN said:

rialb said:

It's easy for people that live on the coasts and in cities to think that racism doesn't exist anymore but in "small town America" you can still run into some very racist people. Kind of funny that the Republican Party bends over backwards to describe those small towns as the "real" America.

It's a shame, isn't it? Even living on the coasts (east, here) I still see it. It's not as in-your-face as it probably is in some parts of the deep south and middle America, but it definately still exists. And it's more apparent than ever now that we have a black president, but now I'm stepping off of my soapbox...

You guys know that the South is more integrated than almost anywhere else in the continental US right? And also that the greatest number of interracial marriages and births take place in Mississippi, right? Or is this all just speculation based on what you heard from a friend of a friend? Not saying racism doesn't exist, but you guys are talking about stuff that happens even in big cities.

But on topic: Garth was huge in part because he was the first country artist to be up front about liking rock n roll. His shows were more like rock shows than a bunch of guys in cowboy hats just standing there. All the videos of him smashing guitars....well, no country artist had really ever done that. And you had a lot of people who were listening to a lot of the same stuff that influenced Garth, stuff like KISS, Zeppelin, Sabbath, etc.

Garth was also one of the few genuine artists among a lot of country artists that just played the game. He was an excellent writer, a fantastic and emotional singer (I'll put his voice against just about any singer in any genre for ability and sheer emotional content), and like many successful artists, he knew how to surround himself with talented and smart people. He also didn't get a free ride. He came to Nashville and had limited success because he wasn't tall enough, wasn't chiseled enough, sang more like a rock singer than someone like Alan Jackson (who is also a great artist and songwriter in his own right!) did. Garth had to leave NAshville and come back with some investors in order to get to where he did.

Sure he did some cheesy shit, but for every Thunder Rolls, there's a Ain't Goin' Down Till The Sun Comes Up, Friends In Low Places, The Dance, Belleau Wood, or I'm Much Too Young To Feel This Damn Old. He was generating a lot of pop stuff, but there were other things to balance it all out. Those who don't know their history will think that he's responsible for all the pop country out there, but in reality, that stuff started as far back as the late 60's with the choirs and string arrangements.

The Chris Gaines thing was a misunderstanding. That album was supposed to be the soundtrack to a movie about a rocker named Chris Gaines and was supposed to come out at the same time the movie did. The script got rejected, the movie never got made, but the record was already done and the record company (against Garth's wishes I'm told) decided to release it anyway. It had no context given that the movie never came out, but it's still got a lot of really great songs on it (Heaven Knows, and It Don't Matter To The Sun being just two.) It was a flop the same way Michael Jackson's "Invincible" record was: It still sold about 3 million copies. If anything, that album proves Garth's artistic sensibilities because he tackles a few different genres and does it pretty well.

There's a lot of ignorance being spouted in this thread, but the topic is country music, and this is The Org, so I expected that, but I know that if some folks said some of the same stuff about your genre of choice, you'd be pissed. But I'll leave you with this: Country and R&B are essentially white and black versions of the same music. They're joined at the hip. A good country singer could sing the hell out of some R&B and a good R&B singer could sing some great country (see Ray Charles and Willie Nelson). Many country songs have crossed over to the R&B world and vice versa. So think about that before you slag on the country thing.

[Edited 5/21/11 16:18pm]

JoeTyler said:

rialb said:

Well, she did get remarried fairly quickly so I'm not sure how downbeat she is feeling.

Even her first, pre Mutt album was very country/pop.

what?

I still had hopes...

Man, you aren't familiar with that whole incestual tale? Maybe being a Canadian I hear about this stuff more than non Canucks? Apparently Mutt cheated on her with her "best friend" and Shania and the "best friends" husband ended up getting married. Isn't that sweet/weird.

rialb said:

JoeTyler said:

what?

I still had hopes...

Man, you aren't familiar with that whole incestual tale? Maybe being a Canadian I hear about this stuff more than non Canucks? Apparently Mutt cheated on her with her "best friend" and Shania and the "best friends" husband ended up getting married. Isn't that sweet/weird.

sounds like "better the devil you know"

JoeTyler said:

Shania is basically a crossover artist, country being her base... that said, her first two albums are 100% country for me, including The Woman in Me which was a big success three before Come On Over, something like Off the Wall and then Thriller...

Like I said earlier, Come On Over was Shania's Thriller-mania experience.

rialb said:

JoeTyler said:

pleasantly surprised

I advise cautious optimism. This new music might suck.

The ultimate goal is Shania making a hit album without her ex-husband Mutt Lange.

TonyVanDam said:

rialb said:

I advise cautious optimism. This new music might suck.

The ultimate goal is Shania making a hit album without her ex-husband Mutt Lange.

Hmm, she's got to be mega, mega rich so I guess she can probably afford the best collaborators if she is still gunnin' for the top of the charts. I hadn't thought of that, I just assumed that without Mutt she would be nothing. I guess we will see when/if she releases more music.