There is apparently a very popular musical act called Lady Antebellum? And to be fair, I have heard their hit song played in several delis across New York City and didn’t know who actually sang it until tonight, so it’s not totally foreign to me. But they’re winning Grammy awards? And their name is, I will remind you, LADY ANTEBELLUM?Yeah, there is. And apparently they're quite popular and have been for a few years now despite the problematic name. In fact Tami wrote a post about it just over a year ago, which was reblogged at Racialicous:
“Lady Antebellum” seems to me an example of the way we still, nearly 150 years after the end of the Civil War; nearly 50 years after the Civil Rights Act; and in a supposedly post-racial country led by a biracial president, glorify a culture that was based on the violent oppression of people of color.According to an article in the Augusta Chronicle, the idea for the name “Lady Antebellum” came after a photo shoot where band members dressed in Civil War-era clothing. It seems harmless–just a nod to the band’s roots south of the Mason-Dixon Line, a recognition of the Old South.I grew up with country music, and in a lot of ways, it is the music of my early childhood. I'm not trying to defend it, because I have HUGE problems with country music being intrinsically tied to a certain kind of right-wing, evangelical conservative, romanticizing the Civil War-era south and extolling "traditional values" based on bigotry and hatred. No one should defend that. (Truth: I've had a post sitting in my drafts folder for a year titled "Queering Country," because I can only think of two queer country artists: Mary Gauthier and k.d. lang, and neither one could be considered a "mainstream" country artist.) What I do have a problem with is the view that country music listeners are nothing but ignorant rednecks. Some of the comments on the Feministe thread veered a little to closely to that.
Of course, when you have a band named Lady Antebellum winning grammys and no one outside the progressive blogosphere talking about the history behind the name, well, that's more than a little problematic. Even though this should be a pretty straightforward issue, yes, condemn the band for the name, but can we do it without the elitism? Some of us progressives are part of that "Middle America" and we're trying.
I really need to work on commenting on your blog more frequently -- so often you write things that are thought provoking & things I'd love to have further discussion on.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I grew up with country music (my dad was a big fan of "classic" stuff like Ernest Tubb and Loretta Lynn, plus "edgier" stuff like Gram Parsons and Steve Earle) and while I don't listen to much mainstream contemporary country, I do struggle w/ the ways in which country music at large is represented (by people who don't listen to country) as the realm of uneducated, racist "Good Ol' Boys"/middle American families with conservative, Bible-thumping values who buy their music at Wal*Mart (obviously both of these identities are grossly oversimplified) -- especially since I think of country music as, in many ways, being more accessible to make than some other genres (growing up, I know I didn't have the financial resources to emulate Kevin Shields' or Bilinda Butcher's guitar sounds, but I could sit down and play a Patsy Cline song and have it sound relatively close to the original.) I think there have also been some great radical moments in country & country's focus on individual narratives can provide a unique platform to give voice to people's life experiences, but many people seem eager to ignore that in favor of the accepted narrative of country music as the domain of the ignorant. In the past, I've thought about country very much in terms of class, but would love to see a queer reading of the genre & to consider more fully who "belongs" in country and how traditional notions of country are disrupted by individual performers.
Also interesting to me is the way that indie and alternative folks have embraced indie music that nods to country (Rilo Kiley has certainly had some strong alt-country moments that are carried out to a fuller extent in Jenny Lewis' solo work, Neko Case is warmly embraced by indie folks, and there's the later work of Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst's country-folk solo projects, etc.), but continue to decry country as a genre. I can't even count how many times I've heard indie folks say, "I listen to everything except for country and rap." VOM. I think indie folks (and I am certainly guilty of this) have done a fine job of creating "high" and "low" cultures within country (i.e. embracing someone like Gram Parsons, but continuously hating all of "mainstream" country artists) & judging listeners accordingly -- what feeds into the standards for "high" and "low" country are something I'd definitely like to interrogate.
I do struggle w/ the ways in which country music at large is represented (by people who don't listen to country) as the realm of uneducated, racist "Good Ol' Boys"/middle American families with conservative, Bible-thumping values who buy their music at Wal*Mart (obviously both of these identities are grossly oversimplified) -- especially since I think of country music as, in many ways, being more accessible to make than some other genres...
ReplyDeleteYeah, exactly. I just read something a few weeks ago about country being maligned by the people who don't, or won't, listen to it, but it is one of the most accessible genres of music -- and by accessible I mean easy to acquire, which, in the pre-internet days, was a big deal if you lived in a small town. Hell, I live in a medium sized, Midwest city, and I remember when I was just getting into indie or punk in the 90s, and being so frustrated because I could never find what I wanted, even at the mom-and-pops.
At the risk of sounding like a music snob, I love "outlaw" country, too. I think it's a separate animal from mainstream "pop" country, but when non-country fans tall about country music, they usually mean somebody like Keith Urban or Tim McGraw, not Gram Parsons.
I've spent a lot of time of music boards and on feminist blogs, and I wish there were an easier way to marry the two. I love the politicized conversation on more progressive websites, but when it comes to pop culture, the discussion can become incredibly polarized.
God I'm so guilty of the "I don't like country.. except Wilco.. and Johnny Cash.. and Stompin' Tom.. and.. oh wait, there's also etc etc etc" (I totally do this with rap too)
ReplyDeleteOne day I had to suck it up and just admit to myself that I really like a lot of country music. The realization allowed me to delve into genres I hadn't really explored before like bluegrass and gospel and delta blues type stuff.
There's still a lot of it that I really really dislike (eff Toby Keith, seriously) but I can't write off the genre as a whole.
One of the songs I'm working on writing is actually about how even though I'm a self-described rocker, all my songs sound like country.