Chart sparks
Country has a new batch of shining stars
By DAVE TIANEN
dtianen@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Oct. 2, 2007
For the first time since the late '80s, the country charts are awash in new or emerging artists: Sugarland. Carrie Underwood. Miranda Lambert. Taylor Swift. Kellie Pickler. Big & Rich. Jason Aldean. Luke Bryan. Bucky Covington. Little Big Town. The Wreckers. Eric Church. Rodney Atkins. Trent Tomlinson. Bobby Pinson. Jake Owen. Heartland. Jason Michael Carroll. Danielle Peck.
Open the discussion to include relative newcomers such as Keith Urban, Gretchen Wilson, Dierks Bentley, Rascal Flatts, Trace Adkins and Brad Paisley, and it's apparent that a new generation of hit-makers has taken over in Music City.
Kerry Wolfe, general manager for WMIL-FM (106.1), says it's clear that a new wave has arrived in country music.
Part of the reason, experts say, is a natural evolution. "Somebody replaced Waylon Jennings. Somebody replaced Ernest Tubb. There's always growth in the format," says Wolfe.
But there's wide agreement that one force driving the current generational shift is "American Idol." Underwood, Pickler and Covington all come from the Fox TV hit, and Lambert is a product of the country variant, "Nashville Star."
"When you can get somebody on a national television show, you have just kick-started their career in a way that you can't imagine . . . ," Wolfe says. "It takes millions of dollars to roll out a brand new act, but when you've got television behind you and millions of viewers every night, that's free publicity. I think Kellie Pickler's album is at about seven or eight hundred thousand copies. There are people in country music who only dream of selling that many records."
And as one of few prime-time shows watched by entire families, "American Idol" has been a great vehicle for bridging generational appeal, says Joel Whitburn, a music archivist and chart historian based in Menomonee Falls.
Past wave
Turnover in popular music is an ongoing phenomenon, and a new wave of artists seems to hit the country scene about every 20 years, Whitburn says.
Back in 1989-'91, he says, the new wave was a tsunami. Among the artists making their chart debut were Garth Brooks, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood, Brooks & Dunn, Alison Krauss, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Travis Tritt, Collin Raye and Aaron Tippin.
Swelling those ranks further was an even larger contingent of artists who thrived for a number of years and have since faded: Diamond Rio, Joe Diffie, Mark Chesnutt, Billy Dean, Doug Stone, Kentucky Headhunters, Little Texas, Hal Ketchum, Lee Roy Parnell, Wild Rose and Michelle Wright.
"I don't know that that class of '89 has been duplicated for its collective impact on country possibly until now," says Wade Jessen, Billboard magazine's Nashville correspondent.
"There wasn't an influx of new talent in the town that would rival that probably since the 1950s, back in the day when all of the honky-tonkers were coming along and all of a sudden the Grand Ole Opry has Faron Young and Carl Smith, and then Johnny Cash comes along."
Stars that shine
When asked to predict which of the new wave will prove to have enduring careers, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Sugarland are names that keep coming up.
"I definitely think that Taylor Swift is an artist who is going to be here for the long haul," Jessen says. ". . . Even without 'American Idol,' the considered opinion of people in country radio and certainly the critics in town is that Carrie Underwood probably would have been a formidable candidate for a top-shelf new star.
"Then for artists who are on their second or third album, there's an enormous amount of interest in Josh Turner. We'll see about Luke Ryan. I think that creatively he's the type of guy who can weather peaks and valleys in his record career because he's such a great songwriter. That's also true of Taylor Swift."
One of the greatest recent success stories is Sugarland, Jessen says.
Singer Jennifer Nettles "is a very stylish lead vocalist, and they're very, very, very animated on stage. Their live show is terrific.
"Then you have an artist like Miranda Lambert who has a terrible time trying to get the consensus vote for singles at country radio, yet the buyers seem to like her pretty well. She makes interesting records and seems to be pretty determined about what she's doing."
In the last couple of years, Brad Paisley has grown into an amphitheater act. Mitch Green of Milwaukee's WMIL-FM thinks Dierks Bentley has the potential to make a similar leap. Indeed, Bentley seems to be making the jump to an arena-scale attraction with an Oct. 26 date at the Bradley Center.
Fading stars
Some of the new players already are beginning to fade. Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" was a monster hit out of the gate in 2004, but Wolfe says she has lost momentum "big time."
"The material wasn't there," he says. "Album two was almost an identical copy of album one."
Although Rascal Flatts has been an enormous commercial success, Jessen is unsure whether they will prove to be a lasting presence.
"It's really hard to say," he says. "Obviously, country is dominated by solo artists. They're the ones that seem to fare the best. When you get duos, trios or groups, the odds start to stack against them the more members they have."
The exceptions to that rule are "usually enormous," he says, citing Rascal Flatts, the Dixie Chicks, Brooks & Dunn and, in the '80s, the Judds.
"Rascal Flatts, along with Kenny Chesney, found some interest with the young people who are out there," Jessen says. "That audience is very, very young, and that's a healthy thing for the business."
Of course, as new young artists emerge, older, established artists inevitably lose ground. Clint Black, who is performing Thursday night at the Riverside Theater, started out in 1989 with four consecutive No. 1 singles, and he was a top-shelf artist throughout the '90s. Since parting company with RCA, he's started his own record label, but he admits that the hits don't necessarily come easily when you're 45.
"The hardest thing is, I kind of went away when I started my record company, and so I'm still trying to get back on the radio," he says.
"I kid around about that, but it's a real tough time for a lot of us. Some of us are having to really, really fight to remain a relevant part of country music."
source:
JS Online: Chart sparks
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