After hearing about the Dixie Chicks winning 5 grammys, my first thought is that it is strictly due to the fact that they bad mouthed Bush and are being rewarded more for their politics than for their actual talent. I'm not going to say they are not talented. I haven't even heard their album. I just think it is coincidental that they win so many awards right after all of this. Natalie Maines said that people were exercising their free speech by giving them these awards. So, I have to wonder if we are going to see the integrity of the grammys diminish when you can win by strictly ensuring that your message falls in line with the judges own politics. Can you really be proud of your work if it is not even based on the music itself, but rather about what you say outside of the music? For a shallow person, I would assume that this is the case. If this is the case, it is sad because people who really deserve the acclaim get left behind for focusing on their music rather than a political platform. Maybe I'm being cynical, but it is kind of hard not to be at this point.
If the right wing controlled radio stations can ban them, then the left wing controlled grammy can give them the awards. Banning them from the radio's was definitely not an economic decision, as their album was in the top 10 last year. They were hurt by the ban. It was clearly to punish them for their speaking out against Bush. You can only blame Bush for dividing this country so deeply.
Banned? Really? And all this time I thought the radio didn't play their music because it sucks. P.S.-- The Grammy's, Emmy's, Oscar's and anything else that comes out of Hollywood/L.A. is nothing more than a marketing gimmick to sell more music and movies to the pathetic masses (sheeple).
I too object to the Dixie Chicks winning so many Grammies. Not because of their politics, however. That their politics had much to do with their winning comes as no surprise at all. Their music just isn't all that great IMO.
When the Dixie Chicks music was mostly taken off the air it was because most of the listeners of Country Radio didn't want to listen to them. It was not to "punish" them. At the time, most everyone was for the war, not against it. And the listeners were pro-Bush. Radio stations do want to keep their listeners you know.
Liking music is very subjective... it varies from person to person. However, for their genre of music, I believe that the Chicks made the Top 40 in 2002-03. (I am depending on memory here, so I can be wrong.) If that is true, then it means that their songs appealed to certain sections of the demographics and they bought the Chicks' music. As for the radio stations banning them, it was just raving and ranting by the fanatics... the same bunch who believed that sadman hussein had WMDs and they refused to eat french fries unless they were called freedom fries.
Yes, they dared to speak out and paid the price/ It's because of 'freedoms' like that, that make foreigners like me hate, detest your 'freedoms' Don't you know it. *rolls eyes* I wake up each day seething about your 'freedoms'.