Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary

Random Thoughts of the Week: Introducing the “Tomatoes”

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I gave this the name “random thoughts” because basically that’s what you will find here. Think of the music version of a daily or weekly sports column with some news and/or opinions along with several random bits of information. Country Perspective has a similar Thursday column called “The Hodgepodge” and it is one of my favorite things to read from them, so I wanted to start something similar on my own blog.

One of the most irritating things for me in the wake of #SaladGate is the comment/defense that Keith Hill was merely stating facts of the music business right now. To be clear, country radio has far more problems than the lack of airplay for women. There is quality music being made by both men and women that is not getting the airplay it deserves, but I am truly tired of hearing, “Well, there really aren’t that many women right now,” or “he was just stating facts,” or the most infuriating, “of course that’s the statistic, how can you play women when there aren’t any?”

The thing is, my music collection is filled with women. There are plenty of great women artists, both mainstream and independent, but most casual listeners don’t know any names besides Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood, or maybe Kacey Musgraves and Kelsea Ballerini now, but that’s being optimistic. A large part of this is that radio doesn’t play these women, and so people assume they don’t exist.

People should know the “tomatoes” of the country world. Whether you like their music or not, they should at least have a chance to be heard, and so I will be featuring a woman on this site every Friday to help with this problem. Personal preference will not be taken into account–I hate Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line, but I got the chance to decide that because I heard them. So although I will comment on my personal preference, my main focus here is to fix this problem of people thinking there aren’t any women out there to fill the country airwaves.

Tomato of the Week: Katie Armiger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXI44BUDvJA

In light of her recent feud with her long-time label, Cold River Records, Katie is the first, and one of my favorite, underappreciated tomatoes. Check out her full article on Female Friday!

Random Country Suggestion: Shannon Brown

This song came on my iPhone on Shuffle, and I went to see what else she did (turns out nothing) and ended up buying this whole album.

Random Non-Country Suggestion: Selena Gomez–“The Heart Wants What it Wants”

I love country, but I like a little of everything else too, and I truly love this song. I have this version and a cover by our featured female–both are great.

That’s all for this week’s Random Thoughts!

Commentary

What Kelsea Ballerini’s No. 1 Single has to Say About Women in Country Music

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Kelsea Ballerini’s debut single, “Love me Like You Mean It,” made history this week when it became the first debut single by a female to hit No. 1 on the billboard country charts since Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take the Wheel” in 2006. Kelsea hit No. 1 on both the Billboard Country Airplay and mediabase country charts. I wonder what Keith Hill is saying about women in country now. (For those of you who don’t know, radio executive Keith Hill made himself a household name and a chauvinistic douchebag all in one day about a month ago when he compared women in country to tomatoes and said they should be taken out of radio completely.)

So what does this say about country? Well, it proves that country radio is not sexist, even if Keith Hill is. However, Kelsea sounds like a pop artist or at best a Taylor Swift, and what this does say is that women have to sound like pop singers to get on the radio. Also, there are plenty of women out there making great country albums who are being snubbed by country radio–Kacey Musgraves, Ashley Monroe, and Sunny Sweeney, just to name a few. Just proves that women are making more quality country music and therefore getting less airplay. So while it is a great day for the “tomatoes,” it is a sad day for country in general. Give Kacey or Ashley a NO. 1 instead. All the same, congratulations to Kelsea Ballerini for breaking this ridiculous nine-year drought.