1980-82 was a golden era for country/pop crossovers as CHR struggled mightily after disco crashed and (literally, in Chicago) burned. "Somebody's Knockin'" was a perfect crossover record, no fiddles, no steel guitar, only the slightest twang in Gibbs' vocals. I liked her follow-up, "Anybody Else's Heart But Mine," much more, but not only did it make no impact on pop radio, it stiffed at country as well. The production and instrumentation on that song was considerably more country, and the hook just as catchy, but Gibbs, for all her obvious talent, apparently wasn't clicking with radio programmers or -- if testing was being done in the early '80s -- listeners.
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Country At a Crossroads?
- Thread starter TheBigA
- Start date
From what I've read, Luke Combs chose to record "Fast Car" simply because he remembers liking it as a child. I believe it was the first song he heard, or took a liking to.
BTW I just went to the CMT site, and people can vote for Try That In a Small Town to be in their Top 20 Countdown this weekend. The video is still not available to be streamed on the site. But you can vote. It'll be interesting to see if it's included in their countdown this weekend.
AFAIK, CMT never announced why they had dropped the video. Most of the reporting I saw was speculation. I haven't seen an official comment from anyone at CMT. Since then, we know that the video was edited to remove some unlicensed content. Perhaps that was the only issue, and all of this has been BS.
www.thewrap.com
The song is now #1 on Billboard's Hot 100.
www.kswo.com
That chart is mainly driven by streaming.
AFAIK, CMT never announced why they had dropped the video. Most of the reporting I saw was speculation. I haven't seen an official comment from anyone at CMT. Since then, we know that the video was edited to remove some unlicensed content. Perhaps that was the only issue, and all of this has been BS.
Jason Aldean Video Edited to Remove Coverage of Black Lives Matter Protests – Over TV Copyright Claims (Video)
"Try That in a Small Town" also drew widespread backlash for being filmed at the site of a horrific 1927 lynching
www.thewrap.com
The song is now #1 on Billboard's Hot 100.
Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That in a Small Town’ hits No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100
Jason Aldean has climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week with his controversial single “Try That in a Small Town.”
That chart is mainly driven by streaming.
The lyrics to the song speak for themselves. A huge number of Country fans obviously share the songs divisive message. Even many people who have said they like Country music call it trite and mediocre. It's become a big hit because the hillbillies have to "show them City Liberals"...BTW I just went to the CMT site, and people can vote for Try That In a Small Town to be in their Top 20 Countdown this weekend. The video is still not available to be streamed on the site. But you can vote. It'll be interesting to see if it's included in their countdown this weekend.
AFAIK, CMT never announced why they had dropped the video. Most of the reporting I saw was speculation. I haven't seen an official comment from anyone at CMT. Since then, we know that the video was edited to remove some unlicensed content. Perhaps that was the only issue, and all of this has been BS.
Jason Aldean Video Edited to Remove Coverage of Black Lives Matter Protests – Over TV Copyright Claims (Video)
"Try That in a Small Town" also drew widespread backlash for being filmed at the site of a horrific 1927 lynching
The song is now #1 on Billboard's Hot 100.
Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That in a Small Town’ hits No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100
Jason Aldean has climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week with his controversial single “Try That in a Small Town.”
That chart is mainly driven by streaming.
There's nothing in the lyrics that are any more extreme than what Hank Jr said 40 years ago.
All there really is here is a matter of personal taste.
Call-out in began in the mid-70's both in Phoenix and San Diego (KRIZ and KCBQ) and rapidly expanded with forward-thinking programmers.
But even then programmers knew that it took three to four weeks of airplay to be able to test a song. Did the song you refer to get enough airplay to even test?
So, yeah, it's likely that anyone who did play it at a station that had adopted testing would have had a measurement of audience reaction.
I remember hearing it on WDLW, which was Boston's country station in the early '80s. The song peaked at No. 17 on the Billboard Country chart in 1983, so I assume it was getting airplay in some more traditional country markets as well. Correcting part of what I wrote earlier: It was not the immediate follow-up to "Somebody's Knockin'." Her label sent a number of singles to radio in 1981 and 1982 with modest to minimal success. The biggest hit was "Mis'ry River" at No. 12 in 1981, a song I have no memory of.
You are way off base. The recent issues with "that song" have to do with the scenes in the video, not the song.
I hate small towns. I tried to live in a smaller one about 10 years back and just could not adapt. If I were going to write a song about places to live, I'd pen a paean to all the variety in activities, doctors, churches, educational institutions and people from all over the planet... a lot of which the small-towners don't value as much.
To me, a lot of small towns are like Newton, Mississippi, where a group of us from WJMO in Cleveland went around 1961 to register voters.
But to others, there is, to borrow part of New Mexico's slogan, "enchantment" in those smaller places. And country artists are welcome to sing about it.
The song is about a lifestyle. The video contrasted it with the worst of some big cities... the song just sings praise for that kind of life.
This makes me think that it was less likely that country radio was doing call-out at that time, particularly in markets with just one country station. So there was less "instant rejection" of songs that would not do well in research but which "sounded good" on the air.
That's what the media outlets that are wringing their collective hands over this event are missing. Their reporters (and editors, if the stories are still going through them) have no idea that a separate chart for airplay exists. The see a song at No. 1 on the Hot 100 and assume that it's a huge pop hit as well as a huge country hit and must be all over the radio, played every hour on the hour on every station in America. They could easily check for themselves by, say, listening to their local pop stations for a day or two, during which, of course, they'd never hear that song or anything else by Aldean. And if they were to listen to their local country stations, they might hear it three or four times a day, which is how frequently a song that hasn't yet broken into the airplay Hot 100 figures to be played. But instead, they jump on a streaming-driven chart as an indicator of overwhelming popularity. Pathetic "journalism."The song is now #1 on Billboard's Hot 100.
Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That in a Small Town’ hits No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100
Jason Aldean has climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week with his controversial single “Try That in a Small Town.”
That chart is mainly driven by streaming.
They're also allowing their personal taste and politics interfere with the actual story. This song was released two months before the video. There were no objections to the song until it was combined with the video. I don't know who was the first outlet to report the CMT story, because it wasn't CMT. Then the video was edited. What they all fail to understand is their handwringing is exactly what is driving the streaming numbers. Their attempting to "cancel" someone from the country is exactly what drives people to become fans of artists and music they might not have otherwise enjoyed. So they created the story they're reporting. Had they not overexposed this song and the video, it would not have gone #1.
I suggested that someone at those media outlets actually listen to CHR and country radio. But of course, your average reporter at Rolling Stone or The New York Times is far above that sort of proletarian slumming. In fact, the reporters at the small and mid-size papers I worked at largely also fit that description, but at least they knew that there was someone on the copy desk who could help them get stories containing a country music angle right, and they would ask me. Come to think of it, they also knew to ask me about horse racing, gambling and professional wrestling, three of my other "low-brow" interests.
Have you read the lyrics? It threatens people with violence if they "try that in a small town". It doesn't say they'll call the police. It infers they'll break your skull or shoot you.
I agree that without the video, very few people would know about this song. But I guess that's the marketing brilliance at work. Controversy sells. Just at look at the leading Republican presidential candidate...
Happens in a big town too. Nothing racial about it. Or unlawful. That's what Hank Jr pointed out 40 years ago.
Vigilantism is not unlawful in your mind? The "dog whistle" racial component is pretty obvious in the lyrics. The song will be soon forgotten anyway and the news cycle will move on...
So self defense is now improper?
As I said before, how about "self defense" or having your friends and neighbors stand up for you?
I don't hear any "dog whistles" there. Just the feeling of neighbors and togetherness that some find attractive about a small town.
Not in the south. They believe in it. The constitution talks about citizen militias.
You obviously didn't read the lyrics. Self defense is fine. Unless you're someone like Trayvon Martin...
Yeah...that last part.
This whole thing has been rather astonishing BS. Again, the song isn't really all that remarkable, there are people sharing it online and standing "in solidarity" with a guy they'd never heard of (and maybe never listened to country) because they got all worked up over a label taking advantage of a minor "controversy" over a middling song and turning it into a goldmine.
Trae Crowder had a great take on the song (NSFW words):
And once again, kudos to the promotion team at the label. They got a number one record out of this, and folks who wouldn't play a country song on the infotainment in their Tesla are all like (adopts southern accent) "yeah, you try that in a small town, Woke Hollywood!"
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