From the archives: Achy Breaky Crap

Another piece I dug up (see the intro to Bramble Tamble Poetry Slamble for more details). I used to be a lot bigger country music fan than I am today, and before that, I wasn't at all. In the interim, somewhere around 2000 or 2001, I wrote the following piece on that year's Academy of Country Music awards for my website. Notable only for my position at the vanguard of Dixie Chicks hatred, as well as use of the phrase "utterly turdo."

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Achy Breaky Crap

Sorry about the delay in this article; although the Academy of Country Music awards show took place two weeks ago, it's taken me about that long to come up with enough synonyms for "turgid."

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There are two big annual awards shows on the country music calendar - the CMAs and the ACMs, as interchangeable as their acronyms. Two weeks ago, the ACMs were presented in Hollywood. While the ACM acronym stands for "Academy of Country Music," you could just as easily delete the "of" and say the "A" stands for "Allegedly" without sacrificing veracity.

The Nielsens might not have shown it, but this year's presentation was an unmitigated disaster. Top to bottom, the show was but a sad reminder of how far country music has gotten from its roots.

Selecting the beady-eyed Leann Rimes as host betrayed a dearth of good judgment on the part of the show's producers. She's spent a good portion of the last couple of months on the talk-show circuit, pissing and moaning about her record deal and burning bridges all around Nashville. It only figured that she would use her position as the show's host to continue down that path. Worse, aside from lacking any class whatsoever, Rimes was your typical self-centered brat, intent on self-promotion at the cost of focusing on anybody else. I don't know if she wrote her own material for the show, but it bombed badly, garnering absolute indifference from those in attendance (and, likely, those at home as well, if the reaction in my house was any indication). It would have been almost as worthwhile if, instead of Rimes, Lee Greenwood hosted and sang something like "God Bless The ACMs" - whereas my imagined scenario would have been just plain hokey, the real thing was just plain bad.

But who cares about hostess inadequacies and the overall presentation if the music delivers? As you might expect, that's part of the problem. Dwight Yoakam shined, playing his cover of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" to an all-too-unreceptive audience. Other highlights were Montgomery Gentry and Brooks & Dunn, even if Kix Brooks did wear those shiny pants that should never, ever be worn in any situation, ever.

On the other hand, the barely pubescent Billy Gilman stank up the auditorium with his own inimitable brand of bombastic, overblown fluff. A bunch of nameless, faceless, dime-a-dozen artists and bands sang a bunch of nameless, faceless, dime-a-dozen ballads, and Kenny Chesney played that crapulent song that sounds just like that crapulent Tim McGraw song. (McGraw, thankfully, was a non-factor in this year's awards, else I'd have to have found a way to work "no-talent oversinger" into this piece, and I'm already about all adjectived out.)

The awards portion of the show was, of course, a travesty as well. Granted, I'm being a bit petty at this point - I thought that Toby Keith should have clenaed up instead of taking home a paltry two ACMS (for Best Male Vocalist and Best Album). It's just misfortune on his part to make it to the top of the mountain the same year that Lee Ann Womack's turgid "I Hope You Dance" topped the charts for 785 weeks. Womack ended up taking home about 27 ACMs for the ballad; her collaborators on the tune, Sons of the Desert, failed to capitalize on their residual Womack, as they lost Best New Group to the utterly turdo Rascal Flatts. And once again, the Entertainer of the Year has failed to entertain me, as I've never had a whole lot of use for the Dixie Chicks.

Perhaps the most telling tale of how far down the crapper the entire genre has gone was not a sin of commission, but rather a sin of omission: May 9, the date of the show, was the 12th anniversary of Keith Whitley's death. Whitley, if you're not familiar, was genuine country, a legend-to-be who drank himself to death before he reached his prime, a man who otherwise would have had the career longevity of a Haggard or Cash. (Or, at the very least, a Strait.)

It's sadly fitting, then, that the producers apparently found it appropriate to have Rimes fill time with inane blather about her rotten record deal or sing that turdsucking song of hers from "Coyote Ugly" (complete with dancers, whom we were "treated" to watching limber up), rather than cut out even 30 seconds of that crap to have someone say a single solitary word in tribute to Whitley.

Yes, 30 seconds! That's all it would have taken. Sure, you can toss a bone to the traditionalists by devoting 5 minutes to a segment honoring a country legend - Barbara Mandrell won this year's "Pioneer Award" - but when your genre can move those units hand over fist by going pop, who needs to remember that pesky past?