Nashville record executives are starting to run scared, and the direction they`re starting to run is backwards.
Small wonder.
From its fat Urban Cowboy days of 1980–when acceptance of country-crossover records by pop radio pushed country sales to 16 percent of the whole U.S. record market, making country second only to rock–country in 1983 fell to 13 percent, and some fear the yet-to-be-released 1984 figures may plummet to 11 percent or less.
There, far below rock (35 percent in `83) and ”pop & easy listening”
(14 percent), country would be battling black music to stay out of fourth place.
So Nashville record bosses appear to be changing gears. They`re retreating from their former pop crossover strategies at a pace that`s becoming almost disorderly. The sequence of events prompting the turnaround went this way:
— Wearying of mechanical bulls and other trappings of the Urban Cowboy craze, pop fans became beguiled by more outrageous and exotic kinds of pop music–say, the heavy-metal rock made by Ozzy Osbourne, best-known to non-pop listeners for his oral decapitation of a bat, or the synthesizer techno-pop of U.S.-invading British groups. Alongside Ozzy and techno-pop, the comparative straightness and mellowness of Crystal Gayle, the Oak Ridge Boys and Anne Murray looked pretty incongruous. So most pop stations playing Osbourne and techno-pop stopped playing as much of the Gayle-Oaks-Murray kind of country.
— As a result, country-crossover singers had to start relying more on country radio listeners, a lot of whom have tended to regard crossover as heretical. Meanwhile, a lot of countryish former pop acts–Michael Martin Murphey, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Dan Seals, John Fogerty, Dan Fogelberg, etc.–began competing for country radio exposure because the pop outlets for their mellow, lyric-oriented music were closing.
— Today some of these interlopers–as well as many of their multitude of Nashville-based, country-crossover peers–are being pushed hard by record executives to soften or eliminate rock tempos and pop strings and to record with the fiddles and steel guitars of traditionalism. And the only new acts being signed to contracts are suddenly, at least figuratively speaking, those who can sing through their noses.
These developments are fostering good results and bad.
The good: Thank heaven, some fine traditional singers who were either underemphasized or altogether ignored during the crossover-crazy years–such people as Gene Watson, Connie Smith and Allen Frizzell, all of whom recently have been signed by CBS Records–are again being recognized as the talents they are and being given the promotional push they deserved all along.
The bad: Many record executives now seem to be making the same sort of mistake they made a few years ago when they were so enamored of crossover music. Just as they used to push most of their rosters in the crossover direction, now many of them seem to be pushing in the traditionalist direction, whether that style fits the personnel or not.
With the traditionalist tack, the record bosses doubtless are trying to play it safe. Traditionalism–which can boast the ”gold” (i.e., 500,000-selling) albums of Merle Haggard, George Jones, Ricky Skaggs and George Strait –rarely has been able to command the ”platinum” (million-selling) status of such crossover giants as Alabama, Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson. But
”gold” is obviously better than less-than-”gold”–which is what most crossover singers are selling without pop airplay.
The radical change of policy has transformed Nashville into the scene of what some are describing as a full-scale ”war” against crossover and its adherents. In private, some of these adherents are bewailing the personal attacks they believe they hear in the jubilantly pro-traditionalist remarks by such young leaders of the traditionalist revolution as Ricky Skaggs and Reba McEntire.
When their own philosophy was in the ascendancy, the crossover people never seemed to worry about denigrating the traditionalists with all sorts of private fun-poking having to do with nasality and cow pastures, but now that the boot is on the other foot, they are finding it paranoiacally
claustrophobic. Even so, their wailing suggests some points that make sense.
In pushing crossover singers toward traditionalism, the record bosses run a grave risk of reducing the popularity of those with whom a traditionalist style is incompatible, the same way they weakened the appeal of a lot of traditional singers a few years ago by making them try to cross over. The bosses also are in danger of recording a lot of phony-traditionalist records that may never sell, the same way a few years ago they recorded a lot of phony-crossover records that didn`t sell.
This probably will happen as soon the fickle pop market changes and again becomes more receptive to softer, more story-oriented song styles again–as it is virtually certain to do. A pop-watching expert advises that Michael Jackson`s fans are probably too young, and Bruce Springsteen`s and Prince`s too hooked on hard rock, to care much for country`s more lyrical examinations of adult life and love. But the music with which Lionel Richie is succeeding these days is very compatible with the crossover ballads that were country`s mainstream a couple of years ago.
The pop expert adds that, in pop, all that`s required to start a new phenomenon is one hit; Tina Turner, red-hot now, was in limbo a year ago. And the examples of ”Coal Miner`s Daughter” and ”Urban Cowboy” suggest that almost anything–maybe, say, Jessica Lange`s Patsy Cline movie biography scheduled for release late this year–can whet the pop appetite for countryish records once more. Whenever that happens, countryish records will be welcomed back onto pop radio, and their sales again will skyrocket.
That is, if the Nashville bosses notice the trend in time. They nearly missed out on the current traditionalist one because they had so many eggs in the crossover basket they didn`t want to admit the obvious appeal of traditionalism; they finally had to, though, because the eggs in their crossover basket started to smell so bad.
Now, if they aren`t careful, they`re going to find themselves scrambling to catch up again. Like Detroit with its oversized, gas-guzzling automobiles in the energy-short `70s, they`re going to find themselves offering only irrelevant country Cadillacs at the very moment a large segment of the world at large starts wanting pop Mazda RX-7s.
So, here is a suggested course for country executives:
— Find and develop some good traditionalist singers who want to be traditionalists–the Ricky Skaggses and Reba McEntires and George Straits and Whites of the world–and let them be that. Promote the dickens out of them and sell their records to the large numbers of loyal, appreciative, traditional country fans they have proved are out there.
— At the same time, find and develop some good crossover singers who want to be that–the Ronnie Milsaps, Barbara Mandrells, Hank Juniors, Janie Frickes, Eddie Rabbitts and Exiles–and let them be that, and promote the dickens out of them, too.
— And cover all other bases by keeping on hand and promoting a few others, from the Juddses and Lacy J. Daltons to the John Conlees and David Allan Coes, who can go either way.
Such a policy would anticipate any trend. It would also nurture both wings of the core country audience by giving it (1) the traditionalists who can keep a record company from going bankrupt and (2) crossover people who
–from Eddy Arnold through Waylon & Willie to Dolly Parton–not only have a country following but can attract the pop-country market, hit the occasional wider-selling long shot and make a record company rich.
It might just forestall an influx of Japanese imports in the country music business. Then again, maybe some Japanese executive imports might not be so bad. At least the Japanese seem to know how to give a consumer what he wants when he wants it.
