Country music has always been a genre of cycles. The pendulum swings from more traditional sounds for several years, and then the trend swings towards more pop oriented fare for a while, before once again swinging back towards the traditional. As we approached the mid-90s, country music took it’s swing from the neo-traditional fare that began in the mid-80's, to a sound more decidedly pop than ever before in it’s history. This pop sound has run it’s course, and has more than worn out it’s unwelcome welcome among country music fans, and the time has come to swing back towards more traditional sounds. But can it?

The entire structure of the music industry, even the entire entertainment industry, has drastically changed in just the past several years, and there are things now in place, obstacles if you will, that were never there before, and any changes might now be an impossibility. Many people blame artists "selling out," "Nashville," and/or "the labels."

However, in reality, the problem is a whole lot bigger than it being just "the labels" or "the artists" or "Nashville." The problem the entertainment industry faces today is the "mega-conglomerate," which has resulted in monopolies. Most of Nashville was bought up by Gaylord. Gaylord has no interest in country music- they bought it up as an "investment" to support it's real business, which is the hospitality industry. When their "investments" weren't keeping up with their spending- they tried "fixing" things so they'd turn a higher profit- only problem is, none of 'em in the corporation knows a dang thing about country music. So now they’re selling off their "unprofitable" assets, as well as those for which they can raise immediate large capital, as in the recent sale of the Acuff-Rose catalog- to another corporate conglomerate- Sony.

As far as the labels, there used to be lots of them. Now there's only five majors left- and they're owned by international conglomerates, that own hundreds of other businesses. They don't know the first thing about music, wouldn't know the difference between an amp and a guitar...and in a nutshell, they don't care!! The only thing they're interested in are returns, dividends, appeasing stockholders, and the bottom line. They've put their own people in there to oversee them and make sure things are running- and to make a profit- whatever it takes. They're not interested in "creativity," nurturing new artists, or the longevity of established ones- they just want to see "the Benjamin's." Ditto for the radio industry. Each player in the game took on a tremendous debt load to become "king of the hill," and now they need to repay that debt, and they are simply looking for the fastest buck to do it.

And with only five major labels left, not only have thousands of employees lost their jobs, but thousands of artists have been cut loose. Those numbers are still shrinking, because these companies must now even further cut their budgets, since their "investments" aren’t paying off as rapidly as they need them to, in order to reduce their debt. Only the artists that are going to produce now are being kept- so the competition is fierce for those few roster spots, and right now, unless they’re currently at the top, if the artists won't play the game- they'll be tossed out in the blink of an eye. To play devil’s advocate, how much is it a matter of artists "selling out," or is it more a matter that they are being issued ultimatums by their labels if they wish to keep their contracts? And with the way contracts are written, many artists simply can’t afford to walk away without incurring a backbreaking debt load that they could never begin to repay.

In this kind of climate, it makes you wonder if Waylon had stood up to his label now, as he did back then, would he really have stood a chance of gaining what he won, today? Back then, labels were nothing to write home about, contracts were still unfairly written in the labels’ favor, and their accounting practices were always dubious, but there were still people in charge who knew deep down what the right thing was...musically, and unfortunately all those people are gone, and have been replaced by clueless number crunchers. Sure, The Dixie Chicks just fought with their label, but they were at the top of the food chain, and was Sony really going to be foolish enough to let a group with 20+ million sold for just two albums go, over a few royalties? Even more disturbing, some of the artists that resisted going all out pop during the height of the trend, seem to be doing it now, at a time when the climate is changing- sales of HNC are down, and the music that is selling, is leaning towards the more traditional, and the more organic sounds like bluegrass. The country music audience is sending the industry one message, yet the industry is sending the listener one that is very different- they have no intention of changing the status quo, and continue stripping the music of it’s heart and soul. Perhaps their latest cost cutting measure is the ultimate goal to abolish all genres entirely, making all music sound the same, thereby reducing the need for separate rosters, marketing, production and distribution.

The government went after Bell Telephone and IBM years ago, accusing them of being monopolies and forced them to break up. Yet today we have Microsoft, Clear Channel, Sony, Infinity/Viacom, etc., and they don't bat an eye. De-regulation was supposed to promote competition, and it's had the catastrophic opposite effect- and they still do nothing. Capitalism is one thing...but a Corporate Society is another, and little by little, that's just where things are heading, though it looks like we're pretty much already there.

Even before that awful day last September, we as Americans have slowly been losing our voice and our rights, one by one, to special interest groups who pay big money to our legislators to get bills that favor them- that rarely benefit the majority of American citizens- passed into law. And then we look up one day and find the abuses of the Enrons and the World.coms, we find ourselves being taxed upon taxes, we find ourselves electing people to govern us that once elected, turn a deaf ear towards their constituents and promote their own self serving agendas, and wonder how we’ve reached this point.

Americans fought long and hard for the rights they achieved. Didn't they have a "tea party" in Boston over stuff like this? Unless people do some serious brushing up on history, going back as recently as 30 and 40 years, and start standing up for themselves, frighteningly, I only see things getting worse.

There IS still great music being made out there, and there still are artists out there that believe in what they do that goes far beyond money issues. However, they are being denied their voice, and we are being denied the freedom of choice because of the strangleholds now in place within the industry. The only way much of this music is even getting out is through the web. However, the latest statistics show that only between 50 and 60% of American households own a computer and have access to the internet. So how do you reach these people that don’t? And now they are trying to severely restrict those of us that do have internet access with legislation before congress. Are you going to continue to let them shut down webstations, deny you the ability to sample artists who’s voices never get heard so you can make an informed decision on who you will spend your hard earned money on, dictate whether or not you can copy music for your own personal use after you’ve already paid for the music? Are you going to continue paying exorbitant ticket prices and the outrageous fees and surcharges that are imposed on top of that?

You can shut off the radio and stop buying major label releases to avoid the trash being peddled, but is that really solving the problem? Or is it an admission on the public’s behalf of defeat, that they are willing to sacrifice these things instead of standing up and fighting for them? The station owners are happier taking the cheap way out by simply playing "musical genres" in hopes of finding one that makes a profit, instead of servicing the listeners with what they want to hear. And it isn’t helping the truly creative independents get a fair share of the conventional marketplace, where they can compete with the major labels on an even playing field. Radio listenership and major label sales have been in decline ever since deregulation, and despite the drop, it hasn’t changed the way either choose to do business.

In the end it amounts to this: The artists answer to the labels, who answer to their owners, who do business within the guidelines of laws put in place by our government...Same for radio. So where do you start? Who do you take your fight to? Who’s to blame? What is the answer? Is there an answer? Can things ever be fixed, or are they too far gone?