Take Country Back

Editorial Announcement
Shiftin' Gears

We’ve been feeling a change coming in the air for some time now, and the time has come for Take Country Back to take a step in a new direction. While since it’s inception, Take Country Back has always included more than just traditional country music and has embraced country music’s mostly independent artists, as well as the offshoots of the genre such as country-folk, country-blues, roots-rock, bluegrass, and a bit of cowpunk, it’s focus nonetheless, has been on music’s country based roots. Nothing wrong with that, and we still wholeheartedly believe in and support those country based roots.

But we grew up in an age when Top 40 encompassed and included the top hits of all genres, a mix of pop, rock, R&B, country, folk, rap, and dance. There were no “remixes” in order to suit a certain pre-conceived criteria- they were served straight up, exactly as heard in their respective undiluted genre form. We grew up with freeform FM rock stations, where just “plain old” rock & roll was heard along with it’s many shades of southern-rock, country-rock, progressive-rock, glam-rock, blues-rock, folk-rock, punk, new wave, metal, and grunge. We grew up with country stations that played traditional country, Countrypolitan, outlaw, country-pop and even a bit of bluegrass. We grew up with radio stations that played old favorites, current hits, new releases and album cuts. In other words, we grew up with variety. And while everyone has their preferences, by being exposed to a variety of music, the end result is that most people do listen to a variety of music.

That’s no longer the case due to media deregulation and corporate mergers and consolidation within the industry. The result is old news and there’s no need to rehash the consequences, other than to note that the scope of genres was severely narrowed because media corporations found themselves owning multiple stations in a given market that had the same format that would have put them in competition with themselves. They rectified this problem by sub-dividing and splintering genres into niche formats that targeted a smaller specific, rather than larger general audience. So unless a person constantly flips around the radio dial to hear some variety, those who keep their dial set to a specific station or two are only being exposed to a tiny fraction of music- even within the same genre.

Those consequences are in no way unique to country music, it’s a problem that’s run rampant throughout the industry and touches every music genre. The original purpose and goal of Take Country Back was to introduce people to the abundance of great country music that continues to be made by a wealth of talented and creative independent artists who may not be, and may never become, “household names,” but who bucked the system doing things their way, and deserved a forum for a chance to be heard. After what’s rapidly closing in on seven years, we at Take Country Back feel we’ve accomplished that goal to the best of our ability on behalf of one genre, and feel it’s time to shift our gears and broaden the horizon to include other roots based genres who’s artists face the same challenges.

With that said, we’re excited to announce that Take Country Back will be undergoing some changes. Our goal and vision is to create a new home that brings together all roots based music genres under one roof, providing not only exposure to the great artists and music of different genres, but once again bringing back variety.

The first and most prominent change will be the “Take Country Back” logo, that features a wide open road. The name was always a bit misleading and misunderstood from the start, and especially now with its new direction, the new "wide open road" logo seems a far better fit. And so therefore, our longtime acronym “TCB,” has come to hold a whole new meaning for us- we'll simply be "taking care of business," as our new tag line will change to “Taking It Back To The Roots!” The current TCB Radio will fade out, and in it’s place we’ll have a new station that will provide a broader range of roots based music that will include not only country, but blues, folk and roots-rock in all their varying shades. The new TCB will still be bringing you the station’s Top 20, along with news, reviews, interviews, editorials, feature articles and listening rooms.We’ll just be presenting them within the broader scope of the roots music landscape. The Take Country Back MySpace page will still be located at www.myspace.com/takecountryback in addition to it's new sister MySpace page, TCB Roots at www.myspace.com/tcbroots.

Additionally, we’re excited to be incorporating TraXStar, an indie friendly digital music download service that will reside on the TCB site, specifically designed to address and correct the flaws and inequities in the existing corporate owned services, that will be far more beneficial to the artists selling their music.

While we are under no means abandoning country music altogether, and still remain a staunch supporter, we simply feel it’s time to provide equal time and exposure to other roots based genres and those artists that face the same hurdles and challenges, along side of country music. The world has already become too fragmented with too many degrees of separation currently existing. Great music is great music that should neither be fragmented or separated, but simply be put out there, regardless of genre, to be heard and enjoyed by all.