Is radio becoming irrelevant to the music industry? Ask the Dixie Chicks

For those of us who remember 2003, one of the pivotal moments in music, especially country music, was the comment Natalie Maines told a London audience in which she indicated that she was ashamed that President Bush was also from Texas. The country western music radio stations were up in arms, Toby Keith went on the war path, and the extremely popular Dixie Chicks went from a number one country music group to persona non grata. You couldn't hear them on the radio under any circumstance.

Fast forward to the current day, and the Dixie Chicks have released their new album, Taking the Long Way. Their first single is "Not Ready to Make Nice" which orchestrates DC's refusal to drop the whole issue in lieu of the backlash they received from country western radio stations. Well, judging from the news stories that came out immediately after the album was announced, local Grand Rapids country western stations (there are two biggies) indicated the following comments: "We gave them a chance and they blew it again" and "Our radio station isn't going to be playing any Dixie Chicks music at all." THE REST OF THE COUNTRY responded in about the same manner. Country western stations weren't going to touch the new Dixie Chicks material. They were going to make the Chicks pay for their insubordination towards country music. In other words, don't get on the bad side of Toby Keith and his posse, or you're going to be sorry.

Well, sorry Toby, but without hardly ANY radio play whatsoever from their own genre, the Dixie Chicks are now number one in the country in album sales for both the mass market and the country market. Without radio stations playing their music, they sold 526,000 CDs in the first full week. Toby Keith's first week for his new album "White Trash With Money", sold 330,000 CDs. In the year, only Rascal Flatts's "Me and My Gang" has done better with 772,000 units sold.

So what can this mean? Perhaps it means something bigger than the Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith. Perhaps it is starting to show that the old radio standard is becoming irrelevant. The Dixie Chicks maintain an active presence on Myspace, which has them updating their information with almost daily reports. They talk to their fans, even if they can't always talk to them one on one. Other stars, like Shania Twain, also have Myspace presences, but they're not really on them. Perhaps we're starting to reach that era we were promised so long ago where we can physically reach out and talk to the people we admire. Without serious radio play, I truly believe this has made a serious impact on the survivability and continued growth of performers who used to be under the thumb of the radio stations.

Perhaps what we are seeing is the end of the radio station's era of control of the purse strings of music consumers. With Ipods, MP3 players, and a disdain of anything music industry related by the new crowd of people who consume music, is it any surprise that the industry is changing and it takes monumental events and people like the Dixie Chicks to reveal that the people are interested in the performers, not the dogmatic decisions made by people who make them based on their personal beliefs more than the quality of the music. Perhaps this is the start of something much bigger than anyone realizes.

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