One of my more guilty pleasures when I'm at my folks' place is watching CMT (Country Music Television). I'm not a big fan of most of the music that plays there (anymore), but I generally enjoy country music videos because they are the best music videos out there. I have a lot to say about music videos and why Country is on the top of the music video totem pole (followed by rap, R&B, pop, rock, and last of all heavy metal), but I'll just say right now that country music videos are often everything other music videos should be but are not. Anyone wishing to challenge me on that point is welcome to do so.

Anyhow, a music video by one Shania Twain came on. It was a real high-budget affair with Shania riding some high-tech motorcycle through some high-tech superhighways analogous to some N64 video game whose title I cannot recall (G-Force maybe?). Obviously a lot of time and money was put forth into this music video that will not make a dime. Oddly enough, I can't remember the song itself other than that it conspicuously had nothing to do with high-tech motorcycles, computer generated highways, or G-Force... but I'm not going to talk about how terrible most music videos are, dammit, so let me get to the point.

Until I saw this video on CMT, I had completely forgotten that some people still consider Shania Twain to be country music. It's possible that at one point in her career she was, though it has not been the case since I have started following country music (which started in about 1999 I'd guess). However, I'll temporarily put aside the hysterical laughter at the thought of Twain wearing so much as a cowboy boot and assume that she was, in fact, a country artist at one point in her career. I'll even grant that as Twain has moved into pop music, country stations and music video networks like CMT and GAC are inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt and think that, while her current album may be more poppish than her (allegedly, but benignly assumed at this point) earlier country ones, she may yet return to country music and thus it might not be a good idea to alienate her by applying a litmus test to what does and does not constitute a country artist based solely on their last album. The same benefit of the doubt is granted to Faith Hill and probably just about anyone else who has nice hair and looks good in skimpy outfits.

So be it.

But Faith Hill, despite her having moved away from country music in more recent, has three things that Shania Twain does not. First of all, she was very definitively a country music artist for some time in her career. I've seen the videos with her in country & western attire, and however silly she looks in them (she does), she at least had the gumption to wear them. Secondly, anyone who has seen Hill interviewed will note that she is definitely a southern girl in both accent and demeanor. She is a proud mother of two, three, or sixteen hundred kids and, however silly she looks in C&W wear (and she does), she at least looks like she would fit in at a barbeque in Alabama. Third, she is married to Tim McGraw, who is not only considered a country musician in most quarters (outside of Texas) but wears a cowboy had and boots for bona fides.

Shania Twain, on the other hand, pictured in country-wear evokes the hysterical laughter that I'm trying very hard to avoid to maintain at least a veneer of objectivity. Miss Twain is also not from the South, but rather Canada. She does not speak with the accent of a southerner, but rather with the accent of a spoiled bitch who has had everything handed to her on a silver platter because she has a 36-22-36 figure and looks so good in tight leather and skimpy outfits that no one bothers to ask why she isn't wearing more modest attire that someone ostensibly country might wear.

But I digress.

The point of this is that, even though I give her the benefit of the doubt as having perhaps been a country musician at one point in her life and even though I am not in favor of litmus tests for what is and is not considered country, I have to ask: At what point can we kick her out of the club?

I can put up with Kenny Chesney and his pool pictures, Tim McGraw and his tight leather pants singing songs that is a drumline and fiddle away from belonging on bland adult contemporary radio, and Brian White standing there and looking pretty because while Chesney, McGraw, and White may symbolize everything that is wrong with country music, they are at least country musicians insofar as country music stations play them repeatedly and non-country music stations generally do not (as they do, for instance, Twain and Hill). With these things in mind, what exactly does Twain have to do for people to realize that this snobby Canadian with not an ounce of cowboy hat, twang, authenticity, fiddle, steel guitar and/or anything else that actually differentiates country music from pop is not actually a country musician in any sense of the word "country?"

Recently, Dixie Chicks frontgirlie Natalie Maines took a swipe at President Bush and, by extention, those that voted for him and supported him. Since Bush draws most of his support from the south and the south listens to country music, they have been met with a hostile reaction the likes of which I have personally never seen. Former Dixie Chick fans started running over their CDs with tractors, burning them, and calling radio stations to keep them off their blessed country airwaves.

Is that what it's going to take to get Twain off said blessed country airwaves? Will that do it? If so, I'm sure I can find something.



Is this enough? Please? I have the PSD file saved so I can make her say just about anything. Whatever it'll take, let me know. For the good of country music, I'll waste my time and make her say it!