Why Taylor Swift is so good for Nashville (a.k.a., quit your belly aching)
I had the privilege of running sound for a concert at the Factory in Franklin last night for Ashley Cleveland and a new Warner Bros. recording artist named Jason Reeves. It was a simple acoustic set for each artist but Jason did have a percussionist. I share this because our conversations shed a little little on why Nashville is such a draw right now as a Creative and Artistic center for more and more artists and different forms of music beside country. Jason was explaining to me how he recorded half of his new record in LA and the other half at a guys house here in Nashville. In the same sentence he said, "Nashville is way better." Now this is a kid who followed his dream from Iowa to LA, met some key people, co-wrote all of Colbie Caillat's material, like the hit "Bubbly," lives in LA but wants to move here. Charlie Peacock is somewhat to thank for this event. Jason's percussionist/drummer was an amazingly creative and skilled player who can't wait to move here as well. But I digress...
The real reason of this post is to give my reasons for loving what young artists like Taylor Swift, Hillary Scott (Lady A), Keith Urban and a host of others are doing to make Nashville truly "Music City." Yes their primary market is (or has been) country, but they are expanding the genre in unprecedented ways. There are many musical styles and many people enjoy several kinds of music, but Taylor, right now, is bring attention to Nashville at new levels. I think it is time to end the arguments of whether or not she can sing, or if she is only an anomaly - flash in the pan - and focus on the benefits we could all experience if Nashville continues to get the kind of national attention we are getting right now.
This morning I was going over my Grammy voting possibilities and there Taylor is for Record of the Year with "You Belong To Me" alongside Lady Gaga, Black-eyed Peas, Kings of Leon (also a Middle TN act) and Beyonce. I have to say, after listening to each of those songs, I hope she wins. If I didn't know who each artist was as I listened to the production, song quality, performance, etc. I would have chosen her song as the best I heard. Plain and simple. As an aside, I happen to love all the other artists in the category as well.
So, where do you stand? Can you embrace what Taylor has done (is doing) for Nashville?
The real reason of this post is to give my reasons for loving what young artists like Taylor Swift, Hillary Scott (Lady A), Keith Urban and a host of others are doing to make Nashville truly "Music City." Yes their primary market is (or has been) country, but they are expanding the genre in unprecedented ways. There are many musical styles and many people enjoy several kinds of music, but Taylor, right now, is bring attention to Nashville at new levels. I think it is time to end the arguments of whether or not she can sing, or if she is only an anomaly - flash in the pan - and focus on the benefits we could all experience if Nashville continues to get the kind of national attention we are getting right now.
This morning I was going over my Grammy voting possibilities and there Taylor is for Record of the Year with "You Belong To Me" alongside Lady Gaga, Black-eyed Peas, Kings of Leon (also a Middle TN act) and Beyonce. I have to say, after listening to each of those songs, I hope she wins. If I didn't know who each artist was as I listened to the production, song quality, performance, etc. I would have chosen her song as the best I heard. Plain and simple. As an aside, I happen to love all the other artists in the category as well.
So, where do you stand? Can you embrace what Taylor has done (is doing) for Nashville?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by MArc-Alan Barnette on -
This is a great thread Brent. We are getting so much of that "Taylor sucks" garbage and frankly it makes me sick. The girl speaks to her generation and has brought different styles, focus, language attitudes into country and of course, sales and market share. She writes intellegent songs that speak to women of every age group who are the largets buying target for any type of music. She is controlling and using the Internet better than anyone out there and IS what the future of music is going to be. Anyone involved with music not only should be respecting her, but emulating what she is doing by building fan base and demand for their music through the web and personal interaction with their audiences.
Music is and always has been about building a one on one relationship with an audience. That is all that is important. And Taylor has done that magnificently. If you want to see the difference with her and so many in the music industry you don't have to look any further than the whole Kanye West fiasco. That is old, arrogant, "all about me and what I think, look at me" attitude, verses new "understanding where you fit in in the overall scheme of things" attitude.
A rising tide lifts all boats, and she is in the foregard of raising awareness with the new and expanding markets of what Nashville is. Music city. That is the reason over the past few years stars like Bon Jovi, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kid Rock, and other rock acts have gravitated here. Even the reasons people like Darrius Rucker have succeeded so well. Country as a format is expanding, and other forms of music are developing here.
In the 90's country music had always represented about 7% of market share. In 1992 the total gross reciepts of coutnry music, every ticket, every tour, every T shirt, every CD, etc. was about $255 million and 7-8% of market share. In 1994 it was $2.5 BILLION and 14% of market share. That was mostly from Garth Brooks. It raised the entire city and business. International magazines featured country singers like Straight, Reba, etc, on their covers. more and more television shows were dedicated to it. And real estate prices, businesses, and people exploded into the area. The building boom we have seen and still going on is a result of that.
Now we have a downturn in the economy, but the country music indsustry is booming. Magazine covers feature Taylor, Carrie Underwood, Faith and Tim. More and more shows and movies have country undertones. The major tours have Nashville flavor. And more people coming to the area. Even things like the downturn around the country where layoffs, businesses closing, downsizing, will ultimately benefit Nashville because people will say "Well I have to move somewhere, why not somewhere I can be around music?"
So yes, Taylor is good for country. It refreshes the attitude, brings financial rewards. Even if people don't like her per se, it is a blind person that doesn't see the residual effects.
A rising tide lifts all boats. Right now the tide is a 19 year old girl.
MAB
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Permalink Reply by Pete Warren on -
Great thread, Bret. I know MANY have mixed feelings on this issue. People always try to make the argument that simply having a great singer singing great songs is enough. Clearly, it's not. It's that total package that makes it happen. I'd say that it wouldn't have happened without tuning software, but candidly, when I listen back to old recordings of MANY singers that w3e consider great, they're all over the place, pitch wise. Heck, even Bono is all over the place, clearly they're not using the technology to change that. Imagine hearing a u2 record with auto-tune?!? While I don't much care for natalie merchant's voice, she's flat 100% of the time, and she's sold a lot of records.
What's my point? It's not about being a great singer. It's about being a great stylist and having a great personality and such. She's got all that. And she's a decent singer. So who cares if she's tuned?
Here's what I'd LOVE to see happen. Taylor and Miley have cut some freaking great songs this year. Songs that have come out of Nashville for the most part, I believe. Only TWICE in the history of the GRAMMY's has nashville won song of the year. THAT'S SAD SAD SAD! Especially since we're known as the songwriting capital of the world.
So what I think is great, is that an artist like Taylor gives nashville the spotlight it deserves. WE're an amazing city with amazing talent, a great vibe, world-class musicians, producers, engineers, songwriters, etc... We're LONG overdue on our share of Grammy's. And I'm talking about winning some record of the years and song of the year type awards.
SO if you're eligible for having a voting membership at NARAS, and don't let's use this momentum and get some awards coming our way!
But I do think we need to add a category in the awards. "Best Engineer - Vocalist tuning of the year." Just a thought.
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Permalink Reply by Bret Teegarden on -
I think you know where my votes are going.
I will say, that the only thing I think is holding Nashville back from getting the kind of awards you are talking about is the fact that we are not a media center. While Taylor, Mylie and a few others are expanding our reach, you can bet they are spending the lion share of their time in NYC and LA. It takes all those media outlets to keep the buzz going. Now if we had that kind of access to world wide media outlets, I think we would see a lot more happening here in Nashville. CMT and GAC are excellent at what they do, but they only deal with the Country demographic. I am not really sure what needs to change for Nashville to become a media hub...
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Permalink Reply by Bob Olhsson on -
Being the largest and second largest cities in the United States sure doesn't hurt!
We're batting lots better than of both LA's and NYC' local talent!
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Permalink Reply by Pete Warren on
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Good point. I'm not exactly sure how you fix that issue either. I must candidly say I've never thought of that issue.
It's odd, isn't it? Somehow the worlds best talent is attracted in greater numbers to Nashville than the other cities. Our industry is more centralized. Yet you are correct, we lack the international media outside country music.
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Permalink Reply by Bob Olhsson on
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Music people can no longer afford to live in NY and LA.
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Permalink Reply by MArc-Alan Barnette on
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Nashville nor any other city is ever going to replace LA or New York as central media centers. Can't happen. too many entrenched political interests there. That is what they tried to do with Atlanta in the 80's and that town is a wreck. Even put CNN there, revamped the cable television business, but the majority of everything is still based in LA or New York.
Nashville doesn't need to do that. The problems that are being talked about on other threads about the convention center underline just why it shouldn;t do that. Convention business is off nationwide because more things are done via the Internet now. Convention business is never going to be what it was any more than the music industry is not going to be what it once was.
So different business models need to be followed instead of repeating the falures of Las Vegas, San Diego and other places that have run off the cliffs through that older thinking. Nashville should embrace what it is, a unique big little town. Instead of tryin to be the next New York or LA, it should be the best community it can be. Embrace the close, intimate nature that makes this town what it is.
The more they follow the same business models, the more they are doomed to the same fate. It should be noted that Taylor, is essentially an independent artist. Albeit one with Major industry ties, the music she writes, the publishing, recording, touring, all business is done for all intents and purposes, an independent artist and writer. She has dominated the industry doing just that, stayed in touch with her fans via the internet, and built her own kingdom mostly through her own devices.
That is the model that should be emulated.
MAB
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Permalink Reply by Bob Olhsson on
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Nashville already tried to become the next New York or LA over a decade before Atlanta and we have several huge Hollywood-scale video production facilities that are shuttered to prove it!
Before the mid '60s, New York and Chicago were the big media centers with LA being only the center of motion picture production and a thriving music publishing industry pitching to the film makers. Nashville was pretty much a branch of Chicago where country music as a genre was invented. During the mid to late '60s when air travel became fast, cheap and practical, virtually the entire media industry consolidated in Los Angeles. Chicago and Detroit, where I grew up and began my career (really another branch of the Chicago music industry,) were both devastated while New York became a shadow of what it had once been.
The story of how the music business became so big here in Nashville is utterly amazing. It really comes down to Owen Bradley's reputation in Chicago during the late '30s as THE top popular music arranger which attracted Decca, Columbia and Capital to recording all kinds of music here after he returned home to accept the music director's job at WSM in 1941.
The Jordanaires showing Harold Bradley what would become known as the Nashville number system during the mid '50s turned the Nashville A-Team into the most productive group of session musicians in the world. Recording in Nashville was cheaper than recording anywhere else yet everybody was in the union and being just as well paid. By the end of the live vocal with full band era in the late '60s, there were 16 studios recording three major label sessions a day with a full live band or orchestra. An immense amount of stuff many of us assumed was being recorded in New York or LA was actually being recorded here.
During the '70s overdubbing and self-contained groups became popular and the live recording and professional songwriting work fell off substantially outside of the country genre. Probably the only things that saved the local record industry from moving to LA at that point were Opryland which became the best place for labels to find young country artists and herculean efforts on the part of the CMA. This included building world class television production facilities. This groundwork combined with a still thriving music publishing industry brought Nashville its '80s boom.
Unfortunately some real estate interests managed to take over Opryland and Nashville has pretty much been reinventing its self since then both in the music and the tourist industries.
The future?
What attracted me to moving here are the musicians and songwriters. I believe the return to a singles-centered rather than an album-centered industry will lead to a more traditional style of music production because artists will need to spend a lot more time on the road and they'll be needing much better material in order to compete.
Taylor?
She's the girl next door who exudes sincerity and love and she sings pretty good. She's the complete antithesis of Disney, American idol and hip hop. The younger generation obviously finds that very attractive.
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Permalink Reply by Pete Warren on
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What a freaking amazing history lesson on Nashville! I did not know most of these facts! Funny, when I took History of Commercial Music at Belmont, NONE of this was taught. What a shame. I'd guess most of us have no clue on the true history of Nashville's music story. Amazing to see that it pretty much hinged upon one man's decision to relocate back here.
I'd love know more of this history.
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Permalink Reply by Bret Teegarden on
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That's because when you were in school, country music wasn't commercial yet. I wonder if the future hinges on Pete "Owen B" Warren's decision to move back?
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Permalink Reply by Pete Warren on
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ok, now that's funny!
It's kind of like trying to change the course of an aircraft carrier using a jet ski.
Ohh, and "commercial" music at Belmont back then, and I understand even now, means "jazz" music. I never got that one. Since when is Jazz commercial, except for a handful of musicians?
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Permalink Reply by Bob Olhsson on
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Popular music "history" is mostly rewritten press releases and record reviews that got consolidated into a book and sold to a publisher. In practice, sad to say, there's a better chance of it being wrong than of being right.
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