Carrie On Country

Mon, 02/25/2008 - 4:03pm by John J. Madonna

Last Friday, I read an old Entertainment Weekly interview, in which Carrie Underwood said, “You can say I’m ‘not country’ until you’re blue in the face, but I sing country.” The next day, I’m watching a back-from-strike Saturday Night Live (hosted by alumna and 30 Rock star Tina Fey) and who is the musical guest? Carrie Underwood. Oh, and I’m watching this particular SNL in the home of country music, Memphis (Tennessee.) So this all conspired to make me think, “Well, I’ve said Carrie Underwood is not country, but why?”

My idea of country does not include a solo singer backed up by bass, drums, guitar, a second guitar, fiddle, organ, and a backup singer. When I think country, I think rough and tumble, not slick. Look at the roots of country. Billboard used to have three charts, Pop, Race Records, and Hillbilly. After World War II, the latter two slightly offensive terms assumed their current identities: Rhythm & Blues and Country & Western. Unlike Pop, these two genres came from the same place, the poor south, giving R&B and country a lot of stylistic overlap; the only difference between the two, in the eyes of the Billboard charts (and to an extent the music listening public) was the performer’s skin color. The things that defined country weren’t their instrumentation or their drawls, rather that most of these country stars recorded for independent labels in a fringe genre. By the seventies, country had turned mainstream and its lyrics filled with melodrama. Looking beyond the surface of Carrie Underwood’s music, her songs are indistinguishable from Pop.

But at this very moment, right now, as I dub Carrie uncountry, I hold that Neil Young’s Prairie Wind from a few years ago (featured in Heart of Gold) is country. But, on Neil’s SNL performance, he might’ve played piano as he sang lead, but was backed up by drums, guitar, pedal steel, bass, organ, and three (three?) dedicated backing vocalists. Prairie Wind was even recorded in that country music black hole named Nashville. Why the double standard, Johnny?

First, Neil still played an instrument. Second, sure he used backing vocalists, but hey, he did just have an aneurysm. Third, he’s Neil freakin’ Young; the guy has what the kids call “cred.” On the other hand, aneurysmless Carrie Underwood doesn’t need a backing vocalist. She may use multi-tracking on her records, but she has the pipes to go solo live (newsflash: the studio and the stage are not the same thing. Performances shouldn’t sound exactly like the record so long as it sounds good.) Carrie has no “cred.” I don’t question her talent, but she got her big shot not by slogging through bars or, dare I say, honky-tonks, but by winning a contest.

The whole music spectrum is all just kind of a wash right now; very little differentiates the genres. Is Carrie Underwood country, is she pop, country-pop? I don’t know. And frankly, I don’t want to know.