another reason to hate garth frigging brooks

his wal mart commercials

what a joke he is, as are all the "young country" jerk-offs.

but not all

Gretchen Wilson, for example, may or may not be your cup of tea, but she is authentic.

Garth, though, is just the Enron of country music.

sorry for the inaccuracy

I get pissed and in a hurry and I get tunnel vision.

which is fine, but fake.

with wal-mart, that his CD's are available only at wal-mart?

asshat

And here I thought the goal was to sell more music. :shrug: I've seen his commercial and it's cute but after a while it gets old like anything really. Please give me Tim McGraw.

so he did his own deal with the worst corporate citizens this side of Halliburton.

Besides how mind numblingly stupid that commerical is (how CUTE!!), he's doing it for a evil corporation. Does he really need the money? Please...

and country music fans

ASSHOLE!

He is very loyal and thankful to his fans. He keeps his concert prices down.
He make sure that when he is in an area that he has enough shows so that
anybody who wants to see him can and he has an openly gay sister playing
with his group and is very proud and loving to her. He has fired people who
are homophobic too.

BTW .... I am straight and do not really care for his music but it is
too easy to paint with a broad brush a la Rush or Pat Robertson we
have to be better then that.

Remember it is simple to be simple.

P.S. I never shop @ Wal Mart too.




Chicks Rule!

how sweet

and the Chicks DO rule.

He is pretty much a 24/7 father to them. His kids love to play soccer and takes them to their games...

Ok he is rich, BUT he is now putting his kids before $$$$...

then, as his popularity began to wane, his kids became important enough to "retire" for awhile

He had goons who went around the arena pre-show and pulled young (but legal) girls with big breasts and put them in the empty front row with VIP passes. When Sandy (his wife) would visit, old couples would be put in the front row.

Trust me, I know this to be true.

The question: who the heck with sleep with that cheeseball??? Oh! Trisha Yearwood, when he wasn't banging 19-year-olds.... seriously, I couldn't acre less about the groupies, except for his Red, White, & Blue good old boy image. Gag. Total phony.

country, rock or rap singer?

Garth Brooks Charities

you get 197,000 hits. Put down the hater aid. He was supportive of the Chicks
when they were being slimed by the right wing too.

Again .... i boycott Wal Mart & I am not that crazy about Garth's music but
the man has a good side.

what do you want me to say?

I never said he was 100% evil

I just said his shilling for Wal Mart, selling his own fanbase even farther down the river is another reason to hate him.

There are billions of positive things he could do in his position. Becoming Wal Mart's buttboy isn't one of them.

not a big fan of Garth, but I do think he's one of the more civil people in the business. Hey, everybody can't be perfect Dems; we should embrace repugs who at least aren't evil to the bone.

considering what apparently happened to his wife. Gee, great dad...absolutely terrible husband? Did he begin dating Trish before or after he left Sandy?

Glad his kids are being fed well though. And now he does such lovely family oriented commercials for Wal-Mart.

Back in the early days, he had Trisha open the concerts for him.
As he became popular in the United States, stardom in the UK was still very elusive. He and Sandy started to have problems. He got his act together after awhile. He began to visit the UK, where some of my friends live and who are also professional groupies in their spare time. They were able to find out the hotels Garth, band members, road crew were staying. After spending time with a few of Garth's people, (drinking) they learned that Trisha was the root of all of Sandy & Garth's problems. It was only a matter of time.

Back in the early days, he had Trisha open the concerts for him.
As he became popular in the United States, stardom in the UK was still very elusive. He and Sandy started to have problems. He got his act together after awhile. He began to visit the UK, where some of my friends live and who are also professional groupies in their spare time. They were able to find out the hotels Garth, band members, road crew were staying. After spending time with a few of Garth's people, (drinking) they learned that Trisha was the root of all of Sandy & Garth's problems. It was only a matter of time.

His parents begged him to come home from tour.

dictator of Germany loved dogs and little children, too. Didn't make up for being a mass murderer.

Everyone has redeeming qualities. It is a matter of degree and whether the good outweighs the bad.

I just think his music sux.

But I digress...

I'm a professional musician and songwriter who works in the country music industry.

And now, after dissing planetgarth itself, I can never come "out" on DU.

I was a heavy metal fan. But recently I've become fond of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Nickel Creek. I don't much care for a lot of the newer stuff..too much studio in it, I guess. However, I have come to appreciate even the hokie stuff as being an America art form, kind of like I appreciate rap. I don't choose it on itunes, but I am kind of proud of it, if that makes any sense.

is utter crap. There still is good country music being made

and even more being written

it's just that so little of it makes it through the RW repuke corporate theo-fascist filters.

Good Country Music yes ..... like:



One of the greatest albums ever.

Was it Grievous Angel?

if that is so, you are correct. Best country album of all time. Possibly best album of all time, (that dosnt include cumberland blues).

There's no better listening than "Sweetheart...."

--IMM

it's "alt-country" though

Nashville never liked it, even though it influenced every country artist who came after.

Song: You Ain't Going Nowhere Lyrics

Fly so swift the rain won't lift
The gate won't close the railings frooze
Get your mind on winter time you ain't going nowhere
Ooh we ride me high tomorrows the day my brides gonna come
Oh oh are we gonna fly down in the easy chair
I don't care how many letters they sent
The morning came the morning went
Pack up your money pick up your tent you ain't going nowhere
Ooh we ride me high tomorrows the day my brides gonna come
Oh oh are we gonna fly down in the easy chair

Buy me a flute and a gun that shoots
Tailgates and substitutes
Strap yourself to a tree with roots you ain't going nowhere
Ooh we ride me high tomorrows the day my brides gonna come
Oh oh are we gonna fly down in the easy chair
Now Gingus Kahn he could not keep
All his kings supplied with sleep
We'll climb that hill no matter how steep when we get up to it
Ooh we ride me high tomorrows the day my brides gonna come
Oh oh are we gonna fly down in the easy chair
Ooh we ride me high tomorrows the day my brides gonna come
Oh oh are we gonna fly down in the easy chair.

Hickory Wind is damn fine too ........

and "Life In Prison" too...
along with everything else.

I miss Clarence and Gene.:cry:

--IMM

.... I grew up listening to country back in the early 60s. I HATED it.

But as a well-grown adult, I find myself appreciating the artists of the genre, Willie, Hank, Johnny, Patsy, Jones and some others.

Right now, most country is utter dreck. But on the other hand, the only politically relevant music I've heard recently is country, there is a sub-genre of protest songs gaining traction and getting air on major stations.

I sure don't hear anything like it from rock'n'roll any more, it has been completely coopted.

Kevin Welch, Rodney Crowell . . .

these are today's heroes of country music

And the Dixie Chicks.

Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Waylon, etc.

Not as avid a fan these days as I was but I'm still looking forward to seeing the new Walk the Line movie as well. The man in black transcended politics in many ways.

that broadcasts from a little town in the next county and it is a hoot. First, the music is great. But these guys speak with a drawl and all the commercials are read. I don't know if they have any recorded commercials. It is like listening in a time warp. Makes me want Moon Pies and Coke.

do they still make it?

...a very Southern thing. :7

Google "RC Cola and a moon pie+NRBQ." :)

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_pie

It was created by a man named Mr. Mitchell from my hometown Chattanooga, Tennessee.

They still make it!

All I can get is either the local corporate country franchise or a corporate "oldies" country ("Proud to Be An American" ten times a day)

We do have an incredibly great indie AMericana station, which is all that saves my soul when I'm driving.

Depends on the artist/song

And who could forget Johnny Cash?

Now, I only listen to Tim McGraw and his lovely wife Faith Hill, who openly supported the Chicks. I very much am against blackballing and McCarthyism, and that's what happened to the Chicks.

I think Hill is as well. :D I've read McGraw said once that he would like to someday run for office and would as a democrat. Probably won't though.

I grew up listening to country music. Some people I don't like either but I do like it. Willie Nelson, Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain, Wynonna Judd, Tim McGraw etc. There's good country music and there's blah country music. It all depends on what type you like and what they sing about.

I like quite a bit of it, although not a certain class of the older, twangier stuff. There are some songs I like for the tune while disliking the lyrics. The same is true of most forms of lyrical music, though.

This thread is interesting. I see one like it now and again about Brooks, and it's humorous to note how they go. Someone points out his work in support of gay and lesbian rights, and he's a hero, albeit a "hick" hero, as though being from Oklahoma makes him somehow less worthy all by itself. The thread eventually dies out after various side-argument erupt and wane. Others, like this one, point out the stupid things he does, and he's a villain, and the thread will eventually die out after the various side-arguments erupt and wane.

To me, the subject is less interesting than what the discussion itself says about a lot of us and the way we behave occasionally. Everything seems to be all or nothing, right or wrong, black or white. And, we often arrive at these conclusions without have much real knowledge of what we discuss. We bemoan the poor quality of the MSM, yet we engage in the same behavior. I do not exclude myself from this either, nor do I suggest everyone or anyone is guilty of this all the time. It's occasional, and certain people or topics seem to bring it out more than others, but it's there.

On the subject of Garth Brooks, I've met him a few times. He's a nice guy, pretty average, not a rocket scientist by any measure, but he seems to have a good heart while having many flaws. I socialize with a couple people who know him pretty well, and they tend to have pretty much the same opinion if you force them to talk about it. To them, he's just a guy, and that's pretty much how he comes across in public when not hawking some project or being followed by reporters. I really don't understand why people who don't know him expend so much emotional energy either hating or loving him.

I don't hate him or idolize him, but I have a measure of respect for him while acknowledging his deep flaws. (Of course, not a single one of us can lay claim to not having deep flaws of our own, so I don't know that acknowledging his flaws is something I should be doing.) Through personal experience, I know what kind of challenges he faced growing up, and I know the depths to which many of his old friends have come to hate him, violently, for what they see as anti-Christian, ultra-liberal views. I live about ten miles from where he once lived, and I had to work there temporarily for three months. It was hell. I can't imaging actually living there; it's striking how much difference those ten miles make.

Enough rambling on my part.

comes with it and the stations that play the music.

Since bunkerboy's "selection" and their constant shilling for this Hitler wannabe, I've stopped listening.

I used to listen to it quite frequently a few years back.

And I met my partner/hubby at a countrywester dig about 5 years ago!

This sounds like quite the progressive anthem...

When the last child cries for a crust of bread
When the last man dies for just words that he said
When there's shelter over the poorest head
We shall be free

When the last thing we notice is the color of skin
And the first thing we look for is the beauty within
When the skies and the oceans are clean again
Then we shall be free

We shall be free
We shall be free
Stand straight, walk proud
'Cause we shall be free
When we're free to love anyone we choose
When this world's big enough for all different views
When we all can worship from our own kind of pew
Then we shall be free
We shall be free

More:
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/We-Shall-Be-Free-lyrics-Garth-Brooks/77EA1450BA5ED92F48256879000EC152

Is the music as beautiful?

It brings to mind a song by Glenn Phillips called "In My Darkest Hour (I will be free.)"

It is not a protest song, though. It is about death.

"We Shall be Free!" That is pretty awesome.

The song is upbeat.

I'm not a huge Garth Brooks fan, but I like some of his songs.

This one isn't sterotypical country.

I think he would have preferred to have been a rock star...he was a huge KISS fan.

I really have a hard time believing he's a FReeper type.

This exclusive WalMart deal is questionable, though. :shrug:

hell, like Toby Keith, he might even be a registered Democrat for all I know

But he is a smugly oblivious pig who obviously has no respect for working Americans.

I work in an arena with many concerts on the docket. I am privy to a lot of backstage info. He is a male-chauvinist pig. Total disrespect for women. Not on stage. Those women buy his CD's. He has to put up a good front. Of course his response to the Dixie Chicks was not appropriate. Not exactly a gentleman.

Well, The Mavericks are cool.

There is so much good music in Nashville . . .

It is criminal that the same crew of corpo fucks who hijacked America also hijacked an entire musical tradition.

WalMart deal as well.

He had a falling out with his record label because of some things they wanted to do with him and his music so he dropped his label. He put this record deal together with WalMart without any kind of record label so it might open doors for other artist to maybe do the same thing. He said a lot of up and coming artist get so screwed by record companies that it takes almost all of their money to pay these companies back what they advance. He said WalMart agreed to do this for him.

I know that he has done a lot for charity and he wrote songs about domestic violence, gun control, and some other very important issues so I don't really think he is a repuke.

He did cheat on his wife and they did wind up getting divorced. He was wrong about that and has admitted it, but there are many other people who have done the same thing (and they were wrong too, IMO)but I think he has tried to be a good father and is still very close with his ex.

I am not a country music fan at all, but I've always sort of liked Garth Brooks, the Dixie Chicks, and Steve Earle. I also adore Johnny Cash. Based on what I know about all of them, they were/are Liberals.

And I dont recall Johnny Cash being very political at all.

He was a great artist, unlike GB, ect.

Some of JC's lyrics are very political. Gee, like the "Man In Black." Speaking up for prisoners, against poverty, and against the Viet Nam war.

He also made a lot of political statements as well with his actions:

The concert to prisoners in Folsom.

When he refused to fold to the censors that said he couldn't sing the word "stoned" on TV in Sunday Morning Comin' Down. He said that Kristofferson wrote it that way and he was going to sing it that way. It was a free speech issue.

He was very outspoken with his actions and many of his lyrics.

Personally, I like Garth more than Johnny. Never loved Johnny's voice. He does have a lot of good songs. But so does Garth, IMO.

I think Garth and Trisha make a good, probably Democratic pair, despite the commercials.

but he was not overtly political

Ever hear the Ballad of Ira Hayes?



Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Gather round me people there's a story I would tell
About a brave young Indian you should remember well
From the land of the Pima Indian
A proud and noble band
Who farmed the Phoenix valley in Arizona land

Down the ditches for a thousand years
The water grew Ira's peoples' crops
'Till the white man stole the water rights
And the sparklin' water stopped

Now Ira's folks were hungry
And their land grew crops of weeds
When war came, Ira volunteered
And forgot the white man's greed

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war


There they battled up Iwo Jima's hill,
Two hundred and fifty men
But only twenty-seven lived to walk back down again

And when the fight was over
And when Old Glory raised
Among the men who held it high
Was the Indian, Ira Hayes

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Ira returned a hero
Celebrated through the land
He was wined and speeched and honored; Everybody shook his hand

But he was just a Pima Indian
No water, no crops, no chance
At home nobody cared what Ira'd done
And when did the Indians dance

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Then Ira started drinkin' hard;
Jail was often his home
They'd let him raise the flag and lower it
like you'd throw a dog a bone!

He died drunk one mornin'
Alone in the land he fought to save
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch
Was a grave for Ira Hayes

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Yeah, call him drunken Ira Hayes
But his land is just as dry
And his ghost is lyin' thirsty
In the ditch where Ira died

I don't like him

I don't like what he's done to the country music industry

And I don't like anyone who promotes Wal Mart, which is one of the most evil forces on the planet currently.

I don't like Walmart one bit and do not shop there, but I live in an area where there are many choices. Garth reaches his audience this way, and some people in rural areas do not get to other stores very often. So I can see the thinking.

I don't agree with this Wal Mart deal a bit, I don't like his music, and some of his personal conduct has been pretty shitty, but the last I knew, unless something has changed, he isn't a Repug.

Or is he another DINO?

not Republicans

technically

both of them are just narcissists.

That's when I really realized what was under that veneer of good old boyishness. He has little respect for his fans.

...was that he'd have to return royalties whenever someone took his CD into a used CD store.

He might be a marketing grad, but that idea was stupid on the face of it.

Steve Earle isn't "country" in either the traditional or modern sense, imo. He's folksy in many of his songs, so country music stations tend to be the only ones that will play him at all. He only made mainstream radio in the beginning, when the brand of music he played was sorta in vogue.

His best stuff is hardly ever played, however. I've seen him in concert several times. He's opened for ZZTop, Bob Dylan, and several times was on his own with another, similar band opening for him. Neither the fans nor the venue projected any sort of country music atmosphere.

Just because he makes a business deal with a distributor, Wal Mart, he is to be hated? Check his charities. So is it ok to make a distibution deal with say, Capitol records or Warner Brothers records or Universal records? These companies are equally as 'evil' as WalMart.

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he sets up lights etc. An hour before Brooks show his crew was escorted out of the building "No one watches Mr. Brooks for free." Not one single other act before or since did that.

I worked on a psychiatric unit as a Psych Tech back in the 1980's and Garth Brooks would come up and play the guitar for our patients there. (no charge) This was before he made it big, but he had a kind heart, and I doubt that has changed much.

He still does commercials for fucking Wal Mart.

And while Wal Mart is a huge corporation, they are not all bad as they are often portrayed here.

They do invest money back into their communities, provide a lot of jobs, etc.

They also put a lot of people on part time status with no benefits, clean out mom and pop stores, and sell mostly stuff from China.

I live in the land of Wal Mart.

Time will tell if Wal Mart is all bad. or if there is some good there too.

They are all bad, through and through. Zero redeeming qualities. It's a fact they do not provide net jobs -- they take them away. And they do not give money back into the community. They use it, rape it, destroy it, and then abandon it -- and it's people -- when they discover greener pastures. They truly, truly suck.

They provide excellent deals for families on budgets, then there is that other side.

He is not a nice guy, not truly, not when the cameras are off. He's actually a bit of a prick.

and I was quite impressed with him. He seemed to have a lot of depth and was influenced by Dan Fogelberg who is very liberal.

I couldn't name a single song of his, but I also don't know of any reason to hate him.

But I like a few of his songs, "friends in low places" and "two pina coladas". Back when I lived in New Mexico in a small town along the border, that was all that was being played. They're catchy tunes.

I prefer to judge the music, not the musician.

But I suppose this just fuels the fire even more.

What the fuck was that all about anyway?