Hat Acts
As ever, I watched the CMA awards with a mixture of pleasure and restlessness. Country music is a broad enough church that I find as much of it annoying as I do entertaining. Big & Rich, for example, with their self-referring rap-like crap, including actual "big black cowboy" rapping, were just offensive, a circus freak show. At the other end of the scale, Reba McEntire let rip with her usual boring, maudlin, brand of music.
There's two things always strike you. The obvious nerves on display, and the hats. Because to be a hat act, it seems, means never, ever, being seen without your hat. And some people are hat acts in the face of all evidence to the contrary. They don't look right in a hat, and they don't look comfortable, and the hat doesn't even looks like it fits properly. Kenny Chesney, for example, winner of Entertainer of the Year, looks like someone pulled his down over his eyes. You imagine there's some kind of code going on. Black hats, white hats, shiny hats, scruffy hats.
It all looks kinda gay, most of the time. Tim McGraw's hat looks like something out of Studio 54. In the gotta-be-gay duo category, there's always one who wears a hat, and one who doesn't. One is the dog, one is the bitch; one butch, one femm.
The overall effect of all the hat wearing is that the artist always looks the same. Same pose, same look, over and over again. Check out Kenny Chesney's on-line gallery and you'll see what I mean. It's like they photoshopped him into a series of postcard scenes. I don't know if I could ever bring myself to buy his record, though it sounded all right. Dwight Yoakam, of course, is famously bald as a coot underneath his hat, and I wonder how many of the others are. I only know about Yoakam because in a couple of his movies he was required to remove it.
The nerves come about, I guess, because they're performing live in front of an audience of their peers, and, probably the biggest TV audience they'll ever get. Nerves seemed to betray Tim McGraw, who opened the show sounding thin and weak; and Keith Urban, male vocalist of the year, performed badly compared to last year. By contrast, Sara Evans, towards the end, was pure class. And looked humptuously gorgeous. She's my secret girlfriend.
Looking less well was Randy Travis, who has the appearance of a dead man walking, and appeared on stage with CSI's Emily Proctor to present an award, only to bleat on about how no-one was buying his records. His crappy clappy, Christian preachy records. He even looked like he was wearing a dog collar, the twat.
Finally, there are always notable absences. Vince Gill, the usual presenter, was nowhere in evidence. I like Gill, mainly because he doesn't feel the need to wear a freaking hat. Brooks and Dunn presented instead. Trisha Yearwood is rarely there. She doesn't need them. She often makes a point of being somewhere abroad, a kind of kick in the teeth to acts like Toby Keith and Brooks and Dunn, who are almost unheard of outside the USA - she's saying, hey, not only am I better than you, but I have an international audience. Garth Brooks has never been there, even when he wasn't "retired". Dwight Yoakam usually only shows up to induct someone into the Hall of Fame. I've never seen Mary Chapin Carpenter. Maybe she's not a member.
There's two things always strike you. The obvious nerves on display, and the hats. Because to be a hat act, it seems, means never, ever, being seen without your hat. And some people are hat acts in the face of all evidence to the contrary. They don't look right in a hat, and they don't look comfortable, and the hat doesn't even looks like it fits properly. Kenny Chesney, for example, winner of Entertainer of the Year, looks like someone pulled his down over his eyes. You imagine there's some kind of code going on. Black hats, white hats, shiny hats, scruffy hats.
It all looks kinda gay, most of the time. Tim McGraw's hat looks like something out of Studio 54. In the gotta-be-gay duo category, there's always one who wears a hat, and one who doesn't. One is the dog, one is the bitch; one butch, one femm.
The overall effect of all the hat wearing is that the artist always looks the same. Same pose, same look, over and over again. Check out Kenny Chesney's on-line gallery and you'll see what I mean. It's like they photoshopped him into a series of postcard scenes. I don't know if I could ever bring myself to buy his record, though it sounded all right. Dwight Yoakam, of course, is famously bald as a coot underneath his hat, and I wonder how many of the others are. I only know about Yoakam because in a couple of his movies he was required to remove it.
The nerves come about, I guess, because they're performing live in front of an audience of their peers, and, probably the biggest TV audience they'll ever get. Nerves seemed to betray Tim McGraw, who opened the show sounding thin and weak; and Keith Urban, male vocalist of the year, performed badly compared to last year. By contrast, Sara Evans, towards the end, was pure class. And looked humptuously gorgeous. She's my secret girlfriend.
Looking less well was Randy Travis, who has the appearance of a dead man walking, and appeared on stage with CSI's Emily Proctor to present an award, only to bleat on about how no-one was buying his records. His crappy clappy, Christian preachy records. He even looked like he was wearing a dog collar, the twat.
Finally, there are always notable absences. Vince Gill, the usual presenter, was nowhere in evidence. I like Gill, mainly because he doesn't feel the need to wear a freaking hat. Brooks and Dunn presented instead. Trisha Yearwood is rarely there. She doesn't need them. She often makes a point of being somewhere abroad, a kind of kick in the teeth to acts like Toby Keith and Brooks and Dunn, who are almost unheard of outside the USA - she's saying, hey, not only am I better than you, but I have an international audience. Garth Brooks has never been there, even when he wasn't "retired". Dwight Yoakam usually only shows up to induct someone into the Hall of Fame. I've never seen Mary Chapin Carpenter. Maybe she's not a member.
posted by Anonymous at
Monday, November 15, 2004
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