by David Pipkin

Created on: February 23, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

Going into this year's Grammy Award Show, I expected the usual doses of anti-war sentiment and Bush-bashing, as that has been the norm over the past 5 years. Though the celebrities have grown more adept at subtlety in recent years, there are still the unmistakable tones of anti-war and anti-Conservatism.

That said, I have to admit my amazement when Joan Baez described the Dixie Chicks as being brave. Yes, Joan Baez, who along with Jane Fonda, had once acted as enemy propagandists during the Viet Nam war, was now referring to the Dixie Chicks as, "... brave young women," on national television.

A little over two years ago, while touring in Europe, Natalie Maines (lead singer of the Dixie Chicks) said she was ashamed to admit she was from the same state as George W Bush. Over the next few days, retailers began pulling their CDs; fans called in to radio stations demanding a boycott of their music; major retailers declined to restock their CDs; concert attendance dropped dramatically and fans began to hold parties where they burned their Dixie Chicks CD collection.

When the group got wind of the hysteria, Ms. Maines could not issue an apology fast enough. She went out of her way to appease the fan base, in an attempt to, "make nice."

The year 2006 was a very rough one in the War on Terror, and the national media provided a steady diet of the latest polling information showing dwindling support for the war. It was in this climate the Dixie Chicks released their new album with the song, "Not Ready to Make Nice."

Exactly which part of this story demonstrates bravery? I must have missed it...

Was it when they demeaned President Bush on foreign soil?
Was it when they apologized after their waning popularity?
Or was it when they backed down from their "apology" once the polls showed public opinion on their side?

To honor this group in this way is a travesty. It is clear that the music is no longer about the music or the fans, and they have not been for quite some time. The Dixie Chicks are called "brave" while praise for our soldiers is virtually non-existent among the "entertainment elites." They honor those who exercise freedom of speech as heroes (and only the speech they agree with), while they decry those who actually provide us that freedom.

In the current entertainment/media culture, true bravery would be an artist who stands up in front of his/her colleagues and supports the troops, their mission and their Commander-in-Chief. If such an artist were honored by the Grammy Award Show the way the Dixie Chicks were this year, that might restore some credibility that has been missing for a long time.

Music has made political statements for decades; that is the foundation of Rock and Roll. It is about shaking up the establishment. What we see today is that the entertainment industry has imposed its own establishment rules, where only the right political views get the attention and the honors. They need to realize that there is a very lively political debate taking place in this nation, and those of us on the right listen to and buy music, too.

When the music industry gets back to its core identity and honors music first, focusing less on its litmus test for political ideology, the Grammy Award show might actually become something greater than it has ever been. It will certainly become more relevant than it is now. Admittedly, that is not saying much, but if we have to start from somewhere, it might as well be from the bottom.

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