Country Radio Is Now ‘Music of the Suburbs’

Country music radio is no longer discernible from pop, and station programmers are playing it safe while ignoring the genre’s rich roots.

That’s not just the rant of some snobbish music purist, however, but the view expressed by some programmers and executives themselves.

“What Nashville is sending us is this pop. They’re looking to reach outside the core country audience,” said R.J. Curtis, program director at Los Angeles’ KZLA-FM (93.9), the country-music station. Stations are gearing toward women in their 20s, 30s and 40s--to attract the advertisers that covet them--so running songs about cheatin’, drinkin’, drivin’ a truck and goin’ to jail “doesn’t fit anymore,” Curtis said. “It’s become more of an AC [adult contemporary] format.”

As a result, artists such as Shania Twain and Faith Hill rule the airwaves, while Country Music Hall of Famers such as Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline can’t crack the lineup. So it looks as though the Soggy Bottom Boys’ “constant sorrow” will not let up.

That fictional trio in the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” got its big chance when a blind radio-station owner put them on the air. Last week the movie’s soundtrack won three Grammy Awards in the country-music category, as well as the coveted overall “Album of the Year” prize--beating out U2, Bob Dylan, India.Arie and OutKast. The record, with its touches of bluegrass, blues, folk and other traditional forms found under the country-music banner, also has sold more than 4 million copies--and all this with scant radio airplay.

But even with the album’s commercial and critical success, country-music programmers say they would sooner let their babies grow up to be cowboys then rethink their playlists.

“Country radio is in a weird place. It severed itself from its traditional roots. It said, ‘We don’t want that audience anymore,’” said Grant Alden, co-editor of No Depression, a bimonthly magazine covering alternative country and Americana music.

Curtis said KZLA did give the “O Brother” album a chance, playing the single “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow.” Listeners rejected it, saying it didn’t mesh with the Brooks & Dunn, Tim McGraw and Dixie Chicks in heavy rotation.

“We played it enough to get a very strong reaction, for our listeners to tell us it was not a fit, and there was a ‘high dislike’ on it. It’s not like anything else played on the radio station,” Curtis said.

According to Billboard magazine’s chart of radio airplay, the top country songs in the nation (and also on KZLA) are “The Cowboy In Me” by Tim McGraw, “The Long Goodbye” by Brooks & Dunn, and “Bring On The Rain” by Jo Dee Messina and Tim McGraw. “Man of Constant Sorrow” isn’t even in the top 60. At the same time, however, the “O Brother” soundtrack was at No. 15 on the Billboard album chart, and shot to No. 2 after its success at the Grammys.

“I’m not sure that country radio is going to respond by adding more music like the ‘O Brother’ soundtrack,” said Paul Allen, executive director of Country Radio Broadcasters Inc., the industry’s trade group. “It’s a genuine phenomenon, and phenomena are unpredictable.”

Kyle Young, director of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, said “O Brother’s” success will probably help boost sales of other traditional country music, and may yet have an impact on radio.

“But I think it’s harder to drive radio now than it ever has been before,” Young said. “Radio is not exactly about music. They’ve got to understand almost without doubt that it will produce revenue, that it will support their business plans with ad dollars.”

Allen said commercial radio nowadays is all about leasing its audience to advertisers. And that means country radio is trying to sell more BMWs than pickup trucks.

“Country music now, I suppose, is the music of the suburbs,” Alden said. “It used to be blue-collar. Clearly country music doesn’t want a working-class audience.”

In spite of the song’s earlier reception, Curtis said he may try spinning “Man of Constant Sorrow” again, advising his deejays to give listeners a little background on the music, and warn them it will sound different from what else they’ve heard that day.

The crossover of country artists to the pop charts has come in waves, and the last one in the early ‘90s, led by Garth Brooks, George Strait and Brooks & Dunn, pushed the likes of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Dolly Parton off the airwaves, lost ground they have yet to regain.

“We can’t find enough people out there who say they’re interested in stuff from the ‘70s and early ‘80s,” Curtis said.

Country music is still the dominant format on the airwaves, heard on 21% of stations in the United States, compared with second-place talk radio, at 11%. But ratings at country stations have dropped by about one-third since 1995, and country’s share of all albums sold has also declined in that span.

Alden predicted another wedge to break into programmers’ playlists and listeners’ consciousness will come from specialty shows, either syndicated or home-grown. For an hour or two, stations can spotlight songs that initially may seem out of place during the rest of the week’s programming, giving listeners a chance to hear them and decide if they want more.

“I understand the logic of not playing the ‘O Brother’ soundtrack, up to a point,” he said. “But if you’re trying to get new listeners, [and] if you’re losing market share, why not try something new?”

Rock ‘n’ roll music has its oldies and classic rock stations, but traditional country stations are much harder to find. Earlier this year in Abilene, Texas, Clear Channel Communications changed its KEAN-AM to a traditional country format, while keeping that station’s FM counterpart contemporary country.

At the same time, though, Gaylord Communications pondered changing Nashville’s WSM-AM--the station that launched the Grand Ole Opry in 1925--to sports. The company reconsidered after much outcry, so George Jones and Tammy Wynette still have a home on the airwaves in Music City.

“This music has an incredible tradition and an incredible history,” said the Hall of Fame’s Young, “and in some ways it tells the story of this country. We feel very strongly here that the past gives the present meaning.”