Dixie Chicks taking ‘Way’ back to top

The Dixie Chicks’ deeply personal new CD, “Taking the Long Way,” appears solidly on track to enter the national sales chart at No. 1 next week with sales estimated to be somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 units, according to music industry projections based on the album’s first-day sales.

By most standards, it’s an impressive return for the country trio that infuriated red state America in 2003 when singer Natalie Maines told a London audience, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” But compared with initial sales for the Chicks’ previous album, 2002’s “Home,” the new one appears to be selling only about half as fast. That album entered the chart easily at No. 1, with sales of 780,000 copies.

“People haven’t forgiven them,” said Phyllis Stark, Billboard magazine’s Nashville bureau chief. “Country music turned its back on the Chicks.”

The group pretty much did the same by denouncing its country heritage in Entertainment Weekly magazine this month. And it chose for the album’s lead single “Not Ready to Make Nice,” in which Maines sings, “I’m mad as hell and I can’t bring myself to do what you think is right.”

“That stung country radio program directors,” Stark said. “Instead of trying to move on, [the Dixie Chicks] rehashed the problem.”

Other factors may also contribute to “Long Way’s” slower first-week sales. The album arrived in stores Tuesday during a season (late spring) that traditionally is a weaker sales period than the late-summer arrival time of “Home.”

Additionally, overall sales in the record industry have been falling steadily in recent years.