Here’s a fact that doesn’t always register in New York and Los Angeles, but is clear in most points in between: Country ranks as the nation’s hottest musical genre.
Check the numbers: Sales of country CDs are up 11 percent over last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan, while all other genres have declined and overall sales are down 5 percent. The best-selling album of 2006 is country trio Rascal Flatts’ “Me and My Gang.”
Experts say tonight’s Country Music Association Awards (7 p.m. on KMGH-Channel 7) will draw more viewers than the Grammy show, as did last year’s CMA Awards, staged in New York City for the first time. Vanity Fair, that arbiter of style, just ran a 33-page spread on country stars.
Why is country hotter than it’s been since the peak of Garth Brooks a decade ago? A young audience is attracted to country’s fresh faces – Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood and Sugarland, each with a 3-million-selling album this year.
Another reason is a void in other genres: There is no dominant pop, rock or rap artist, as 50 Cent, Norah Jones and OutKast were in recent years. Aside from classic rockers, the only musician playing stadiums this year is Kenny Chesney, one of country’s hottest figures of the past five years.
Still, Chesney, who attracts truckloads of high school and college students, is no Garth. This is not an explosion centered on one supernova. As Rascal Flatts’ album suggests, this is about the whole gang.
There are the girls next door: “American Idol” Underwood, 23; Sugarland’s twangy-voiced Jennifer Nettles, 32, and the Wreckers, the duo of ex-pop star Michelle Branch, 23, and Jessica Harp, 24.
Then there are the newer guys on the block: curly-haired, roguish Dierks Bentley, 30, high-energy mavericks Big & Rich, and playful Brad Paisley, 34, the token traditionalist among the newer male stars.
Established acts include Chesney, 38, and studly, rock-leaning Keith Urban, 39, both of whom married Hollywood movie stars, and the hunky McGraw, 39, who is trying to become a movie star.
Don’t discount the Dixie Chicks, either. Even though they’ve thumbed their noses at country fans and radio programmers, their new CD, “Taking the Long Way,” ranks among the year’s best sellers, at about 2 million copies.
