One the eve of the DVD release of the Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up & Sing, comedian/political commentator Bill Maher was a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. At one point the conversation turned to the Dixie Chicks' recent achievement of winning five Grammys back on February 11. Of course, ever the ball-buster, Jay Leno made the remark that the Grammy board of voters had just now gotten around to listening to the band's latest album, Taking the Long Way, implying that the band had won on the strength of their battle for free speech as opposed to any musical talent.
While this might or not have some truth to it — I mean the academy did give a Grammy to Jethro Tull for “best heavy metal album" once upon a time — Shut Up & Sing is the most important movie to come out in 2006 after singer Natalie Maines commented that she was “ashamed the president is from Texas” at one of the band’s 2003 concert performances.
Shut Up & Sing, directed by Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, documents the fallout from Maines' remarks and provides a compelling look at how current “son of a Bush” politics have affected the creative arts and freedom of speech. The movie is well made and fairly objective throughout and the band, comprised of all women, displays more balls that most of the male politicians that are running our country.
I have never listened to a Dixie Chicks album in my life but I made sure I saw this film the minute it opened in theatres. Shut Up & Sing is a movie about freedom and the ways that the government looks to persuade public opinion in times of national crisis, i.e. war. I don’t care what side of the political spectrum you find yourself on — if you haven’t seen this movie you are shirking your responsibility as a taxpaying American.
Article comments
1 - Saltbox
You say you haven't ever listen to a Dixie Chicks album. That's an oversight you should rectify immediately. The music on the Dixie Chicks album "Taking the Long Way" is just as ballsy as the Chicks themselves.
2 - Cannonshop
Um, Hero? what's your point? (I mean, I guess they might be good viewing if you're into crap photography and bad sound with your porn and near-porn...) The article is gushing about something that's fairly serious...or at least, seems so on the surface.
Natalie Maines made a crack about a politician that just about every liberal-self-proclaimed-moderate would. She simply chose a remarkably stupid time and place to make it, and seriously misunderstood her audience. If a Rock-Star had said the same thing, it wouldn't have even hit the news, ditto for a movie star, television actor, Film director, "Documentary" director, or guy on the Internet.
In this case, it resulted in a temporary (but soon to be recouped) loss of revenue as people who WERE in her fan-base rejected her band over it. As i said, it was a temporary loss-the Dixie Chicks probably made more on the "Free-Speech Sympathy" activists who don't actually LIKE country music, but wanted to feel 'solidarity' with 'crusaders' who said something 'bold' (all in quotes. it's not bold, or even seriously bad for your career to say bad things about Republicans. It's fashionable and will make you lots of high-society friends, and get your albums bought by lots of Liberals who otherwise wouldn't bother listening to your stuff.)
The whole scandal was trivial, is trivial, and I suspect Leno's right. The Grammys aren't about music, they're about "The Music Community". It's like Arafat getting the Nobel Peace Prize, or Sudan getting a seat on the U.N Human Rights Commission.