Country music has been converged:
MEAWW reported that one-half of the Grammy-winning country duo “Big & Rich” recently dished on the disconnect between the country music industry and its fans.
Rich says that while most country music fans are conservatives, those who actually run the industry are mostly liberal. He says its this conflict that leaves conservative leaning country artists in a difficult situation.
“The industry of country [music] is, I would say, I can’t give you a percentage but let’s just say the majority is very liberal,” Rich said. “They’ve been that way for a long time. It’s interesting that the industry that puts out country music doesn’t really align with a lot of the audience.”
“A lot of folks that listen to country [music], and again I can’t give you a percentage but I can tell you a majority of the audience probably leans conservative,” he continued. “So you’ve got this gulf, kind of, between the two.”
Rich went on to say that he has seen things change in the industry to swing even further left over the past few months.
“Over the years, the industry has never really come out really strongly about their liberal edge that they’ve got until recently, maybe in the past six to 12 months,” he said. “They’ve started coming out more and more and the problem you get is if you’ve got artists that are conservative but their record label, their publicist, their manager, a lot of the radio stations are being overseen by liberals.”
Conservatives and everyone else to their right have to learn to stop taking the money bait and stop working with those who hate them, particularly when those who hate them are in the stronger, more defensible position. Nothing good is going to come of any such collaborations in the long run even if you are strong enough to refuse to sacrifice your principles.
I was told that I'd never be signed by Tor Books, but that was irrelevant because I never made any attempt to be signed by Tor Books. And when Thomas Nelson, a supposedly Christian, right-wing publisher tried to convince me to change what I was writing, I refused, and declined every subsequent approach from their editors.
It's hard for young artists with stars in their eyes to understand that compromising at the start, even if it is a reasonable compromise, is going to lead to being controlled, if not owned outright. But you can't sell just a piece of your soul.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/