Country Time
Looks Don't Matter
By: Matt Bjorke
Last updated July 9th , 2010

In a world where it seems if looks and image are seemingly more important than the music that a singer makes, country music felt like it was the one last genre – much like with album sales – that was at least somewhat immune to this trend.  But Nashville has always worried about image. It's why handlers at Sony Nashville told Joey Martin that she had to choose between love and her career. They didn't want her married because it would 'harm' her 'young' image or something like that. She left her big money record deal and moved to a farm and married Rory Feek, a popular songwriter who realized very early on in his own career that many movers and shakers in Nashville valued image more than he cared to play up to it.  TV, one of the most image conscious of mediums – took the couple and made them a popular real country act called Joey + Rory. What you see is what you get with the couple. They are real and genuine, just like the fans they sing to night after night on the road. No gloss, no glitter. Real.

And therein likes the problem with paying attention to one's image. Standing still and looking pretty may work for some artists – like Carrie Underwood – but country music fans are quick to move on from a 'pretty' or 'cute' artist if they don't have 'the goods' to make it.  No amount of studio trickery and cloak and dagger shenanigans are gonna stop country fans from smelling out the untalented 'pretty' artists.  Check out some of the more well-known artists who've broken through as of late, the long bearded, long-haired, 'outlaw' Jamey Johnson, the 'overweight,' bearded Zac Brown Band and the 'overweight' Miranda Lambert. All three artists are cherished for their great albums and not their looks. 

And why should it?  Miranda Lambert is beautiful but her body type just doesn't allow for her to be 'curveless.' Randy Houser is another normal guy who has to fight to be the body size he is, so is James Otto.  Both men are men, are still handsome and have a group of fans who find them downright attractive, yet both artists struggle sometimes with perceptions from the fickle town that is Nashville or even radio programmers who won't or don't play these talented artists (something Jamey Johnson fights with too) because of their look.  

I bet if these 'powers' and 'tastemakers' took a poll from the real deal, average fan, they would be surprised to learn what fans really care about. Fans care about good music, music that moves them in one way or another. The music is what matters, not what an artist looks like. I'm not saying that country artists need to be 'slobs' or unhygienic. What I'm saying is that country singers are singers first and foremost. How they look should be secondary to how they sing. 

[Tags] Country

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