Keith Urban – Everybody
This column admits to being less than reverential to the fripperies of pop music. Undoubtedly, high-quality ‘serious’ music contemporary exists and is happily consumed by serious-minded music lovers; but as soon as you combine any manner of music with a video clip, well, then all bets are off. My point? Music video clips are almost universally gone and forgotten before the ring of the final guitar chord – it’s all sizzle, grandstanding, posturing, hoopla, fairy dust and frolics. Pop, rock, electronica and hip hop clips are all equally guilty and the whole oeuvre seems to be going very quickly to hell in a Prada handbasket.
Hang on. Not quite. I’ve just discovered a whole new parallel musical universe. An influential world, a world with its own awards ceremony, a world whose epicentre doesn’t reside in LA or New York… a world that doesn’t care about the monogram on your handbag, which tennis player endorses your watch, how German your car is, or how much you spend on rehab. It’s a musical world where integrity counts for something, where musicianship is bigger news than Barbie Doll looks; an alternate musical reality where bling bling isn’t as important as sing sing. This world that I speak of, where talent remains sacrosanct and where lyrics mean something, is of course the genre of… ‘Yee-Hah Cowboy Music’. And where do you go for your fix of Yee-Hah Cowboy Music? That’s easy. Its spiritual home can be traced to middle America, in the good-hearted bosom of God’s own country – Tamworth, Tennessee.
Making the trip all the way to Tamworth, Tennessee and becoming a bona fide rip-roaring Yee-Hah Cowboy Music superstar is Australia’s very own Keith Urban. Unwilling to change his unfortunate surname, it took Keith years to prove to Yee-Hah Cowboy Music’s head honcho, Colonel Sanders, that he had what it took to be as genuine as the 4X brand on the rump of a pair of Wrangler blue jeans… or something.
But here, in his latest ‘toon set to movie pictures’ is a timely reminder of how a music scene can keep it spurs firmly on terra firma. Here’s the setup: band hires rehearsal room, band arranges to meet at rehearsal room; band rehearses. Yep, that’s yer lot. None of this city slicking, airy fairy, ‘use your imagination’ hogwash, Yee-Hah Cowboy Music is all about connecting with ordinary folk by telling it like it is… so why make up some cotton-pickin’ story when you can just take movie pictures of the band hauling butt to rehearsal?
The footage is telling. The only band member to have saved his pennies is the drummer, who’s taken the big-noting step of hiring a taxi. The band’s guitarist and bass player are on their racers (y’know: old-style bicycles), while Keith Rural himself is on Shanks’ Pony… hoofing it to the rehearsal room.
Unfortunately, the band’s management couldn’t afford a real studio and Keith and his good ol’ boys find themselves in an old factory, where our boy is forced to boot scoot around a whole scrapyard of crap to get through the song. Times are clearly tough. So tough, in fact, that Keith could only afford black and white movie pictures until well into the third minute of the song.
I now have a real respect for Yee-Hah Cowboy Music. I didn’t know much about it before now, but I think I can safely say I am now an expert. – CH.
This column admits to being less than reverential to the fripperies of pop music. Undoubtedly, high-quality ‘serious’ music contemporary exists and is happily consumed by serious-minded music lovers; but as soon as you combine any manner of music with a video clip, well, then all bets are off. My point? Music video clips are almost universally gone and forgotten before the ring of the final guitar chord – it’s all sizzle, grandstanding, posturing, hoopla, fairy dust and frolics. Pop, rock, electronica and hip hop clips are all equally guilty and the whole oeuvre seems to be going very quickly to hell in a Prada handbasket.Hang on. Not quite. I’ve just discovered a whole new parallel musical universe. An influential world, a world with its own awards ceremony, a world whose epicentre doesn’t reside in LA or New York… a world that doesn’t care about the monogram on your handbag, which tennis player endorses your watch, how German your car is, or how much you spend on rehab. It’s a musical world where integrity counts for something, where musicianship is bigger news than Barbie Doll looks; an alternate musical reality where bling bling isn’t as important as sing sing. This world that I speak of, where talent remains sacrosanct and where lyrics mean something, is of course the genre of… ‘Yee-Hah Cowboy Music’. And where do you go for your fix of Yee-Hah Cowboy Music? That’s easy. Its spiritual home can be traced to middle America, in the good-hearted bosom of God’s own country – Tamworth, Tennessee.Making the trip all the way to Tamworth, Tennessee and becoming a bona fide rip-roaring Yee-Hah Cowboy Music superstar is Australia’s very own Keith Urban. Unwilling to change his unfortunate surname, it took Keith years to prove to Yee-Hah Cowboy Music’s head honcho, Colonel Sanders, that he had what it took to be as genuine as the 4X brand on the rump of a pair of Wrangler blue jeans… or something.But here, in his latest ‘toon set to movie pictures’ is a timely reminder of how a music scene can keep it spurs firmly on terra firma. Here’s the setup: band hires rehearsal room, band arranges to meet at rehearsal room; band rehearses. Yep, that’s yer lot. None of this city slicking, airy fairy, ‘use your imagination’ hogwash, Yee-Hah Cowboy Music is all about connecting with ordinary folk by telling it like it is… so why make up some cotton-pickin’ story when you can just take movie pictures of the band hauling butt to rehearsal?The footage is telling. The only band member to have saved his pennies is the drummer, who’s taken the big-noting step of hiring a taxi. The band’s guitarist and bass player are on their racers (y’know: old-style bicycles), while Keith Rural himself is on Shanks’ Pony… hoofing it to the rehearsal room.Unfortunately, the band’s management couldn’t afford a real studio and Keith and his good ol’ boys find themselves in an old factory, where our boy is forced to boot scoot around a whole scrapyard of crap to get through the song. Times are clearly tough. So tough, in fact, that Keith could only afford black and white movie pictures until well into the third minute of the song.I now have a real respect for Yee-Hah Cowboy Music. I didn’t know much about it before now, but I think I can safely say I am now an expert. – CH.