On The Verge #70
DIXIE CHICKS: ARE YOU COOL ENOUGH?
Country music act The Dixie Chicks are on a collision course with their record label after saying, in as many words, they didn't want fans who had no taste in music.
"I'd rather have a small following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith", band member Martie Maguire told Time magazine.
"We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do."
The band's manager let out a strangled croak when he saw the comment, and then moaned again as he read on to discover singer Natalie Maines had also withdrawn her apology to George W Bush. Maine apologised to the president after she caused uproar in 2003 by telling a London audience she was ashamed Bush was from Texas.
"I don't feel that way anymore", she told Time . "I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever."
The Dixie Chicks' intention to eradicate the remaining 10 per cent of their post-outburst fanbase has given Sony Nashville a bad case of the horrors.
"I can see where [The Dixie Chicks] are coming from," said their manager through a cold sweat.
"I mean, being a Bush supporter and having no taste in music are mutually exclusive. They think they can't do any more damage to record sales than has already been done. But have they forgotten Bill Clinton? He's not Republican, and that saxaphone... the saxaphone..." he broke off, sobbing weakly.
"They've gone too far this time. Did you know they're making customers fill out a 'coolness' questionaire before being allowed to buy a Dixie Chicks record? If the customer ticks 'yes' to more than two questions, like 'Do you own any Phil Collins albums?', 'Would you like to see new material from Michael Bolton?' and 'Is any member of your family named Bobby Ray?', the music shop cashier has to snatch the record away and shout 'No Disc For You!"
The Dixie Chicks have also announced plans to relocate to Melbourne, where they will strive for total fan purity by playing only on Tuesday nights in empty suburban cafes.
Sony Nashville have not commented on the status of the group's contract.
SHAKIRA NOT A CUNNING LINGUIST
It appears that Columbian songstress Shakira’s hold on the pointy end of the charts is nowhere near as uncertain as her grasp on English. Her second album Oral Fixation 2 has broken all sorts of chart records. And her latest single, Hips Don’t Lie, has debuted at #1 on both the Latin and mainstream charts in the US, the first song to do so.
To be fair, as well as breaking all sorts of chart records, Shakira also speaks five languages, which is probably four more languages than most people speak. In light of this, it seems a bit churlish to raise the question of how well she speaks those languages, but it’s difficult to resist, particularly for anyone who was subjected to the five-minutely rotation of Whenever, Wherever. Whose eyebrows weren’t raised by her now-famous lyrics “Lucky that my breasts are small and humble/So you don't confuse them with mountains”?
These lyrics surely must have raised previously unconsidered pitfalls for Pamela Anderson wannabes. Imagine disrobing only to have the immensity of your boobage mislead your suitor into mountaineering and not mounting. How embarrassment. Wouldn’t the thought of someone donning an oxygen mask and scaling your breasts with pitons and an icepick deter you from getting that boob job? And wouldn’t a suitor planting a flag pole on your Himalayas and taking a few happy snaps while you’re getting jiggy wid it suck the romance out of the occasion?
Shakira’s penchant for citing her own bodyparts in an eyebrow-raising manner isn’t reserved to Whenever, Wherever. Her latest single Hips Don’t Lie is a stirring paean to the integrity of a different set of curvy bits. It seems Shakira thinks that the enthusiasm with which her hips meet all jungle expeditions are an accurate barometer of her lurve for the expeditioner. We’ll take her word for it.
Despite Shakira’s quirky turn of phrase, we can’t wait to sample more of her insights into mattress gymnastics. After all, who wouldn’t worship a woman with an oral fixation?
X-MEN 3 COVERLINES REJECTED BY BEAT MAGAZINE FOR THIS WEEK
1. In his pre-incineration days, Freddy Kruger was quite a catch.
2. The modernised Swan Lake was a hit with the public, until Wolverine accidentally eviscerated his dancing partner.
3. After rehearsals for The Boy from Oz, Hugh showed ‘Little Peter’ what he'd get if he told anyone their little secret.
4. Chadstone Bowls Club really went downhill after they let Hugh Jackman join.
5. Friends told Wolverine his hair-styling fetish had gone too far when he had a comb embedded in his fist.
6. Etiquette police hunted Wolverine remorselessly for his refusal to use a salad fork.
7. Hugh Jackman was determined not to let his fingernails interfere with his wiping technique.
THE HEADLINES JOHN WEST REJECTED
This week famous Melbourne fisherman and football commentator Rex Hunt admitted to paying a Melbourne beautician $1500 a week for extra-marital sex over a period of 14 years, sending sub-editors across the nation into a flurry of headline writing. Sadly, they used none of the following headlines. (Pussies.)
Rex Gives Up the Hunt, Pays for Sex
Rex Hunt's Tackle – A Recipe for Disaster
Rex Goes Fux Hunting
Rex Admits to Being a Hunt
Sex Hunt Goes Awry
Plenty More Fish in the Sea, Rex
Something Fishy at the Hunt's
Foolish Hunt Takes the Bait...
Rex's Hunt of a Day
Rex Kisses Wrong Fish
Rex in Fishy Hunt
Rex Hunt-Diving Trip Turns Fishy
Rex Pays for Hunt
Good on the Dixie Chicks. That quotation the Baron lifted (and tampered with slightly) from Time sounds pretty arrogant, but they voiced their disapproval of Bush when it wasn't popular to do so. That takes balls. There were people at the time who predicted that it would end their careers. But events have vindicated them, and they're doing better than ever. Booyah!
They would have copped a lot of shit from their label, no question. After all, with a band of their profile its all about the money. So yes, good on them.
And to diss their own core audience in such a way is just gold.
New respect.
They even received death threats, very specific ones like which show the were going be shot at etc.
Who the fuck threatens to sneak around and shoot someone. What the fuck does it prove? You could shoot all three of them, but Bush would still be a fucking tool. It doesn't change anything.
Chiming in with Dixie Chicks support, whilst not a fan of their music really I am a fan of their bodies and I think that is good enough. I don't want to stereotype either, but them being a country act and all, and everyone from the deep south loving 2 things, country music and George Bush, props for speaking out against him at the risk of starting a violent hoedown at the local saloon.
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