Not that I listen to country music that much (I don't, with the occasional exception of the Sirius/XM satellite channel Outlaw Country--founded by Steven Van Zandt of E Street Band fame), but I was rather depressed and horrified by Lady Antebellum and their multiple-award-winning song "Need You Now" on the Grammy Awards Variety Show (With Occasional Awards) last night.
"Need You Now" takes a simple situation (desperate early morning phone call to friend/lover/ex) and turns it into bland, safely-swallowed musical Lactaid. Even a meant-to-be-inoffensive-and-reassuring piece of assembly-line country like, say, Garth Brooks' "Unanswered Prayers" from the 90s, comes off more honest (if 590 miles away from anything resembling raw emotion).
I guess this is what most people are settling for in 2011. Expecting Lady Antebellum (which bowed almost-constantly to an apparently-fearsome institution called "country radio" on the Grammys) to be co-opted by Mitt Romney and/or Tim Pawlenty next year.
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