TRACK REVIEW: The Chicks - My Best Friend’s Weddings

TRACK REVIEW:

The Chicks

My Best Friend’s Weddings

9.4/10

The track, My Best Friend’s Weddings, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMU0Pfn65lU

GENRE:

Country-Pop

ORIGIN:

Dallas, U.S.A.

The album, Gaslighter, is available here:

https://thechicks.lnk.to/gaslighter

RELEASE DATE:

17th July, 2020

LABEL:

Columbia

PRODUCERS:

Jack Antonoff/The Chicks/Teddy Geiger

TRACKLIST:

Gaslighter

Sleep at Night

Texas Man

Everybody Loves You

For Her

March March

My Best Friend's Weddings

Tights on My Boat

Julianna Calm Down

Young Man

Hope It's Something Good

Set Me Free

__________

I have been meaning to review this band…

for a long time now but, with a new album out, I have no excuses to avoid them! Natalie Maines, Emily Strayer, and Martie Maguire are The Chicks – formerly The Dixie Chicks. They are a terrific group and, when thinking about where they are now and the impact they have made, there is a lot to investigate. I am going to start with the fact that, this year, they haver changed their name. In the wake of the death of George Floyd, many artists and people in general have been soul-searching and calling for change. Some artists have changed their names because their former moniker was either linked to slavery or projected something that seems inappropriate right now. Lady Antebellum became ‘Lady A’ and that has created an instant legal problem – one that is ridiculous and the band themselves created. The Dixie Chicks felt that they could not use that name anymore, so have dropped the ‘Dixie’, and this has been a wise move. This article from The Guardian explains more:

“The trio were unusually quiet as the issue grew louder over two weeks in late June. Then they released a new single, March March, under a new name: the Chicks. The only explanation was a line on their website: “We want to meet this moment.”

The change was a long time coming, says Strayer, the banjo player, a few days after the news is announced. The band had begun to feel uncomfortable about the name on their 2016 tour, she says, with “racist rhetoric” rife in the year of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. “The Chicks” and the abbreviation “DCX” appeared on their merchandise and branding. “Things to water it down,” Strayer says. “Current events were the tipping point, but it wasn’t like we started thinking about it just two weeks ago.”

The outrage cycle that followed the official name change wrote itself. Rightwing commentators accused them of virtue signalling. The Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz said they had told “the entire South to p*** off”. Strayer refuses to dignify Cruz’s tweet with a response, and says she has no idea what virtue signalling is. She laughs when I explain: telegraphing woke values to look good online. “You’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t, so we just try and keep our own compass on all that stuff.” They expected the trolls: “The people who have hated us since the Bush comment are probably the same people saying that stuff”.

When talking about The Chicks – and their former incarnation -, one must address politics. A lot of artists avoid getting involved in political matters, as it can be risky regarding fans’ reactions and how the record label also reacts. Many want to speak out and have a say, but it can be detrimental to their popularity. The Chicks’ minds have always spoken freely, and when George W. Bush was in power in the U.S. in the early part of the ‘00s, the group spoke out against his decision to declare war on Iraq. A lot of Americans were shocked that war was declared but, in the music world, not that many people spoke out. For a band who were as established as The Dixie Chicks (as they were), there was always a chance there would be some backlash. This recent interview with The Guardian goes into more detail:

“The band’s conservative fans were in for a shock. In March 2003, eight days before George W Bush declared war on Iraq, Maines, the lead singer, told a crowd in London that she was “ashamed” that Bush was also from Texas. Denunciation and death threats followed. They were dubbed traitors and “Saddam’s angels”. Local radio stations organised CD-burning protests and US conglomerates banned them from the airwaves, hobbling their career overnight. They would release one more album, in 2006, their last for 14 years”.

Can the hatred Trump legitimised go back in the bottle? “I feel like we’re really gonna make change this time,” Maines says. “Enough people are fighting back.” The only time she was tempted to break her watertight quarantine was when her two teenage sons desperately wanted to go to LA’s BLM protests – though, with coronavirus numbers rising, she made everybody stay at home.

They talk enthusiastically about Confederate statues belonging in museums. “It’s not about erasing history,” Maines says, “but not having them up for worship”.

I wanted to bring up the way The Dixie Chicks were cancelled back then, as there has been new discussion regarding cancel culture and whether we can delete someone from our consciousness if they have a controversial view or they attract negative press. Recently, J.K. Rowling has been scrutinised and attacked for some of the things she said but, in this modern age, I do not feel it is right or legitimate to blacklist and delete anyone. The Dixie Chicks faced a difficult choice when they spoke out against Bush: they could do the right think by having a say and, in the process, face any consequences, or they could remain silent. In all honesty, it is not like the liberal and right-minded section of America were appalled and turned their back on The Dixie Chicks: it was the very conservative portion that were aghast that a group like The Dixie Chicks could have any political bones in their body. This article explains why The Dixie Chicks’ ‘controversy’ was a rarity back then:

“The cancellation of the Dixie Chicks was driven in large part by conservative listeners, who were shocked to discover that their favorite band didn’t share their political opinions. As Maguire said in a 2006 interview on MSNBC’s Hardball, “You’ve just got a majority of the core of country music listening audience kind of feeling the same way about politics, and we always kind of felt like the black sheep [regarding our political beliefs] but never really used the stage to talk about politics.” Musicians working in other genres — say, pop singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow, who appeared at the 2003 Grammys with a guitar strap that said “No War” — didn’t face the same professional repercussions for taking an anti-war stance.

But the cancellation was also driven by the fact that in 2003, in the era before Instagram Stories and tweeting at the president, people weren’t used to hearing celebrities make off-the-cuff remarks, period, let alone controversial off-the-cuff remarks”.

I want to remain on this subject for now because, in my view, the group inspired a lot of other artists to stand up, and when we think about modern politics and how artists have taken against Donald Trump, the fact The Chicks have survived now and continue to speak out is hugely important. Think about a big artist like Taylor Swift and her political views, and I am sure she was moved by The Dixie Chicks’ bravery nearly two decades ago. Of course, with some quarters grumbling and condemning the group back then for their views, this would spill onto radio. It was not until very recently that the group were heard on Country music stations – until then, they were outcast because of their views on Bush and Iraq. It seems insane to think that a group could be exiled for having a political opinion, even if their music was relatively politics-free. This Rolling Stone article discusses the harsh situation The Dixie Chicks found themselves in back in 2003:

“On September 4th, Mike Chase and Amy Faust — morning show hosts for the country station KWJJ in Portland, Oregon — cued up Taylor Swift’s “Soon You’ll Get Better,” a quietly resilient acoustic ballad featuring the Dixie Chicks.

“It’s a song about her own mother struggling with cancer,” Chase explains. “We played the song and also posted it on our Facebook page. One woman [commented by saying] her grandmother had died ten minutes prior to us playing it. And right after that, some guy goes, ‘I guess it would be better if Taylor wasn’t ramming her politics down my throat.’ We thought, ‘wow: what a study in extremes.'”

The Dixie Chicks have been a third rail in country radio ever since they said that they did not support President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. “We’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas,” singer Natalie Maines said onstage in London. They were staples of the format before their comments and personae non gratae immediately after. Looking back now, country radio’s decision to exile the Dixie Chicks seems to presage the current political moment. “That was kind of the beginning of the cancel culture that we have now,” Chase says”.

It does not shock me that an all-female group would be judged and castigated by a Country station. Maybe thinks are starting to move in the right direction, but the fetid smell of sexism has blighted Country for decades. At a time when acts like The Chicks, and Maren Morris are ruling, it is still the men who get the most airplay and celebration. Look at any article or piece of press that ranks the most-popular Country artists, and the majority will be men. This is not because of a quality imbalance: rather, it is the way radio stations still ignore women, and they consider their music to be inferior. As we can see, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure that Country corrects its ways:

“Songs recorded by women constitute just 10% of all songs played on country radio stations, according to a report published last week. That has women in country music and all who care about fairness on the airwaves up in arms.

“Depending on the time of day a listener tunes in to their station, (10% is) barely enough to be heard. It’s certainly not enough exposure to become known, to build a fan base, to climb charts, to gain enough recognition to have access to opportunities and resources within the industry,” wrote University of Ottawa professor Jada Watson, who partnered with cable network CMT on the report.

Kacey Musgraves had a pointed response to the KCQ tweet: "Smells like white male bullshit and why LONG ago I decided they cannot stop me." Musgraves' "Golden Hour" album won the 2019 Grammy for album of the year, with minimal airplay on traditional country radio”.

When the Oscars were criticized for being “too white,” the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences embarked on a highly visible and ambitious effort to make its membership more diverse. As the film and television industries came under scrutiny for widespread sexual harassment, investigations and dismissals followed. In contrast, country radio just shrugs.

IMAGE CREDIT: Agnés Ricart

While many country music institutions appear to be rallying for women — this year’s Country Music Association Awards was an example — country radio isn’t budging.

It was early in 2015 that a group of women in the recording industry in Nashville held the first meeting of “Change the Conversation,” dedicated to giving women an equal voice in country radio.

“Male artists have always dominated country radio 70/30, but over the last decade, the percentages for females have dropped dramatically,” Leslie Fram, a member of the group and senior vice president of music strategy for CMT, told me in an interview. “It leads to a cycle of fewer women getting signed, fewer female songwriters getting publishing deals and fewer women on tours. it’s tough to get on a tour if you don’t have a song on the radio”.

The Chicks have been in the radio wilderness for many years now, but their name is not as derided now as it was. With the revised band name, I think it is a new era for one of the most influential Country acts of all time. It seems that, even though the band have been played on U.S. radio quite a bit, they did not expect to be featured at all. This afore-quoted review from The Guardian discussed their relationship with Country radio:

“Even in the world of country, there are signs that the Chicks’ pariah days may be coming to an end. Forty-eight hours after they released the title track as a single, it had been played 750 times on US country radio – though none of the band care, nor listen to the format. “I only turned it on ’cos I didn’t believe that we’d actually get played,” Maguire says. But four months later, it’s off the airplay charts, whereas many songs have stuck around for more than a year. Today, women and mixed-gender groups make up 13-15% of daily airplay; some attribute this pitiful representation to the Chicks’ 2003 ostracisation. In 2015, one independent radio consultant said women’s voices actively lowered their ratings. Strayer hadn’t heard this before. “That’s like saying women are too emotional to be CEOs.” “Sounds like male suppression bullshit!” Maines yells from her Zoom window. “I’d like to see the science behind this – ha! – study”.

Let us move on from the past and talk about the present. The Chicks have a new album out, Gaslighter, and it is their first album since 2006’s Taking the Long Way. It is good to have them back, and the reaction to Gaslighter has been hugely positive. It makes one wonder why the Dallas-formed band took so long to release their eighth studio album. When they spoke with NPR, the group discussed the reason for a long absence, in addition to the themes that have influenced Gaslighter:

PHOTO CREDIT: AP

“The Chicks — formerly known as the Dixie Chicks — is back with a new record called Gaslighter after 14 years. Why the long time gone? Martie Maguire, Emily Strayer and Natalie Maines say they wanted a break to raise their kids, among other things, but after a 2016 reunion tour, they felt the hunger again. Their new album is rooted in failed relationships, some good ones, anger and a lotta humor. Maguire says life experience never hurts writing.

"We're between the ages of 45 and 50 — I'm the oldest, probably with the most baggage — but we've had relationships break up, marriages break up," Maguire says. "Different things happen in our lives, just like everybody else, so when we write a song it's not necessarily about one person. Maybe one line might be a contribution about somebody that did somebody wrong, but it's never one thing. It's not all one bad man."

"There's so many bad men!" Maines interjects amidst laughter.

There are so many great songs on Gaslighter, so it was difficult selecting one to review! I have gone for My Best Friend’s Weddings, as it is, to me, the best from the album. The song was co-written by the band alongside Jack Antonoff (one of the album’s producers), and Justin Trainter.

My Best Friend’s Weddings is a song that has already attracted love and intrigue from Esquire, where they highlight some key lines:

“You set off fireworks that evening,” Maines sings of a fateful night, where her dearest friend wed, twenty years ago. “With a flicker of untruth.” She should have seen it coming: “I was never safe, I was never safe, still not safe/You’d torch me any chance I get.” Such lines are stark in their admission, but so is the fact that Maines voice is never alone when she sings them. Backed by Maguire and Erwin, as it has been for now several decades, there is an unshakeable sense of shared burden—a devastating communion—that is hard to glean elsewhere in music”.

I do not normally quote from another review when assessing a song, but it is clear that this track has resonated with people and is important to many people. There is a calm and reverence that opens My Best Friend’s Weddings. The vocal harmonies are almost choral and spiritual in their nature; calming and hushed, but it is imbued with passion and strength. The opening verse – “Met you at my best friend's wedding/There was something about you/You set off fireworks that evening/With a flicker of untruth” – promises something pure and forever. Before continuing on, it is hard to listen to My Best Friend’s Weddings without thinking about this: In August 2019, in the midst of their divorce, Natalie Maines' ex-husband, Adrian Pasdar asked the court to give him access to all of Maines' unreleased music over concerns it might violate a confidentiality clause in their prenuptial agreement, although he has previously argued in divorce proceedings that the couple's prenuptial agreement is invalid, claiming that Maines should owe him financial support. Pasdar stated that he wanted to know if any of the unreleased material might contain lyrics that pertain to their breakup. I knew there would be a lot of Maines’ heartache and separation in Gaslighter, and it seems like My Best Friend’s Weddings is one of those songs that looks at that relationship with Pasdar.

The vocal accelerates as we reach the pre-chorus: “Jump twenty years, jump twenty years, twenty years, yeah/Lookin' back, in retrospect/I was never safe, I was never safe, still not safe, yeah/You'd torch me any chance you'd get”. It seems like this romance that seemed so promising and exciting, looking back, was always meant to be temporary. Not only has the relationship ended, but it has left the heroine with scars and a lack of trust. By the time the chorus arrives, we hear images of this wildfire coming; the heroine trying to escape the flame and get out of the way of a toxic bond – as she goes, she takes what she needs and does not look back. The words are arresting and powerful, and one cannot help but sympathise. If some relationship songs yearn for the past and have a broken heart, it seems that this one is not mourning the past. It seems strange that things are not where they were before but, as the heroine sings, she prefers her own company anyway – so m any years after they got together, separation and a chance to start afresh is not such a bad thing! With a beautiful mix of solo vocals and backing (on the lines “In twenty years, in twenty years, twenty years, yeah” and “I'm better off, I'm better off, better off, yeah”), we get some solemn strings and organ that gives the track quite an ethereal and almost-religious quality. It is a moving song but, rather than it being one where our heroine wallows, she is happy to be free of a lot of doom and gloom. My Best Friend’s Weddings is so honest, and I love the bravery and relatability – so many people will be able to connect to that feeling of escaping a bad relationship and being able to look past it. We hear about the wedding of a best friend, and how happy she looks on that big day. It is that image and feeling of new love and a future that gives the heroine hope that things can repair and there is such things as a second chance of long-lasting love. I love how there is a real story and sense of progression in the song.

PHOTO CREDIT: Robin Harper

The vocal switches with each scene, and the post-chorus – prior to the bridge – provides one of the most affecting-yet-simple moments, where the lines “Go it alone, go it alone” is repeated. It is delivered in such a way that it is like snow falling. That might sound strange, but one projects images of our heroine out in the cold and, whilst she is not defeated and lost, there are going to be tough moments ahead before she can reach somewhere that seems better and warmer. By the time that we arrive at the bridge, it almost seems like the heroine is on a bridge herself and making hard decisions as she looks at the wild waters below. Her best friend’s wedding, it appears, is a second chance of happiness: this bride has been married before, and there is this sense of rising from the ashes and being able to commit to someone after a divorce/loss. One thinks about Natalie Maines and her divorce, and how she must be asking herself whether she can love again, or whether she will be alone. There is this mantra of going alone and riding waves and fire without anyone else. Rather than it being a lament and look for sympathy, the heroine is stronger on her own, but she is definitely not closed to the possibility that she will welcome someone else into her life – after a period of recovery and introspection. One listens to My Best Friend’s Weddings, and there are so many images that flash to mind. It is, like I said, a story and there is a feeling that separation is painful and life-changing, but a divorce does not have to signal defeat. I like how there is not a lot of instrumentation, which allows the vocals to shin. We get a real range of emotions as the song moves and progresses. I think My Best Friend’s Weddings is one of the best songs The Chicks (The Dixie Chicks) has produced, and it is a standout from Gaslighter.

I have a lot of admiration for The Chicks, as they have weathered a lot of condemnation following their remarks in 2003, and they have, like many of their female peers, had to compete for attention far harder than they should have. Back with a new album, one hopes that the group will continue to put out incredible records. Not only have The Chicks inspired other artists - including Taylor Swift - to speak out when the time is right; they have also resonated because of their incredible music. Although there has been some line-up switches in the group since the debut album, Thank Heavens for Dale Evans, in 1990, Natalie Maines, Emily Strayer, and Martie Maguire are looking to the future. I want to finish by talking about how they have inspired others – including one of the biggest bands of today, HAIM. The fact the group are unwilling to remain silent and urge people to be themselves is one reason why they have remained and have such a strong legacy:

“And yet, their refusal to apologize may have also been the thing that sealed their legacy. When reading the comments of younger female country artists who grew up listening to the Dixie Chicks, it’s impossible to ignore how often phrases like “be yourself” come up. Country duo Maddie & Tae told The New York Times “The Dixie Chicks encouraged us all to unapologetically be who we are” in 2016. And in 2018, Miranda Lambert said, “I want to be the Dixie Chicks for this next generation. To put it simply, I want to write and make music that moves people, to give them freedom to be who they are.” And there is Dixie Chicks Stan-In-Chief Taylor Swift, who brought Maines on stage at a 2015 Los Angeles concert and said, “If not for this woman and her band, I would not have known that you can be quirky and fun and yourself and outspoken and brave and real.” Who knows how we’d be thinking of the Dixie Chicks today if they’d given in and apologized — or if we’d be thinking of them at all.

Considering all the ground that the Dixie Chicks broke, it’s almost fitting that they also pioneered getting cancelled in the digital age. But their refusal to back down didn’t just impact their legacy; it impacted how we see cancellation itself. Through their actions, the Dixie Chicks asserted that fandom isn’t ownership and that you can’t control someone’s thoughts just because you buy their albums or see their movies (or refuse to buy their albums or see their movies). They asserted their rights to be complex human beings and not live up to whatever image their fans projected. It was an incredibly risky statement to make. But in the end, it paid off, for them, and for everyone else who refuses to shut up and sing”.

The last feature I want to drop in relates to when The Chicks interviewed HAIM. Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim have followed the group for years, and it was great reading the interview, as there is a lot of affection from both sides. I want to source a section that relates to radio play and how there is a difference in the U.K. compared with the U.S.:

“ALANA: I think with this record, and maybe on the two records before, the one thing we were always super cognizant of was radio. It’s such a crazy game to play.

DANIELLE: We’ve never been on the radio.

NATALIE: What?

ALANA: In the U.K., yes. But in the U.S., no.

NATALIE: What do you think that’s about?

ALANA: From what I’ve learned about the process of getting on the radio in the U.K., it’s really if a DJ likes your song, then they can play it. That’s so freeing to me. Because we were playing to four people, and then we heard that this woman, Marianne Hobbs, who works at XFM, was playing our song “Better Off,” which was on an EP that we put out for free. And I’ll never forget our first big show was at this place called Dingwalls in Camden. And I forgot something in our van or something, and I opened a door and there was a huge line outside and I literally asked the first person, “Who are you waiting for?” And they were like, “You.”

ESTE: I think people in radio like to put people in a box.

DANIELLE: Alternative radio specifically. We’re a rock band and what we’ve heard through the grapevine is, “You’re more pop than rock.” I think unfortunately some of that has to do with that we’re a band of women and people are like, “You’re women, so you’re pop.”

ALANA: It put us in this box, like, we can’t put a drum machine on this song because then they’ll think that we don’t know how to play our instruments. For this record, I was so tired of wanting to foresee what other people want from us. I just wanted to make the music that I wanted to make. For lack of a better word, we had real “fuck it” mentality.

NATALIE: Radio is becoming less and less, I don’t want to say relevant, but there are so many other ways to be heard now. It’s a really lucky time to be a band. And rock radio is almost obsolete. So I could see how you kind of had to find another area. But you’ve done it and that’s super cool”.

It is great to have The Chicks back and, if you have not heard/bought Gaslighter, make sure you rectify that! Gaslighter is one of the best of the year so far, and I look forward to seeing where the group go from here. It will be thrilling to see, as Gaslighter is one of their…