Country Music Television (CMT) promised its viewers a big treat for the end of June: “I Melt,” the latest video from Rascal Flatts, a country pop band of twentysomethings on the verge of becoming supernovas. What viewers got instead was a surprise, and only some of them considered it a treat: handsome ace guitarist Joe Don Rooney and a comely lass in their birthday suits.
This is not the Nashville of Minnie Pearl.
Traditional country songs have never skipped the seamy side of life. There is, after all, a whole category known as “drinking and crying songs.” But the cavorting in country music has usually had a strong moral and social context. Just run your mind over the songs and career of Johnny Cash.
In any case, until recently, the shenanigans have had their limit. As Hank Williams Jr. advised some young newcomers: “In country music, you just cain’t use the F-word.”
But even that limit may be evaporating. Foul-mouthed rapper Kid Rock is now making a place for himself in country music, his real love. Shelton Williams — who took the name “Hank, III” only when he lost a paternity suit and needed cash — is apparently having trouble keeping his mouth shut too. It was to them that Hank Jr. directed his advice, but if the song weren’t so funny, it would have been a wasted effort. The new boys have raised precious few eyebrows.
Country music has always welcomed fading pop stars, and has followed fading pop-music trends at a safe distance. Rascal Flatts, for instance, sound like the Backstreet Boys. A lot. And the Backstreet Boys are so 1999.
The rapid trend toward smuttiness is nothing more than a slow train pulling into the station. “I Melt” premiered on CMT’s Most Wanted Live, or MWL, a blatant rip-off of MTV’s long-running Total Request Live, or TRL — even down to the chipper, blandly good-looking host. The Rascal Flatts video relies heavily on a famous video by the long-gone boy-band, 98°. A recent, raunchy Deana Carter video, in which the country hottie squirms around in her underwear waiting for her working-class man, relies even more heavily on Madonna’s legendary, Fritz Lang-inspired “Express Yourself” video, now 15 years old.
But there are caveats: Carter’s video is a bland imitation; and Fritz Lang only hovers in the very distant background. And as for “I Melt,” its 98° predecessor was less erotic, and much funnier. The country knockoff used to be the one that was less erotic and much funnier, if it avoided being bland. The reversal is not a good thing.
Missing, too, from Rascal Flatts is any of the vaunted “realism” in which country has always stood head and shoulders above every other form of American popular music. Lyrically, “I Melt” could be any pop song. The lust has no context, the characters have no jobs, the sex yields no children or complications.
This is not going to stop with the baring of shapely, youthful backsides, either. The chat boards have been ablaze since the premiere, and supporters and objectors come from all age groups. A few supporters offer the standard defense that “The sex is in a loving, committed context,” but most don’t even bother with that, asking instead, simply: “It’s all around us; why can’t it be on CMT?”
CMT executives have been asking the same question, apparently, because hot on the heels of “I Melt” comes an hour-long special, “Video Babes,” advertised in the black-and-hot-pink color scheme so favored by producers of a certain kind of video. Indeed, it turns out that the babes in country music have included several former Playmates and at least one star of what CMT delicately calls “erotic thrillers.” A quick check of the Internet Movie Database made the obvious a little clearer: The videos were produced by Penthouse, and the covers were in black and hot pink.
“I Melt” quickly became one of the most requested videos on CMT, and is still lodged in the network’s Top 20. Rascal Flatts are indeed now supernovas, and will headline an “MWL Concert Tour” this fall.
In one sense, the supporters of Rascal Flatts have a point: HBO’s “groundbreaking” Sex and the City recently began its final season. The season-opener was, really, very funny and it was also, really, soft-core porn. I saw it on the TV in my billiards club. In public — though the club does not allow minors. And expanded “basic cable” service — the kind you usually get whether you ask for it or not — is about to go “premium channel” HBO one better: The owners of E! Entertainment have recently announced a new all-reality-show channel that will include full-frontal nudity.
My pool club is in the basement — which is exactly where our culture spends its time these days, wandering aimlessly. And country music is padding faithfully behind, as always. That is a real pity.
— Kenneth Killiany teaches at the Catholic University of America and runs the blog amindthatsuits.blogspot.com