Pretty Cowboy
Mar. 3rd, 2007 02:50 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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poptimistsJason Meadows
100 % Cowboy
http://www.myspace.com/jasonmeadows100cowboy
Meadows is interesting, just the facts before we move onto the single. He grew up in a small town, on a farm, worked with bulls, rode rodeo for a while, and listened to country that was more chart then traditional. (George Strait came immediately to mind.) It’s the story, with aw shucks phrasing, and a respect for his roots, that got him on Nashville Star, and every time that he won, every time he was chosen in front of someone else it was because of the traditional phrasing, the polite quietness, and the music that didn’t much offend. It didn’t hurt that he was tall, with a nice ass, and great eyes. Beefcake that you could take home to Mama. I watched the second season of Nashville star, with mild interest, mostly that it went worked hard at providing a full range of what was considered country, from girl singers to rockabilly to cowboy music to something resembling rock and roll.
Jason Meadows, two seasons after being the runner up, is now releasing an album. The single is out, and the video is available on his myspace page. They are selling him as a someone to fuck, there was a pinup published in the Valentine issue of Country Weekly, with him hanging from a barn lintel, eyes low, gazing at the viewer, wearing nothing but a singlet. The photo of him on the CD single focuses on his arms, in a plaid shirt with the arms ripped off. He sings about not wanting to be a pretty boy or a movie cowboy, and he is pushing away from looking good on television. The video is similar,. just another working class man, cowboy being metonymy for cops and farmers and firemen and everyone else who does the scutwork that no one else is willing or able to do.
But he’s a rodeo cowboy, so he never really did scutwork, he did hard work, I don’t think that rodeoing is easy and he is too self consciously pretty, too careful about his appearance, and too derisive for this to be valid. I expect people who record to be playing with archetypes, to lie to me about where they come from, and in terms of country music, pretend to have a lot less money then they do. But the song you can t ell, comes directly from the rock hard is the new authentic, the genre that gave us Shooter Jennings, who had his daddy working for him, or Jason Aldean, who’s signifiers of class and pyschogeographic space seem to be less jarring,. Or Gretchen Wilson, whose story had enough history close enough to the other women, that there is nothing out of place. The single is a failure (the publicity photos will end up under the mattress), but I am really curious to see how he constructs these personae over an entire album, esp. with titles like: Where Did My Dirt Road Go, Farm Girl, and Dirt Clod.
100 % Cowboy
http://www.myspace.com/jasonmeadows100cowboy
Meadows is interesting, just the facts before we move onto the single. He grew up in a small town, on a farm, worked with bulls, rode rodeo for a while, and listened to country that was more chart then traditional. (George Strait came immediately to mind.) It’s the story, with aw shucks phrasing, and a respect for his roots, that got him on Nashville Star, and every time that he won, every time he was chosen in front of someone else it was because of the traditional phrasing, the polite quietness, and the music that didn’t much offend. It didn’t hurt that he was tall, with a nice ass, and great eyes. Beefcake that you could take home to Mama. I watched the second season of Nashville star, with mild interest, mostly that it went worked hard at providing a full range of what was considered country, from girl singers to rockabilly to cowboy music to something resembling rock and roll.
Jason Meadows, two seasons after being the runner up, is now releasing an album. The single is out, and the video is available on his myspace page. They are selling him as a someone to fuck, there was a pinup published in the Valentine issue of Country Weekly, with him hanging from a barn lintel, eyes low, gazing at the viewer, wearing nothing but a singlet. The photo of him on the CD single focuses on his arms, in a plaid shirt with the arms ripped off. He sings about not wanting to be a pretty boy or a movie cowboy, and he is pushing away from looking good on television. The video is similar,. just another working class man, cowboy being metonymy for cops and farmers and firemen and everyone else who does the scutwork that no one else is willing or able to do.
But he’s a rodeo cowboy, so he never really did scutwork, he did hard work, I don’t think that rodeoing is easy and he is too self consciously pretty, too careful about his appearance, and too derisive for this to be valid. I expect people who record to be playing with archetypes, to lie to me about where they come from, and in terms of country music, pretend to have a lot less money then they do. But the song you can t ell, comes directly from the rock hard is the new authentic, the genre that gave us Shooter Jennings, who had his daddy working for him, or Jason Aldean, who’s signifiers of class and pyschogeographic space seem to be less jarring,. Or Gretchen Wilson, whose story had enough history close enough to the other women, that there is nothing out of place. The single is a failure (the publicity photos will end up under the mattress), but I am really curious to see how he constructs these personae over an entire album, esp. with titles like: Where Did My Dirt Road Go, Farm Girl, and Dirt Clod.
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