I often post on the I Love Music message boards, which is one of the better places to read what music writers, obsessives and wannabes of all sorts have to say about what's going on in pop. Today I saw some folks taking Robert Altman's 1975 film "Nashville" to task, because the music is lousy. Well, I've seen the film dozens of times and yes, the music's lousy. I always figured it was on purpose—the point of the movie is that music is used as a political tool in a city where everyone wants to be an insider. (Sound familiar?) And I think the view that Altman was mean-spirited—as some posters on I Love Music maintain—misses the point. Of course he was mean-spirited. But he perceived the relationship between country music and politics, and the incursion of Los Angeles upon Nashville. I think that's an essential point to be made. This is not to say that this relationship is all there is to Nashville's music scene by a long shot, but that one should probably be aware, always, of the potential for that relationship to go south—or, in the case of "Nashville," go west.
Since I often write about country music, but am at heart a heartless pop fan with a formalist bent, I try to look at country music, and Nashville's music industry, with an eye for the ways country music is really just pop music, with its own conventions, backstories and pre-meditated sellouts built in. Yet I find myself fascinated by even the crassest of country music, and I find a lot of musical value in it. In short, I think what Altman missed in his movie is the way that country music really works on a deeper level; it means something to its core audience, and it means something to a guy like me, who loves it but has his blue-state doubts about it. (I'm drinking Kroger French Roast whole-bean coffee this morning—it's cheap and it's not bad, but I draw the line at Folgers and at Bud Ice, know what I mean? I might be cheap, but I ain't crazy.) So, a record like Kris Kristofferson's recent "This Old Road," which is a good-liberal effort to its core, has its heart in the right place, expresses sentiments that no liberal could disagree with, and bores me to tears. (If Altman ever re-made "Nashville," this would be a record he might use in the soundtrack.) Give me Julie Roberts on men and mascara, or Trent Willmon on, er, suburban-lite S&M, or just give me Sara Evans on a high, bare rock. (Like I said, I might be a liberal, but I am not crazy.) If only an auteur of Altman-esque voltage could come back to town thirty years after "Nashville" and catch something of the fascinating interplay of scenes, musics and outlooks that makes this a great time to be in the real city called Nashville.
