VA Beach or Nashville?...YOU DECIDE!!!!

Many people believe that they need to move to Nashville, TN in order to get a career in country music. However, in the generation we live in today and the new social networking sites, people can use these to thier benifit and also try to blow up musically in thier community.In the state of Virginia there is one main place where someone can make a great living playing music and still have a higher chance to make it in the music industry, that is in Virginia Beach, VA.

Many people come to Virginia Beach to have fun at the ocean and see some of the sights that it has to offer, others come to try to get their foot in the musical door, without as much hustle and bustle as New York, LA, and Nashville (which are locations where most musical buisness takes place)

Artist such as Missy Elliot, Timberland, and N.E.R.D have made it to the top of the music charts by starting out in Virginia's finest Music area. Artist such as Justin Timberlake, Brittney Spears and Michael Jackson have recorded in VA Beach.

Artist today hustle their music and build a fan base on new media technologies, such as the social networking website known as myspace. Every person I asked "how do you find new music" they all spoke of the myspace website. Artist in VA Beach know this, and are selling songs, shirts, records and tickets through their myspace page and making thier music into an actual transmedia enterprise.

People use these to show to record labels and management companies. The artist who you can find playing Hampton Roads finest venues and local bars, will tell you it is a great area not only to get seen, but also to make a decent living while achieving the musical american dream. If artist start to make a large amount of revenue in thier music, they will get the attention of major lables out side of thier home state.

Colgate Country Showdown Regional Finals

Colgate toothpaste puts together a country music competition every year through out the entire nation for country music singers who arent discovered the chance to get noticed. This year was the 27th anniversary of the country music competition and I drove to Marietta Ohio to watch the East Coast Finals, where the winner would get to appear on national television and play for 100,000 dollars.

The competition was in the Marietta High school auditorium, the sounds crew set did an amazing job helping the house band set up and helped each singer by giving them a great PA to sing on.
The show went on at 6pm and the radio station involved broadcasted live so everyone could listen to the people singing on air.

The night was cold and there were alot of poeple packing into the auditorium to listen to thier favorite contestant. The radio DJ's were throwing out shirts and frisbee's as well as a surprise guest performance from grammy award winning country artist "confederate railroad".


Each contestant went on and did a great job! It looked like a tight contest because every single act was just as good as the other. But in the end, Korey Blake from the state of Kentucky took the trophy and was thrilled for the opprotunity he has just won. He is 17 years old and on his way to the top. He won a all expence paid trip to Nashville TN. and will appear on national television to compete againts 4 others winners from arround the nation for the title of the "best new act in country music"

The Way the Music Died.....A Comparison

The film shown in my most recent class of COMM 495 in relation to the Country Music genre, shows how music industry has vastly become a business where it is harder, and harder to get your foot into the doors of. People are not just looking for good music anymore, they are looking for "great" music, not just your ordinary beats, and rhymes. The industry has become more and more competitive each year as it grows. In more of a relation to country music, its not so simple anymore as in writing songs, and producing potential hits. It has become a bit more complicated process theses days. Today's industry is vastly looking for people who are not just good singers/songwriters/producers...but people who have been already molded into "awesome singers/songwriters/producers. It has seemed to become the standard in the industry today. It has become a combination effort between producers, songwriters, and singers alike to produce "awesome" music, because "great" music just isn't selling the numbers the record companies would like to see. Here are two website that pretty much echo my sentiments:

http://www.jossip.com/god-save-the-scene-how-music-can-still-save-itself-20090203/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7901003.stm
http://www.thetimes.co.za/Careers/Article.aspx?id=948166

Local Country Concert Dates

Alright, just a heads up...here are the dates for the local country concerts for this spring and summer:

Alan Jackson @ Ted Constant Center April 24th

Gary Allen @ 5th St. VA Beach Oceanfront May 29th

George Strait @ Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater June 19th

Kenny Chesney @ Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater June25th

Corey Smith "Millions without selling out"

What does the Country Music Industry want in an artist? As time moves on, it seems like all they want is a model with a microphone, who has a voice and then the industry can try to teach them the rest. Everyone thinks they need a record deal to be a star, but a record deal leads to having them telling artist how to act, what to sing, how to look which equals the sell out.

Soulful Southern Rocker Corey Smith is an EX-social studies teacher who has built his musical empire, off his own songs and not selling out. He is all about writing what he wants and he sells out everywhere he goes by selling himself, and not having people build him as a product. He even wrote a song about a certain country "superstar" and how he is a sell out. Corey is all about being original and not giving in to any part of the musical buisness system. He makes all his money from live shows and selling his own music with out the help of major lables. If the music is good, really good and people and relate to it, money will come in.

Alan Jackson @ ODU

On Friday, April 24th, Alan Jackson will be performing at the Ted Constant Convocation Center! Click here for more info

Artist staying true to themselves

I think one of the greatest things about country music is the majority of country singers and not "fake" they stay very true to themselves. Case in so.. Shania Twan released a statement saying that she was working on a new album that she hoped to be released some time this year, however she was still working on it because she wanted to make sure she stayed "true to herself." Now if you pay attention to the country scene you will know how famous she was in the early '90's and that recently she went through a bad divorce after many years of a happy marriage. If she decided to release a cd, that was not her best work no one would realy put her down for it and her cd would still sell millions, just for the simple fact that she is who she is. But she does dont take that for granted, she wants he work to be just as good as it ever was. This is something you dont find much of in other genres.