when's the last time a southern accent was cool in rock

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Stones and CCR used to do southern accents cause it was the cool thing to do (I guess the Stones still do, sort of, although Mick has made his particular take on a Southern US accent his very own, so different from the orig that all it signifies now is "Mick") so what's the last one you can remember hearing - realease-date chronology-wise - and going "huh, cool"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 3 February 2003 04:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm trying to think of something after Lynryd Skynyrd. They might be it.

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 3 February 2003 05:13 (twenty-two years ago)

xbxrx. I wasn't aware that a southern accent had fallen out of fashion.

― maria b (maria b), Monday, 3 February 2003 05:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Was Lynyrd Skynyrd considered cool?

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 3 February 2003 05:53 (twenty-two years ago)

uh, Outkast?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 3 February 2003 06:04 (twenty-two years ago)

that or Rock Lobster

― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 3 February 2003 06:05 (twenty-two years ago)

some people think that Will Oldham and Dave Berman are cool.

― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 3 February 2003 06:07 (twenty-two years ago)

The Georgia Satellites

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 3 February 2003 06:19 (twenty-two years ago)

The reason I ask is because of a TV commercial I remember seeing in Glasgow for a car - I think it was a "Festiva"? could that be right? Anyway it was a UK-wide commercial and featured a smart-looking young ginger-haired lady driving it and telling you all about its features and - and this is key - all with a Scottish accent. Mapping UK and US features onto each other is a sort of meta-theme of mine, and of this board's occasionally, so it seems right to bring it up. In short, I feel that Northern UK accents carry - or used to carry - some of the same connotations of backwardness and thickidity that accents from the American South do. But somehow, over the last, say, ten years, Scottish accents have become cool - they connote youth, vitality, etc. The same has emphatically not happened with Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana accents et al. In fact, Southern accents are perhaps more firmly entrenched at the bottom of the anti-cool barrel as they ever have been. So - what do you Brits think happened, to make these Northern accents cool in your country? (almost wrote that "cuntry")

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 3 February 2003 08:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Byker Grove

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Monday, 3 February 2003 13:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Erm... tell that to every rap artist who intentionally drawls at the end of a last syllable. And as far as the Scottish remark goes... I don't remember Scottish accents EVER being cool, besides that brief, intellectually embarrassing Trainspotting period in the Zeitgeist last decade. This question seems to house an agenda of some sad sort.

― maria b (maria b), Monday, 3 February 2003 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Wilco?

― o. nate (onate), Monday, 3 February 2003 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

has anyone heard Gorse on v/vm test?

― the internet (scg), Monday, 3 February 2003 16:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Country music?

That Kid Rock song?

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 3 February 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

(I swear, I did read the title of this thread.)

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 3 February 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

"Country music" is not rock

"Outkast" is not rock

"Every rap artist who intentionally drawls on the last syllable" is not rock

Will Oldham and Dave Berman are probably the farthest from "cool" that rock may ever get, in my accepted understanding of the word. Wilco gets a mite closer but not by too much. I mean Billy Idol cool.

Kid Rock answers this question beautifully, thank you.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 3 February 2003 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but what song are you talking about? "Cowboy"? He doesn't sing (excuse me, rap) w/ a southern accent in that song (or any others that come to mind).

But if you're talking just invoking tropes of southernness ... yeah he's probably your guy.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 3 February 2003 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Southern accent? You mean like the Wurzels? Ooh ar, ooh ar....

― Lord Marmite (Lord Marmite), Monday, 3 February 2003 17:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah it's weird - I imagine Kid Rock w/a southern accent more than he actually has one, I guess like you said because of the white-trash hillbilly image he cultivates. It's kind of damning that not even this Jack Daniels-swilling greasy-tee-wearing self-styled gutter trash cottons to an accent that signifies all that and more. It might be the "and more" that's the problem?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 3 February 2003 17:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I have this image of a southern accent being positively radioactive on the charts (with of course the exception of c&w, where it's de rigeur) - still not sure we've come any closer to figuring out why. Maybe I could have phrased the question better.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 3 February 2003 17:30 (twenty-two years ago)

But in hip-hop a Southern accent is far from radioactive (country too, obviously)! It might just be as simple as a Southern accent signifying poverty and a lack of education. This'll get into dangerously generalized territory, but in hip-hop and country humble upbringings are flaunted, an asset, so a Southern accent lends a lower class authenticity, whether it's authentic or not. Radio rock and pop are still predominantly stuck on internal, love story-type narratives and ruminations, nothing outside of the artist's psychelogical environs (which is the exact opposite in country & hip-hop in many cases, I think).

A possible connection between the enormous growth of hip-hop and country in the 90s and the presidency of Bill Clinton, a twanging pol???

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Monday, 3 February 2003 17:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I didn't finish the thought with radio rock and pop... I mean that a Southern accent doesn't work there because it would grate against the (perceived?) level of sophistication of the songs. By this I mean that with pop and rock there's a polish required which doesn't lend itself to something like a regional accent, because it's got to appeal to listeners *EVERYWHERE*. And interestingly, Kid Rock is much more popular within the Charlie Daniels set than the Linkin Park set, I would wager (his current HUGE country hit suggests this too).

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Monday, 3 February 2003 17:38 (twenty-two years ago)

(and more on country and hip-hop: both genres have this weird tic where you are supposed to escape from yr humble upbringings (perhaps through music) but always retaining the memories and characteristics of the humiliating/humbling childhood (you can take the boy out of the country...). rock has this too (i.e. not selling out) but it seems much more crucial to hip-hop and c&w because the identity of the performer is so important and becomes a character in the songs themselves (like Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places" or even 50 Cent's "Wanksta") whereas in rock it's always much vaguer. all of this bullshitting leads up to the idea that an accent can become another level of realness for a listener to consider.)

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Monday, 3 February 2003 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, I was just thinking about this... does Country ever make the top 40 anymore? Actually I'm so oblivious to the way the Billboard charts work these days I don't even know what the top 40 is supposed to signify. Bestsellers? "Hot" tracks? Does Casey Kasem still do a show?

Growing up in the late 70's/early 80's I'd listen to Kasem's countdown every week and you'd always hear the stray Country song sneak in there. Stuff like Willie Nelson's "You Were Always on My Mind", Eddie Rabbitt "I Love a Rainy Night", Juice Newton "Queen of Hearts", Irish Rovers "Wasn't that a Party", Dolly Parton "9 to 5", Ronnie Milsap "No Gettin' Over Me", Crystal Gayle, etc etc. Does that happen anymore? Do Shania, Toby Keith, Billy Ray Cyrus, etc make the pop charts?

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 3 February 2003 17:56 (twenty-two years ago)

A lot of questions here that I don't know the answers to. I've sort of run away from mariab's "sad" comment, because maybe I'm afraid that it's true, that my question is sad somehow. Maybe I'm sad about southern accents not being cool enuf to rip off any more, but not because I pine for the striving-for-realness that such ripping-off used to imply but because there are these other examples of regional, backwards-sounding accents suddenly turning their old connotations on their head, sounding quite Now. What was intellectually embarrassing about Scots accents being "cool" again, maria? Trainspotting may have been the high point for that, I don't know. But in the years prior I do know there was an explosion in new Scottish literature from all quarters (of Scotland) and almost none of it (that I read, at least) drew on shopworn ideas of Scotland as remote hinterland untouched by time or modern culture. Maybe I'm sad that the same hasn't happened with the American South.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 3 February 2003 18:13 (twenty-two years ago)

My embarrassment springs from Jonny Lee Miller's stab at speaking Scottish in the film. I always cringe when I hear him speak next to Ewan McGregor. Same thing when I hear Southern accents bastardized in mainstream movies - Olympia Dukakis in "Steel Magnolias" comes crashing into my mind. URGH! I really enjoy hearing it's purposeful exaggeration in rap now, because that's where it's "cool" again.

I assumed you meant music in general, but now that you've made clear the restrictions of this query as it applies to the genre of "rock," well... maybe your agenda isn't "sad," as much as it's just, well... melancholy in a way that's wishful. I wonder if Kris Kristoferson (sp.?) is staging a comeback? I've found that Johnny Cash has maintained his "indie rock cred" rather well.

― maria b (maria b), Monday, 3 February 2003 18:45 (twenty-two years ago)

If you're talking about top 40 radio in USA, it's now called CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio). Currently on that chart (R&R airplay) we find Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow at #12, Dixie Chicks' cover of "Landslide" at #24, and if you want to count DFDub's "Country Girl" (anyone else heard this? it's a hoot), that's at #29. I say it doesn't count, though, and the other two songs really don't belong on top 40 radio...they stick out pretty bad.

Shania didn't cross over with her new one but that's because it's weak and because top 40 is really weird right now, very extreme and aggressive with no room for yet another flavor. She's had crossover success in the past, as have Faith Hill. Country artists tend to cross over to the Adult Contemporary charts LOTS more than the top 40 charts. I miss all that late 70s/early 80s crossover country too.

Chris Robinson from Black Crowes has a new album out, and Johnny Cash just got his cover of "Hurt" added to L.A.'s KROQ!

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 3 February 2003 18:47 (twenty-two years ago)

haha maria say no more! I guess hard-core New England accents aren't cool either, or else Marisa Tomei might have actually considered making a go of it in "In the Bedroom" instead of... whatever the fuck she ended up doing. Tom Wilkinson on the other hand was natural as sassafrass.

Thanks for the detailed info, teeny!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 3 February 2003 18:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Gareth just sent me an email about this on a related topic. I would paraphrase but I don't want to get it wrong. Anyway, Gareth to thread. Interesting question, Tracer. Btw I listened to all three version of Shania Twain in Felicity's car yesterday :(

― Mary (Mary), Monday, 3 February 2003 19:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm sort of losing track here a bit with my own thoughts (haha surprise). The South HAS become modern, cool, Now - with limits - but not in rock. Some Southern rap assaults old stereotypes head-on in order to move through them: Bubba Sparxx wrestling with pigs on a farm: it's funny cause we know that he's exaggerating everything, rubbing our faces in it. On "Savannah" Big Boi says "You might call us country, but we's only Southern" - ATL is not the sticks! (That said, the fact that they need to address it at all seems like evidence that even they've got something to prove. Rock hasn't even gotten this far, though.)

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 3 February 2003 19:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Old 97s?

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 3 February 2003 19:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I think you should ask when the last time a US Southern accent wasn't viewed as some kind of badge of stupidity. It seems to me that the Civil War basically destroyed the credibility of the South, and when I tell people I'm from Texas, I'm surprised if the word "cowboy" isn't mentioned within two sentences.

Now, if you use an accent in music, it's as a perfomance device: going for Southern cred, or in K-Rock's case, the "hillbilly trash" feel. Outside of country music and some hip hop, I can think of very few musicians who perform with one just because that's how they talk. Shouldn't Britney Spears have some kind of accent (or did years of voice lessons erase it)?

I don't really have an accent, but I can adopt one on command.

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 3 February 2003 19:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Chris Robinson from Black Crowes has a new album out

And thus we grind wearily towards a fatuous Armageddon.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 3 February 2003 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

It also seems that people's accents become a bit less when they're singing...Rhett and Murry from Old 97's still have Texas drawls when they speak but they're not too noticable when they sing. I also think this holds true with English accents to an American ear...I can hear Oasis' Mancunian whine when they sing, but it's still less compared with their accent when they speak!

p.s. Ned it's so true, have you heard it? Blurrgh.

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 3 February 2003 19:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Chris Robinson DOES do a cod-South thing on occasion, doesn't he! So hard to tell if it's cod-South or cod-Mick, though

If you've heard the infamous recording of Britney swearing a cheerful blue streak while she's waiting backstage for her cue, you'll know that she has a big ol honkin southern accent when she's just talking normally and thinks no one can really hear her. But yeah, they must have put some kind of low-pass filter on her voice that cuts it all right out for the recordings. Re: "badge of stupidity" - believe me, I know. I've lost most of mine through what I think was a kind of subliminal compensation for people thinking I was automatically dumb - when I was in 8th grade I moved to Cambridge MA with my parents (for 1 year only) and when I came back home I was like "whoa all my friends sound like hicks!"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 3 February 2003 19:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I had a coworker who spent years taking diction lessons to remove all traces of her Southern accent. What remained was a frightful affectation.

I like Southern accents (although SW accents are even better), but then I don't hear them v. often. I remember when I was working in Boston, a Southern family passed through campus chatting amongst themselves and I swear, they turned heads.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 3 February 2003 20:07 (twenty-two years ago)

The Black Crowes' first two records were great Southern rock. No question. ("Wiser Time" is a favorite of mine)

I grew up on a farm in the sticks of VA, but never developed an accent, somehow, even though my friends and family have one. When I do go home to visit, however, I involuntarily adopt one, going for a near full-on drawl. But yeah, the twang pariah is alive and well. It seems like Clinton's speech could have changed that, but it didn't.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Monday, 3 February 2003 20:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Since when does Shania Twain have a country accent?

― Curtis Stephens, Monday, 3 February 2003 20:14 (twenty-two years ago)

southern accent, sorry. Damn brain.

― Curtis Stephens, Monday, 3 February 2003 20:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I was just sharing, sorry, trying to make it more ILE-y over here.

― Mary (Mary), Monday, 3 February 2003 20:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know if you're talking to me (since I guess I mentioned her originally) ... but I just went and listened to the only Shania recording I own ("Any Man of Mine" on the 50 Years of Country from Mercury box set), and she is definitely singing w/ a country twang. Whether that is affected, I have no idea. Where is she from again?

But anyway, my point had sort of digressed from Tracer's to ask more about the presence of Country in general in the pop charts.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 3 February 2003 20:19 (twenty-two years ago)

It's kind of sad that it is now CHR or whatever. It's a purposeful attempt to keep everything sounding similar. I remember how exciting it was to listen to Casey Kasem's show and hear Metallica's "One" coming out of the car stereo.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 3 February 2003 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Wait wait wait: what is a southwestern accent? Whatever it might be I should theoretically have it, and I have no accent whatsoever.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 3 February 2003 20:37 (twenty-two years ago)

It's my brilliant manner of speaking, of course.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 3 February 2003 20:41 (twenty-two years ago)

picanté <--

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 3 February 2003 20:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I hope Tracer Hand will remember Southern Man don't need him around anyhow.

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 3 February 2003 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

The Drive-By Truckers are probably the coolest band in the country, and they twang like crazy. Tracer, you must hear Southern Rock Opera.

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 3 February 2003 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Everyone must hear Southern Rock Opera!

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 3 February 2003 21:36 (twenty-two years ago)

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