Thursday, May 21, 2009
Music Nashville Sucks (Musicians)
Posted by Greg Akers on Thu, May 21, 2009 at 3:23 PM
There's an excellent piece by Richard Florida up on The Atlantic's Daily Dish. The writer jumps off from the pending rocker nuptials of Meg White (The White Stripes) to Jackson Smith (scion of MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith and singer-songwriter Patti Smith) in Tennessee.
From there, he takes in the trending great American migration of musicians to Nashville. Interesting stuff from the guy who coined the phrase "creative class."
God, I hate Nashville.
Comments (16)
Showing 1-16 of 16
Memphis needs more than Elvis, Beale Street and BBQ. Yawn. That's the image, period, and it's pulling you down and keeping Memphis a middling, minor-league city. Nashville has been able to cultivate its culture capital, expand it, but not be stifled or limited by it. In fact, the influx of non-native, non-Southerners has only increased the rate of advancement on myriad fronts for the city of Nashville. I sense retrenchment and resentment from Memphians on this issue. Hate us all you want--we're leaving you in our dust and in your past.
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At least we have real music. All Nashville offers is country radio muzak programming.
Sour grapes from the second fiddle.
Nashville's becoming a world class city with residents from around the globe (new Japanese Consulate, anyone? nation's largest Kurd population?) while Memphis is living in the past, rehashing and recycling 12 bar blues and calling it "real." Memphis is a time-capsule: Graceland, Cotton Carnival. Kitsch and nostalgia don't a civic future make.
"Muzak?" Did you READ Florida's article? Seems not, as he clearly demonstrates how Nashville has seen a diversification of its cultural scene well beyond its original country roots--into other forms of music, as well as other forms of art.
Memphis is doomed if the city's ambitions are hobbled by fearful adherence to tradition and resentment of the success of others. Grow up and learn a lesson.
Gaston, every time I start think Nashville's a pretty neat place, with nice folks, someone like you, a self-congratulatory snot-nosed snob who believes the fact that you live in a certain place makes you superior, reminds me why it's not as great as all that. Thanks.
Consolidated government, empowered business and nonprofit communities, the caring eye of a present state government, pro football: Gaston, there's a lot to be envious of Nashville about. The sense of superiority and entitlement is not. If you don't typically hear heaps of praise coming your way from Memphis, it's not because we're a bunch of backwards-looking idiots, it's because we figure you're getting enough pats on your back from your selves. Sure we've got problems. They're just not glossed over by a bucket of spit and shine.
When will Nashville realize it needs a vibrant Memphis? When will state leaders start to invest in West Tennessee as much as they do Central and East TN? Memphians are still getting used to the idea that we're going to have to make ourselves better with only minimal benevolence from state govt. If that comes across as retrenchment and resentment, well, sorry you got some on you.
Greg you hit the nail on the head about "the caring eye of a present state government." Look no further than the Dept. of Education's disparate treatment of the nashville school system versus MCS. It couldn't be more obvious. And look at the absolute DUMP that UTCHS is versus other states' med school complexes. IF UTCHS were in Nashville or Knoxville, you can bet it would be first class all the way. It doesn't help that we have stellar state reps like the stuntbaby of Gtown getting worked up over really important stuff like getting on the evening news.
"God, I hate Nashville."
Invoking a deity to express your dislike for my city, even if in jest, puts you at somewhat of a rhetoric disadvantage, Greg. Seems you crossed the arrogance frontier long before I did, so forgive me if your "poor-little-old-us" routine rings less than hollow. This is a newspaper with actual journalistic standards, right?
What you say is true. Nashville benefits from a consolidated civic government. That decision was made 40 years ago by visionary city leaders. As per Florida's article, Nashville's dominance in the music industry has been 30 years in the making. We've been planning for this for almost half a century. This is my point: what long-term plans does Memphis have that don't require infusion of state funds from Nashville? Where is the privately financed future of Memphis. What is your growth industry? Memphis suffers from serious structural problems in its economy and those aren't solved by blaming the state capital.
What you seem to be describing is a situation where the business leaders and the citizenry are in tension and working at cross purposes. This is not Nashville's fault. This is a lack of vision and will on the part of Memphians. (Why do you think Nashville got the NFL over Memphis? Only a minor league city would make a minor league stadium the centerpiece of its downtown revival.)
This is not to day that Nashville doesn't benefit greatly from being the capital. No doubt. We've also been wise enough to elect forward-looking, growth-friendly mayors--Bredesen, Purcell, and now Dean.
Make Memphis more attractive to investment and the city will be able to shed the dubious distinction as the capital of North Mississippi.
Let's cut through the personal bits of both our arguments. It's boring. Let's FF to the nut, which is about cities, not me and you.
I applaud Nashville's vision in building their music industry. Its laudable. It's one of the reasons I linked to this story on my Memphis-centric blog.
But anyone who still thinks of Memphis as the capital of N. MS hasn't been here in 30 years. Talk about living in the past. (Okay, I can't help it. This is personal.)
Memphis is at the early stages of a fantastic, fantastically massive private/public effort to further capitalize on the city's geographical advantages in the international supply chain. Memphis is an elite world city when it comes to international logistics, which anybody who's anybody knows is the oil in the engine of commerce. With strategic plans such as the ones to energize the aerotropolis, and, separately, to continue to invest in Memphis' burgeoning biotech industry (did you know about that? You can't have.), private and civic leaders are putting their money on the line for the city's future. Doesn't sound like cross purposes.
Memphis has three Fortune 500 companies: FedEx, International Paper, and AutoZone. Nashville has one: HCA. Okay, two if you count Franklin's Community Health Systems. Add two more to Memphis' tally if you go 700 companies deep: ServiceMaster and First Horizon. ServiceMaster just moved their corporate HQ here a couple years ago, so Memphis is trending up.
Nashville has done great things and is worthy of emulation in many ways. Overall, you're a little ahead in the race right now, but I've got my money on the tortoise.
Look, I want Memphis to succeed, but the fact is you're decades behind and it's not Nashville's fault, it's Memphis'
Memphis is going to be The Best at Supply Chain, then great--go for it. Biotech? Okay ,much less sure bet given the lack of top 25 university.
So that's the economy, but you also need to address the physical facts of the urban environment and restore the city itself. Maximize your riverfront. Make the best of the views from W Memphis. Think about the cities up-river--St. Louis. Get people living and working downtown. I know they've started, but again Memphis is behind. It's more than just building an economy, it's about building an environment that will foster growth in unforeseen directions. City living is coming back en vogue and you need to be ready for that when the upswing comes with serious, co-ordinated development.
I've made enough thoughtful posts on this issue, this will be my last. Thanks for the exchange. And I mean it when I say, good luck memphis.
Here are two links. Memphis, if you're not doing this already, start immediately.
http://www.civicdesigncenter.org/
http://www.civicdesigncenter.org/plan_of_n…
Memphis, why all the hate? We think you are wonderful. We love your music, we love your people and we love your city. After all you are the birthplace of the Blues and the Home of Rock n' Roll. Home of Elvis, Stax, Sun, Big Star, Lucero, The Grifters, The Oblivions and so on....We are very aware that some of the best music in America came from Memphis. You got it all including a pretty cool MTV show. C'mon, any show ever about Nashville has been pure cheese. No we're not proud of it. Please, can't we just get along? Look at things in the greater perspective....Music from Tennessee is great music. All this Memphis vs. Nashville will get us nowhere.
Don't care about Memphis, with the largest crime rate per capitat in the country, yet living in Nashville is like going back 30 years. Yuck! Nashville sucks in too many ways to waste my time listing!
@Greg Akers
You are overlooking a lot of history... meaning you haven't learned a thing from it.
For good or ill, the role of Memphis has traditionally been what I refer to as a 'hick magnet'.. pull 'em in from Tupelo, from Columbia, from Helena, from the whole radius of farm country and small towns.
A few of them will see that their only hope for the brass ring lies elsewhere, and they will invariably leave Memphis... and some of them will in fact succeed.
Every once in a blue moon the occasional success story will acknowledge Memphis as the way station it is, fueling the ambitions of the next bunch.
Those left behind can choose to tote bales, or FedEx boxes... or to imprint the values of their roots on local politics, media, education, and business.
Not as glamorous as pretending that Elvis stll lives here, but hey....
Gaston,
I lived in Nashville for a little over two year. I was an exec at BMI and then also the Christian Country Music Association. I still do a lot of studio work there.
Memphis is by far more of a musician's town. 90% of the studio work goes to a small clique of players known as "The A Team" who play on 90% of the albums produced on Music Row.
Around the city there aren't 1/10 the clubs offering live music that Memphis offers, In addition to that, people here have much more seasoned, educated and ecclectic tastes than in Country Cookie Cutter Nashville.
Memphis has it's share of problems, hell we rate second to you in violent crimes. I surely don't like it that you guys had to suffer with all the flooding, BUT.............
Being an Ohioan who lived in Nashville and left for greener pastures, I have to tell you I would rather live in a dumpster in Memphis than in a luxury Condo in Nashville.
Really, Nashville blows.
All your opinions are solely based on cheesy country and bad blues. there's a lot more types of music than that in both cities. so no sir, nashville does not "blow" and neither does memphis. you worked on the wrong side of the industry: the side that doesn't care about songwriting. go find any 20 year old kid with a guitar that doesn't play country, and you'll have a new opinion about nashville.
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