Quote:
Originally Posted by wade moore
He's a one-trick pony in his songs
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But if you can do that one thing well ... With country as much as any format, you find your gimmick & you hit it hard. The last thing country fans want is to not know what to expect from an act. Long term, it simply isn't a problem.
Look at a
current country chart, even with the variety of styles represented for male vocalists, each is largely limited to a couple of basic formulas that they're successful with. There's the rebel (Toby Keith, Trace Adkins), the goofy cute guy (Brad Paisley), the pop singer and/or grown up boy band guy that makes women swoon (Kenny Chesney, Dierks Bentley to a lesser degree), the crossover guy (Darius Rucker, although he's harder to define than some), and the obligatory handful of guys who are career midcharters or hit-every-five-years guys.
There was a time when it was all pop country (Kenny Rogers), then we had traditional country (Randy Travis et al), then the hat acts (Alan Jackson, Clint Black), and so forth. Now there isn't a single dominant niche in the format so much as there are X number of slots available for each.
His job here is to do enough to win the contest. So far, he seems to be on track for that.