The Business Of Country Music Is Changing

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That insistent drum beat, reportedly sampled from a Def Leppard record by the producer the rockers share with country singer Shania Twain, was the first sound from the 1995 Country Music Association awards.

Even after enormously talented bluegrass singer-fiddler Alison Krauss cleaned up with an armful of awards, the water cooler talk the next day was about Twain’s sexy entrance singing the No. 1 hit “Any Man of Mine.”

Is Shania Twain indicative of the future of country music or 1995’s flash-in-the-pan - the next Billy Ray Cyrus? Twain, a former lounge singer from Canada, has broken most of Nashville’s rules on the way to selling 4 million copies of her second album, “The Woman in Me.”

She does not live in Nashville. Her record is some sort of supersonic meld of country and corporate rock music, concocted by Twain and husband-producer-cowriter Mutt Lange. She has yet to tour and has no intention of cranking out an album a year.

Twain sold her album primarily by putting her stunning good looks to use in a series of sexy videos. In one, she dances on a bar in a clingy red dress for a group of men. Mercury Records sent out a 1995 cheesecake calender of Twain as a promotion. The campaign overcame some negative reviews early on, helped along by some very catchy songs.

Ed Benson, head of the Country Music Association, says Twain may in some ways reflect the way business will be done in country music’s future.

“Whatever happened to four guys in a van?” Benson laughed. “The way it’s been for a long, long time is you have a hit, immediately buy a bus and hire a band and tour all year round to support the payroll you’ve taken on.

“It’s not necessarily what’s best for a career. For one thing, it’s more and more competitive out there, and they may not need to hit every market every single year.”

The Country Music Association, a trade organization that exists to promote the genre, senses that 1995 will mark a plateau in country’s fortunes.

“I would say, when the counting is done for ‘95, my guess is that it’s going to be a pretty flat year,” Benson said.

“We’ll probably ring in at about the same place we were in 1994, which is not a shabby place to be. It’s four times better than we were in 1989 in terms of record sales.”

The most viable reason for that growth, Garth Brooks, launched a new career cycle late in the year with release of “Fresh Horses.” For the bulk of 1995, he laid low in the United States, where his most recent release was a greatest hits collection.

He spent time with his family and worked on the new album, which was released in time for the Christmas season. And he toured overseas to cultivate new fans.

“What Garth did was really important ‘cause by virtue of his unique selling position with the Capitol-EMI organization, he became the first country music artist ever put on a worldwide priority by a multinational label,” Benson said.

Benson said Brooks almost certainly lost money touring Europe with his full-blown show but was willing to do so as the price of building a larger fan base.

As the year ended, Clint Black announced that he would not be touring the States in 1996 and might be headed overseas.

In the trenches where it was business-as-usual, stalwarts like John Michael Montgomery, George Strait, Reba McEntire and Brooks & Dunn had the most chart success. Tim McGraw put the novelty hit “Indian Outlaw” further behind him with an immediately successful third album.

“Redneck” comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s sitcom may have been a ratings loser, but his albums continued to sell millions to country music fans. And 1980s superstar band Alabama made a comeback with a couple of hit singles from their “In Pictures” album.

Alan Jackson and Vince Gill both put out hit collections for the holidays, and fans will be awaiting new albums in 1996. Music industry leaders will also be watching the next moves of Krauss and Twain. And practically the whole town is rooting for the success of BR-549, graduates of a revived honky-tonk scene in downtown Nashville.

Some see the hard-core country BR5-49 as an anecdote to the increasingly pop efforts of artists like Twain and even the big ballads favored by McEntire and Brooks.

“I don’t see think it necessarily has to do with traditional vs. stylistically some other kind of country,” Benson said.

“I think it has to do with freshness and uniqueness vs. the repetitive things. The music industry is no more immune to this than any other kind of business.”