In Country

With no regard for my psychic health, I sat down on a Monday afternoon to watch two TiVoed hours of CMT Power Picks. I exposed myself to 120 minutes of contemporary country videos because of Jo Dee Messina's upcoming Van Wezel gig. While Messina has been a country star since her self-titled 1996 debut, she solidified her status last year. She debuted at the top spot on the country charts with her LP Delicious Surprise, and that album's lead single -- "My Give a Damn's Busted" -- hit No. 1 as well.

That track was the kind of country hit that broke through even to people who ordinarily would never watch CMT unless paid to do so (e.g., me). The reason for the song's success is a no-brainer. Funny, hummable and begging to become a catchphrase, "Busted" is an immediate crowd pleaser.

Messina's slinky midriff in the video for the song probably didn't hurt sales either. Oh, and the topless shot (hands covering breast, of course) of Messina lying on a piano in the CD liner notes probably bumped up the bottom line too. Ditto the foldout poster of Messina posed straddling a guitar, Liz Phair-style.

From my Power Picks voyeurism, I learned that Messina's tarted-up glamour is standard stuff in contemporary pop-country. Joe Nichols' "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" finds him strumming poolside with a bevy of bikini-clad babes. "I Melt" -- Rascal Flatts' supposedly romantic power-ballad -- fixates on a nude model showering. The clip for "That's How They Do it in Dixie," by Hank Williams, Jr., Big & Rich, Gretchen Wilson and Van Zant, includes the improbable image of Williams performing during a runway fashion show, flanked by supermodels.

Clearly, the idea of wholesome, heartland, Red State pop-country no longer applies in '06. I saw as much pixilation and black rectangles as I would have watching two hours of Jay-Z videos.

The comparison to hip-hop culture is surprisingly apt. CMT flashed ads for a show called Trick My Truck. In a couple of cases, artists themselves have made the hip-hop connection explicit: Last year's video for "Hillbillies" by the band Hot Apple Pie (key line: "Hillbillies love it in the hay") is a shot-for-shot homage to Snoop Dogg's "Drop it Like It's Hot."

And what's any pop-music trend without an ass anthem? Trace Adkins dumped his traditionalist reputation last year to cut "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk." In the video, the guy looks like he accidentally wandered onto a Hype Williams set after a hard day installing drywall.

Something weird is definitely going down in Dixie.

Messina has yet to become the Lil' Kim of country, but she's certainly a far cry from female girlhood idols like Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Reba McEntire. She got into those gals while growing up as a self-described "latchkey kid" in rural Massachusetts.

Why'd she get into country growing up in small-town New England? "I found it more relatable," Messina says over the phone during a brief, perfunctory interview while sitting in her pool in Nashville. "Just real music. Like having a conversation."

"Relatable" is certainly not the word to describe the country I heard and saw on CMT. The glitz, the gloss, the glamour -- there's an airbrushed feel no different from The OC. So what changed things in the genre?

In a word: Shania.

Before Twain, country had certainly been familiar with orchestrated bombast (Garth Brooks had taken it to the bank), but Shania's arrival in the mid-'90s added that missing dash of sexiness to the mix. While she became wildly popular, she had her critics.

Remember the controversy she caused by tying up her shirttails? It was The Midriff Seen 'Round the World, a shot across the bow of the stodgy Nashville system. Never mind that other genres had been trading in flesh on MTV for years, Twain was a breakthrough. She quickly became the country artist (besides Brooks) that non-country fans could like without shame.

A decade on from Twain's rise to glory, her model is the norm. I caught the clip for Gretchen Wilson's "California Girls" (no, not that "California Girls"). Watching it, you would think that no women in California ever wear anything more than bikini tops and that they have nothing better to do than run along the beach all day long.

The real kicker is that the song is a putative putdown of the titular females. Wilson blasts their "size zero" bodies, implying that real heartland gals like herself make better lovers. Irony: In the video, Wilson appears to have cut back on the Buds; she's rail-thin.

This contradiction gets to the heart of pop-country today. Contemporary artists like to present themselves as rebellious good ol' boys and girls, salt-of-the-earth types who want nothing but a cold beer and a jukebox cranking some Hank. And yet, to become the megastars they want to be, they have no choice but to record tunes buffed to a high sheen in the studio and to film high-budget videos with bouncing breasts.

This outsider/insider contradiction is personified by Toby Keith. The man who rose to superstardom one minute by promising to put a boot in Osama bin Laden's ass was shilling in Ford ads the next.

Messina, meanwhile, is certainly more rooted in country than the more crass crossover successes of recent memory (I'm looking at you, Cowboy Troy) and Delicious Surprise is a solid and tasteful album. But Messina walks this same line, too. Everyone who wants to make it in Nashville does. It's the line between the South and the North, between art and commerce, between the country and the city.