Three years after Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks triggered a global backlash by criticizing President Bush onstage, the release of a movie documenting the trio's struggles is reigniting the debate about their mix of music and politics.

Shut Up & Sing, which opened in the Valley this weekend, pulls no punches in trumpeting Maines' right to free speech and her continued disdain for Bush, while portraying her bandmates' support for her even as their careers are threatened.

The film captures Maines' infamous onstage comment of March 2003 - "We're ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas" - as well as her repeating the same line at the same London venue in June of this year. The camera also catches her calling Bush "a dumb (expletive)" backstage.

After boycotts of their music, attacks by conservative pundits (Pat Buchanan is shown calling them "bimbos") and the release of a new rock-oriented album, the most successful female group in country-music history is struggling to fill venues like Glendale's Jobing.com Arena. The 19,000-capacity arena will be less than half-full Sunday, according to one estimate.

Shut Up & Sing shows the group's management scrambling to cancel or postpone shows as early sales numbers for the Accidents & Accusations Tour prove disappointing. The Glendale show, originally set for Sept. 3, was postponed 11 weeks, but even that extra sales time didn't provide much of a boost.

Shut Up & Sing also contains footage of protesters outside concerts calling the trio traitors in 2003. Nothing similar has happened on stops on the current tour.

"We're not anticipating any protesters (but) if there are going to be protesters, it's freedom of speech, so we will allow them to be here and provide an opportunity to do that," said arena spokeswoman Megan Curdy.

Officer Mike Barnett said Glendale police will be more concerned about traffic than protests because 63,000 people are expected at nearby University of Phoenix Stadium for the Arizona Cardinals game Sunday afternoon.

Slow sales

Music-industry and marketing experts said Maines' attack on Bush, plus the group's decision to release a rock-flavored album combined to torpedo concert attendance and record sales.

Anti-Chicks events depicted in Shut Up and Sing, including one radio station hiring a steamroller in 2003 to smash listeners' CDs, have ceased. Still, the group is getting almost no airplay on country radio. Sales of its latest album, Taking the Long Way, have failed to hit 2 million, a disappointing number for a Grammy-winning group that sold 12 million copies of its 1998 debut, Wide Open Spaces.

Demand for the Dixie Chicks on one of the Valley's country-radio powerhouses has evaporated.

"We listen to what our audience tells us through research, both locally and nationally. And we've see pretty clear-cut evidence that there's (no Dixie Chicks song) that's testing to a degree that it should be played," said Jay McCarthy, program director of KMLE-FM (107.9).

The station has yet to play any music from the group's Taking the Long Way album since its release in May. (Two programming officials at KMLE rival KNIX-FM, 102.5, declined to comment on the Dixie Chicks.)

McCarthy said KMLE's listeners seem to be pretty evenly split on the Dixie Chicks' political commentary. Weak demand also could reflect the trio's decision to put a rock edge on Taking the Long Way and to avoid country radio, McCarthy said.

One scene in Shut Up & Sing finds Maines advocating that the group "let country music rest," a position supported by bandmates Martie Maguire and Emily Robison. The film shows them recording with rock producer Rick Rubin and using Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on drums for songs like the defiant Not Ready to Make Nice.

But Los Angeles-based author Anthony Mora, who studies "spin" in the media, argued that the group's politics remains the biggest factor. That polarization of fans will make it impossible to regain many estranged listeners, he added.

"The loss of their audience had absolutely nothing to do with their music, their shifting of styles," said Mora, author of Spin to Win. "It had to do with their political stand, which means that (for) the people who abandoned them, it doesn't matter if their music is good or not anymore."



New audience

As the Dixie Chicks lose a large chunk of their country audience, they have a chance to become more of a mainstream pop act, according to Dan Wool, a senior manager at Valley advertising firm Moses Anshell.

"The Dixie Chicks have inadvertently backed into the legacy of country music's 'outlaws' - folks who have expanded out of country to reach mainstream audiences," Wool said, listing Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and Dwight Yoakam as examples.

"This could be an opportunity for them to broaden their scope."

There's no question that the group has attracted new rock-oriented listeners with its edgier sound and participation with acts such as Bruce Springsteen and Dave Matthews in the anti-Bush Vote for Change Tour of 2004.

But, so far, that new crop of fans hasn't replaced the alienated country crowd.

"I don't think they will ever again be the multiplatinum crossover country superstars, because they have completely abandoned that (country) base," said Morris Reid, a Washington, D.C., expert on "branding" entertainers to raise their profile.

"It's one thing to be a crossover artist and another thing to be a completely different artist altogether."

Reach the reporter at larry.

rodgers@arizonarepublic.com

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