Ambivalent about the Dixie Chicks

I have enjoyed the Dixie Chicks for quite some time.  One of my favorite of their songs is “Good-bye Earl”, I just loved the dark comedy of it.  However like many I have become distinctly ambivalent towards them since Natalie decided to inject politics into their public image.  Now I heard that, according to Natalie, they don’t even want to be “county” anymore I don’t have very high hopes for my enjoyment of any future titles they release.  

I am not sure about getting their latest album “Taking the Long Way”, I read a pre-release review that stated “Songs look at small-town narrow-mindedness ("Lubbock or Leave It") and the psychology of celebrity ("Everybody Knows"). “   My mom was from Lubbock and I spent many a summer growing up their visiting her folks.  I certainly never thought of Lubbock as a small-town, maybe a small city.  I have to hope that it was the reviewer that attached the “small-town” moniker on Lubbock and not the Chicks.  Though if so I have to wonder at a country music writer who doesn’t know the difference between the two.

I am getting used to the need to separate my feelings about the artist themselves, and their political views, from my enjoyment of their performance.  I am a great fan of Janeane Garafalo, but hate her politics.  I wish that all performers would quit trying to use their popularity to sell a view point, but I am coming to accept that that is just life as we know it now.