Two decades after releasing her breakthrough hit “Redneck Woman,” Gretchen Wilson visited Taste of Country Nights to talk about her career, fellow country stars, and the worst mistake new artists make when breaking into today’s music industry.
Hint: it has nothing to do with music.
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Gretchen Wilson Says This is the Worst New Artist Mistake
Gretchen Wilson skyrocketed to fame in 2004 with the release of her debut single, “Redneck Woman.” CDs were still king, the internet was in its fledgling stages, and Myspace and Facebook were in their second and first years of existence, respectively. In short, it was a vastly different time for artists and audiences alike.
Somewhere over the next two decades, social media closed the gap between artists and their fans. Suddenly, online communities could talk to their favorite bands and musicians directly, something that was only attainable in one’s wildest dreams (or a lengthy meet-and-greet line) years earlier. While visiting Taste of Country Nights on August 1, 2024, the “Here for the Party” singer admitted she thinks this shift has ushered in a new type of mistake that new artists can make when entering the industry.
“For me, and maybe it’s because I’m an old lady, I feel like they share too much,” Wilson said. “There’s no exclusivity to being an artist anymore because everybody shares everything about themselves. Maybe I just feel like I’m too boring [but] I only say things when there’s something to be said. I’m not that important. People have lives to live. I feel like people share too much.”
What The Illinois Native Thinks About New Country Artists
With decades of experience under her belt, Gretchen Wilson has also had the unique vantage point of watching artists come and go from her place as a Grammy Award-winning musician who “made it.” She admitted that when Carrie Underwood burst on the scene with “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” she had some initial concerns about what that might mean for her as competition.
“I think every woman in country music probably had a little bit of fear when that voice came out,” she said, “she’s a force to be reckoned with. Just a powerhouse of a singer. I don’t know that I was very fearful just cause we were so different. I felt like, ‘Okay, she’s going to own that slicker side of country music,’ and that just kind of made me want to get rougher.”
Despite the peace that Wilson made with Underwood’s dominating spot in the country music world, she told Taste of Country host Evan Paul that the expansiveness of country music has given her mixed feelings. On the one hand, she said, “I sometimes feel like in country music, we’re kind of like the border—a little too wide open.”
But in the next breath, the country singer said, “There’s other moments where I’m so glad that country music is so all-encompassing, and we have so much of a variety of people to listen to. Country music has become so wide that if you can’t find some part of country music that you like, there’s something wrong with you.”
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