"Gone Country"/"Gone Crazy?"

Two recent trends, according to Sunday's media:

1. If pop star Michelle Branch and her pal Jessica Harp had their way, their new country album “Stand Still, Look Pretty” would have registered even higher on the twang scale.“We had people holding the reins back and saying maybe you should approach this very slowly and adjust as you go,” Branch said of the duo, called the Wreckers. “I think if Jessica and I totally had our way it would have been a bluegrass record.”The group, whose album comes out Tuesday, is among a spate of artists from outside Nashville who are going country and finding success.The Bon Jovi-Jennifer Nettles duet “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” hit No. 1 on the country singles chart and stayed there two weeks, while new albums by Van Morrison and Norah Jones’ outfit the Little Willies (named in homage to Willie Nelson) also are doing well (Nos. 24 and 27, respectively, on the country album chart).

2. It may be the little things that make satellite radio truly revolutionary, and, while the Dixie Chicks appearance on Howard Stern's Sirius radio show Thursday may not make headlines, it showed the power of the new medium. The hottest trio in country music said things on Stern you will hear nowhere else and gave insights into their lives and thoughts they just couldn't do anywhere else. They should put this half hour in the radio hall of fame, just to mark how big a step satellite made. It marks the first time people on radio could speak the way they do at home.

Thanks, AP, for #1. Hopefully it gets a lot more play than #2.

Stern's ability to get media ink with outlandish statements in spite of reaching 1/200th of the very tiny percentage of the radio audience which has satellite radio at the present always amazes me. It looks like the Chicks are giving the same media strategy a try. But, the problem is that one spin in an Atlanta, Dallas or Seattle on the smallest country station in town reaches more country listeners than Stern's satellite broadcasts (..thank goodness!).