Cnn.com had one of those quickvotes on their home page that asked if the DCs won for their politics or their music. I think the results can be found at http://www.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/30088.exclude.html , but that may not work.

The vote was pretty much 60% politics, 40% music. I think that deep down, most people understood what was really going on.

I would argue that one cannot and should not always try to separate off the 'political' from the 'artistic' content of a work of art, but at least I see how the argument for the other side is supposed to work. The idea that the Nobel Peace Prize is somehow supposed to be nonpolitical is, however, incoherent on its face.

(And I would add: the idea that the Grammies are about some hifalutin notion of artistic achievement is rendered laughable by, e.g., this year's winner for Best Performance by a Duo or Group....)

I never associated the Grammys with art. Even the Oscars have a better track record on honoring artistic acievement, Titanic notwithstanding.

Oh my gosh, no. I always thought the Grammys were basically to recognize who made the most money for the recording industry.

Well, perhaps I didn't make this clear, but I certainly don't think the Grammy's are about honoring the quality of art. That's why I wrote this:

They all seem to be saying what many had already suspected - "artistic" awards are often bestowed less for the quality of the art, and more for the artist's beliefs or culture.

Mr. Ayeroff states, "the artist community, which was very angry at what radio did, because it was not very American." ...however I think many don't realize what the broad majority of the Dixie Chicks listening population is. They sing country music and on the whole, country music listeners are conservative. They're mostly pro-America, pro-guns, etc. So naturally when the Dixie Chicks say bad things about Bush, many of their listeners are not going to like it and that'll backlash and their popularity will most likely go down (which it did). Although Mr. Ayeroff says it is un-American, these listeners would probably argue that it is indeed very American to reject them because they made "un-American" statements. I think many of these music executives etc fail to realize this.
I on the other hand could care less what a celebrity or musician has to say about global warming, abortion, or any other political controversy. Their job is to entertain me, and I'd listen to the Dixie Chicks even if they all became lesbian and joined the Church of Scientology.

If it was just a matter of the DC going down in popularity, and so being played accordingly less often, that would be one thing. But I think you're forgetting the _spectacle_ of anti-DC hatred that was fomented on the radio. Such an organized campaign against an artist goes far beyond merely registering that that artist has suffered a drop in popularity.