The Winter Of Discontent Is Over!

Jimmy Carter in what is still Music City USA...

I think my college students look depressed ... especially the seniors. Maybe, it's just me, but the young people have to be a little freaked out about the job market they face.

Heard a guy on a network radio show say he was out of work and the business was pretty scary right now.

Yeah, scary is a pretty good word. Read the retail sales figures for country? Off 14.8% YTD. Lower than the all-genre 12%. The President seems to make the stock market go down every time he speaks. These are times that WILL be overcome, but they are scary!

Some things roll along like nothing is an obstacle: The Oscars, The Opry, The Jonas Bros., Taylor Swift, spring training baseball, NASCAR and cold weather.

The month of March has promise written all over it and so does April. New CDs are coming with much fanfare. The biggest push is going to the new Keith Urban, "Defying Gravity." The Jonas Bros film screaming at the box office this weekend and taking over on the sales chart where Taylor Swift left off.

Jack Black playing the Opry is a sign of the times. Country star Billy Currington calling Hawaii his home is, too.

The NBC "Celebrity Apprentice" with Clint Black is kicking off, with Jewel and Chuck Wicks coming in the few days ahead with their "ABC Dancing with the Stars."

As Brad Paisley winds down his Winter concert series with the Houston Rodeo, he just sold out the arena in Spokane and ran a very successful Canadian tour. Taylor Swift moves from Europe to a Nashville hockey game, then to Plant City, FL for the Florida Strawberry festival. In the new week, Taylor is over to Australia to conquer that continent.

The consolidation of Ticketmaster and Live Nation seems to still be seen as a wait-and-see thing. The customers are nervous; Live Nation will own to big a piece of the live music pie.

The layoffs seem to have stopped for now at radio, but the axe sharpens and the newspapers are dying. Rocky Mountain News died Friday, San Antonio Express face big cuts and SF Chronicle is not safe from extinction . Local TV has bloodbaths daily around its U.S. stations. The TV's would disagree with the description of death, but fewer employees in this case is not about more efficient, it's just fewer people to do the level of quality they have done for years. It will show up on the air soon ... or when a big story breaks. Then what?

The Country Radio Seminar is in town the week ahead. NASCAR comes to the deep South March 6th-8th with their own economic issues. SWSX in Austin is almost 10 days of cutting edge music, film and Internet.

Spring Break will be more dangerous than ever, with kids trying to see if Mexico is cheap and safe or just plain dangerous. I think it falls in to the "hell no, we wont go" department. Not sure of any musical bookings this year, It is a more dangerous place as a country, too.

So, good concerts and recorded music are coming. The hopelessness needs to flip really soon to hopefulness!