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We can all loosen our belts one more notch and let our swollen bellies out now that 1997 has drawn to a close. As every year finds more people in Texas, so too does each year bring more music to our clubs and stereos. In this column I'll briefly look back at the notable events of 1997 and muse on the possibilities that 1998 may hold.
1997 was the year of Texas women in music. If you look at the top 200 at www.billboard.com, it is easy to pick out the biggest stories in Texas music from last year. LeAnn Rimes currently occupies spots 4 and 42, with her albums You Light Up my Life -- Inspirational Songs -- and Blue respectively, the latter having been on the chart for 77 weeks and the former having reached number one. Billboard writes, "LeAnn Rimes' first three albums helped the teenager become the No. 1 album artist of the year," beating out the Spice Girls and Celine Dion. It's been a banner year for the 15-year-old Garland resident, indeed, a year that will be tough to match. Finding so much success at such a young age makes us wonder if Rimes can keep this pace up, and what she will do next. What was amazing in 1997 was that in the increasingly competitive world of country music, the combined success of Rimes and Oklahoma's Garth Brooks means a tremendous amount of albums sold by two singers who grew up not too far away from each other in a relatively small parcel of arid, flat land. The next Texas artist you encounter as you scroll down the list is Erykah Badu. At 24 (at the time of this writing), Dallas' Badu is the next biggest story in Texas music. Her innovative melange of jazz, soul, and hip-hop has invigorated the R&B world and brought head-wraps and Afrocentric lyrics to MTV. Lisa Loeb is also currently on the Billboard charts with her album Firecracker. Aside from these top-selling acts, there were some other notable albums last year. Specifically I'm thinking of Steve Earle's El Corazon, Robert Earl Keen's Picnic, Abra Moore's Strangest Places (of course, another Texas woman and one whom was being significantly promoted in New York when I was there a couple of weeks ago), Roy Hargrove's Habana, and Ornette Coleman's Colors. Feel free to write in with some of your favorites and we'll see what kind of sampling we get. Badu's new R&B bodes well for new music in 1998. So many artists from the Dallas area made the news last year -- Rimes, Loeb, and Badu -- that I think things might shift to Houston here in '98. This may not mean the chart-busting success of the North Texans, but there's some interesting stuff brewing down South. Particularly I plan to keep track of the Latino Rock scene and some of the smaller label hip-hop acts from Houston. Until then, Happy New Year. (1/1/98) |
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