Nation music is exclusive in the way it likes to look again versus ahead, not like a lot of the remainder of standard music whose job it’s to push boundaries, break norms, and innovate. Paying homage to relics of the previous and the nostalgia they’ll encourage is a part of the attract of nation.
Billboards aren’t precisely dinosaurs, like public telephones or leaded gasoline pumps. However they may be getting there before later. Bodily promoting on the perimeters of highways simply isn’t as efficient as on-line adverts that may goal shoppers the place they’re at, and what appeals to them particularly. Additionally, billboard are simply ugly, blocking out the surroundings, breaking my thoughts, as a five-piece band as soon as sang. The world is slowly shifting on, and billboards have gotten relics themselves: outmoded and out of date.
Over a 12 months in the past now, I appeared out the window of Saving Nation Music headquarters to see a crew working down the street on a neighboring property adjoining to the freeway. It was arduous to inform what precisely they have been erecting at first. However because the hours handed into days, it was fairly clear it was an enormous billboard. Sure, it was fairly disappointing this promoting blight would now be a part of my panorama.
After the billboard was full, they stretched out a kind of “Does Promoting Work? Simply Did!” indicators on it. I’m certain you’ve seen them. In actual fact, on the identical time this billboard was erected, a double decker billboard on the opposite aspect of the freeway just some hundred yards away was constructed, and yet one more billboard just a few hundred yards down from that one. All of them are draped with “Does Promoting Work? Simply Did!” indicators.
After over a 12 months of those billboards standing fully vacant, the reply to “Does [Billboard] Promoting work?” truly appears to be, “No, it doesn’t.” It’s only a public blight.
Talking of blights and outdated relics of the previous, industrial nation radio additionally feels prefer it’s going the best way of the billboard, nonetheless slowly. Maybe mockingly, a big portion of the enterprise of Clear Channel (now IHeartMedia) was truly out of doors promoting earlier than they spun it off amid certainly one of their quite a few chapter and/or restructuring moments.
However over the previous few months and years, one thing has been coming to the rescue of this relic of mass commercial: impartial nation music. It was a billboard simply exterior of Stagecoach in Indio, California in 2024 that was the primary trace that Sturgill Simpson’s “Johnny Blue Skies” persona was gearing as much as launch music.
Earlier this 12 months when the Turnpike Troubadours have been on the point of launch their landmark document The Value of Admission, the primary trace they dropped was by way of Billboards simply exterior of Stillwater, Oklahoma the place The Boys From Oklahoma concert events with Cross Canadian Ragweed have been scheduled.
When on The Joe Rogan Expertise just lately, Charley Crockett informed the story of how proper because the pandemic was hitting, he bought a number of billboards in outstanding locations, together with in Occasions Sq., hypothesizing accurately that individuals wouldn’t be buying billboards for the following few months, and he might stretch a month of billboard promoting into thee, 4, or extra since there have been no different billboard adverts to exchange them. This is among the issues Crockett offers credit score to for his rise.
Simply over the previous few weeks, Billboards have been utilized in Waylon’s tiny hometown of Littlefield, TX to promote the upcoming Waylon Jennings album Songbird out October third, comprised of unheard recordings from the Waylon archive. Identical to within the case of Sturgill Simpson, the Turnpike Troubadours, and Charley Crockett, regardless of solely having to pay for native billboards, the impression is nationwide and worldwide as individuals share the photographs on social media—most likely not a nasty bang for the buck.
In earlier eras, billboard promoting particularly by impartial nation artists would have been thought of ostentatious, and extra self-importance than helpful. What has modified? A part of it most likely has to do with the rising affordability of the platform. With so many open billboards on the market, charges have fallen in sure places.
However there’s additionally one thing tangible about promoting on a billboard. Identical to a vinyl document, in some methods it’s a relic. However it’s that bygone, nostalgic feeling that it could actually evoke that makes a billboard extra helpful than merely a digital rendering. Additionally, there’s a “made it” really feel that’s conferred by making it onto a billboard. “Hey mama, I purchased me some billboards,” is what Charley Crockett bragged after his out of doors promoting exploits in 2020.
In fact, even the ol’ billboard is falling prey to technological development. Digital billboards at the moment are changing most of the outdated static ones, particularly in city areas, giving them a second life, and an impersonal really feel. No person notably likes a billboard of their yard. However particularly humorous ones, or ones involving further props and such can change into like cultural landmarks. There’s one thing heat about them.
Outside promoting was a part of Americana. Take into consideration Route 66 with its wild, outsized roadside points of interest to get individuals to cease and take footage. Dare we even say there was an inventive notion to exterior promoting that has been changed by the impersonal, modern-day billboard.
And we’d be remiss to not level out what number of nation songs of the previous have used billboards as their inspiration, partially or primarily. Most clearly you’ve “Lady on the Billboard” by Del Reeves. However Homer and Jethro’s “The Billboard Music” from 1952 is one other early instance. This has fed into the Billboard’s nostalgic really feel.
So who is aware of. Possibly nation music can save the billboard. And perhaps the billboard might help save nation music. It’s definitely helped construct a buzz for a few of the most necessary tasks and artists during the last 12 months or so, creating dialog properly past the car visitors passing by them on a neighborhood stretch of freeway.
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