Where Has the Music Gone?

Metallica is an extremely successful
American heavy metal band that has
been active since the early 1980s.

After building a loyal following
through its role in the development of
thrash metal in the 1980s, the band
successfully broadened its audience
in the early 1990s to include many
new fans. Accordingly, the band
stood as the most commercially
visible example of the metal genre
for most of that decade. In contrast,
Metallica's vastly increased
commercial success was
accompanied by stylistic changes
that fostered accusations of "selling
out" by some long-time fans though
picking up many new fans.

In 2003 Metallica released St. Anger,
a collection of the most aggressive
music they had written in a decade,
to deeply divided critical reviews and
comparatively mediocre sales figures.
Nevertheless, extensive and
successful tours throughout 2003 and
2004 reinforced the band's reputation
as a top-notch live act.

Dwight David Yoakam (born
October 23, 1956) is an American
musician, songwriter, and actor.

Yoakam was born in Pikeville,
Kentucky, and raised in Columbus,
Ohio, growing up with his mother and
step-father, who had a white collar
job in the automotive industry. He
graduated from Columbus's Northland
High School on June 9, 1974. During
his high school years, he excelled in
both music and drama, regularly
securing the lead role in school plays,
such as Charlie in the stage version of
Flowers for Algernon. Outside of
school, Yoakam sang and played
guitar with local garage bands, and
frequently entertained his friends and
classmates as an amateur comedian,
impersonating politicians and other
celebrities, such as Richard Nixon,
who, at that time, was heavily
embroiled in the Watergate
controversy.

Yoakam briefly attended The Ohio
State University, but dropped out and
moved to Nashville in the late '70s
with the intent of becoming a
recording artist. When he began his
career, Nashville was oriented towards
pop Urban Cowboy music, and
Yoakam's brand of Bakersfield honky
tonk was not considered marketable.
He began playing live in the Los
Angeles area, performing with punk
bands like Dead Kennedys, Butthole
Surfers and X; and roots-rock bands
The Blasters and Los Lobos.

Yoakam debuted with the college
radio staple A Town South of
Bakersfield in 1984 (1984 in music).
His debut LP was 1986's Guitars,
Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. and it instantly
launched his career (1986 in music).
"Honky Tonk Man" (Johnny Horton)
and "Guitars, Cadillacs" were hit
singles. The follow-up LP, Hillbilly
Deluxe, was just as successful. His
third LP, Buenas Noches from a
Lonely Room, included his first #1, a
duet with Buck Owens, "Streets of
Bakersfield". 1990's (1990 in music) If
There Was a Way was another
best-seller.

Yoakam's song Readin', Writin', and
Route 23 pays tribute to his childhood
move from Kentucky, and is titled
after a local expression describing the
route that rural Kentuckians need to
take to find a job. (U.S. Highway 23
runs north from Kentucky through
Columbus and Toledo, and through
the automotive centers of Michigan.)

Yoakam has also taken some acting
roles, most notably as the abusive
alcoholic Doyle in Billy Bob
Thornton's Sling Blade (1996) and as
a psychotic killer in 2002's Panic
Room. He has also appeared in
Southern California live theater,
combining his acting talents with the
talents of director Peter Fonda.

Having diverged from pop-icon status
in country-western fare, Yoakam is
today more likely to be identified as
having an older, or more traditional
style, and mentioned with his
contemporaries such as George
Strait. But along with his bluegrass
and honky-tonk roots, Yoakam has
written or covered many Elvis
Presley-style rockabilly songs,
including his popular covers of
Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called
Love" in 1999 and Presley's
"Suspicious Minds." He even
recorded a cover of the Clash's "Train
In Vain" in 1997.

Yoakam is currently touring in support
of his new album Blame the Vain.