Country music doesn't need reality TV to grease its slippery slide into hell, but it looks like it's going to get some anyway. CMT recently announced plans for a show called Gone Country, which will feature former Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider, Brady Bunch star Maureen McCormick, musical hothead Bobby Brown, Brian Wilson spawn/size-acceptance defector Carnie Wilson, Sisqo (the guy responsible for the "Thong Song"), American Idol contestant Diana DeGarmo, and Spanish pop-rocker Julio Iglesias Jr.
What do these people have to do with country music, you may ask? Absolutely nothing. That is, of course, until they all move into a Nashville mansion together, get paired off with hit Music City songwriters, and compete in a series of challenges that will "test them musically and physically to adapt to a country music lifestyle, both on and off the stage." The winner of the six-episode show, as selected by host John Rich of country stars Big and Rich, will go on to record and release a bitchin' country jam and have "a chance at a country music career." And to think, my mother wouldn't let me watch Gilligan's Island because she thought it would make me stupid.
This is wrong on so many levels that the only thing I can say about it is: Count me in! Now that season two of Flavor of Love has run its course, I need something to make me feel dirty again.
The show is currently in production in Nashville, but we'll have to wait until January 2008 to see what CMT producers envision as a "country music lifestyle." You know that, at some point, it's got to involve Marcia Brady pole dancing, milking a goat, or riding in a monster truck.
Just when you thought you'd finally made a full recovery from "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk."
Wendy Case is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Arts & Entertainment.
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