Yesterday evening, the news arrived that faithful viewers of “Nashville,” ABC’s perpetually “on-the-bubble” music-biz drama from Thelma & Louise writer Callie Khouri, have been dreading for a few years now: the series had been cancelled, with season four’s two remaining episodes to be its last. We are left with so many maddening questions: What will happen to yung-Swift Maddie, now in the clutches of her increasingly evil “manager” Cash, or Rayna and Deacon, going through their trillionth rough patch? Will Scarlett and Gunnar get together again, or would it dismantle the tension that propels their best songwriting together? Can Layla Grant pivot from Kellie Pickler in the public’s eyes to Kacey Musgraves in critics’ hearts? And can Will Lexington, now with the mighty Luke Wheeler on his side, finally convince close-minded listeners that hearing a song on commercial country radio written and sung by an out gay man is the new normal?
As we wait for the real-life Nashville to finally reckon with that last point (sigh), we must say goodbye to the (many, many) characters who made “Nashville” one of the most well-rounded fictionalized portraits of the music industry to have ever existed. From the ins and outs of behind-the-scenes roles like professional songwriters, music publishers, managers, and working-class touring musicians, to the legal problems that plague superstars rich enough to charter their own jets, “Nashville” should be considered the anti-“Vinyl.” Which is to say that watching it results in learning a thing or two about how the music industry—country or otherwise—actually works, from a song's opaque conception to its cultural ubiquity and the seemingly innumerable steps in between. Even country-music stars and insidersapplauded the show for its accuracy—a fact made evident by how many of them stopped by for cameos, oftentimes on the storied Ryman stage.
Throughout the show’s run, “Nashville” has remained a constant favoriteamong variousPitchfork staffers. At one point the show even introduced a “Pitchfork writer” (season three, episode 18), as a signifier that the Exes (then the Triple Exes) were getting “cool” press. (This fictionalized staffer was low-key insufferable, by the way, caring more about Avery’s romantic ties to superstar Juliette Barnes than the music, but we appreciated being included regardless.) The point is, “Nashville” was insightful enough about the ins and outs of the industry that it didn’t matter whether you were a staunch country fan or not. It helped that the music itself was often good, which isn’t all that surprising given the immense real-life cred of those involved (T-Bone Burnett executive-produced the music in season one, while Buddy Miller, songwriter and producer for the likes of Emmylou Harris and Robert Plant, helmed the musical reins in seasons two and three). But this is something that’s hard to convince hardcore music listeners who are staunchly “anything but country” in their otherwise-omnivorous tastes. I can’t tell you how many conversations I had trying to explain the appeal of “Nashville” to those who’d long ago decided that country music simply isn’t for them (though it is for many people, especially those who still buy CDs).
This provincial disdain for country remains one of the outlying exceptions to a musical world that’s grown increasingly genre-less over the last decade, and I’d argue that in some small way, it contributed to “Nashville’s” longtime dance with middling ratings. (Yes, country listenership is mighty enough to singlehandedly carry the show's ratings in theory, but a wide-ranging viewership is arguably more impressive and important.) In its first two seasons, weekly “Nashville” ratings hovered in the five to six million range, slipping over time towards four million, where it hovers these days. By comparison, even with slipping ratings, fellow network music-biz drama “Empire” garnered nearly 10 million viewersthis week.
Though they’re very different shows tonally, and “Empire” features the force of nature that is Taraji P. Henson as Cookie Lyon (which not even Connie Britton’s Rayna Jaymes can compete with), I’d argue that one factor in the overwhelming success of “Empire” has to do with hip-hop’s growing synonymy with pop in the mainstream, as well as its glamorization. Hip-hop’s biggest stars and moguls are considered celebrities in wider pop culture—the kind whose fame, wealth, and eternal drama one would want to observe, in juicy detail, every week. Country stars, to be sure, are rich as hell and powerful too, but they spend less time in the tabloids, and aspirational excess isn’t baked into the genre’s more down-home DNA. As outrageous as Juliette can be, it’s hard to imagine her pulling some of the wildly entertaining stunts that Cookie does and having it make sense when her scene partner is the eternally sage Rayna.
In this sense, maybe “Nashville’s” whole premise—built around struggles for fame and power that are often concealed by an overwhelming relatability and niceness from its stars—was flawed from the start, but the idea of a series lifts this veil still sounds to me now like a compelling show. Sure, it doesn’t have the jolt of scandal of “Vinyl’s” sex, drugs, and semi-historically accurate rock ‘n’ roll, but then again, it seems like even HBO is (thankfully) rethinking things there.
There’s no way of knowing for certain why “Nashville” never really caught on outside of its dedicated fanbase, one that helped launch its original songson the country charts. The show absolutely had its flaws, most of which had to do with eye-rolling feats of romantic upheaval (it is a soap, after all). But even if you’re not a “country person,” I’d recommend “Nashville” for anyone interested in popular music’s increasingly complicated means of creation and dissemination. And hell, the songs ain’t half-bad either.