Why Is SheDaisy on the Country Music Bench?

There are a lot of things in music that don’t make sense. The popularity of Justin Bieber is one of them. Why this carbon based Muppet is currently a media sensation is a good example of things in the music industry that just don’t add up. Another inexplicably silly part of the current music culture comes from the “Area 51” section of today’s Pop scene. It is the persistent speculation about what gender Lady Gaga really is. The absurd question about whether or not the oversexed diva is actually a teamster named Larry has a number of gullible people scratching their heads. Some of them, a good bit lower than that. Personally, I wonder how The Who can still sing the line “Hope I Die Before I Get Old” with a straight face. While all these are interesting in an “Access Hollywood”/”Jerry Springer” sort of way, there are some questions of substance out there in the music world. One thing that doesn’t make sense is how the country trio, SheDaisy, is sitting out there in Nashville without a recording deal.

For those who are unfamiliar with this band, it is comprised of three sisters from Utah: Kristyn, Kelsi, and Kassidy Osborn. Originally they were brought to Nashville by CBS records as the band The Osborn Sisters. While the name was possibly structured in that manner to evoke such acts as the Andrews Sisters, the moniker didn’t stick. They presumably got sick of questions about whether or not they would be biting the heads off of bats during their live shows, or how it was working with the late Randy Rhodes, so they changed their name to SheDaisy. If She-Myth is to be believed, the word is Navajo for “my little sister.” My Navajo is about as good as my German, so somebody could tell me the name means “hold the pickles” and I would have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The whole naming thing aside, these are three highly skilled and accomplished young women. From a vocal, writing, and pure “God given talent” standpoint, they are head and shoulders above the Dixie Chicks, but without all the evil. SheDaisy has the sort of harmonization skills that would either bring smiles to the faces of classic vocal bands like the aforementioned Andrews Sisters or the Mamas and the Pappas. Or, quite possibly, tears of bitter envy. The musical arrangement of many of their songs runs the range from the sort of simple structure with catchy hooks that make for a good pop offering to highly complex and layered vocals that challenge the listener. The latter they can manage without the sort of studio tricks that turned Britney Spears from a Karaoke Superstar in her own shower to an international sensation. The elder sister (oops…”elder” is probably a bad word in XX chromosome world. Let’s try again)… The most experienced sister (um… that probably doesn’t sound good either)… The first born sister (there we go), Kristyn, handles the bulk of the writing. Her songs tend to be well put together, imaginative, and with an occasionally off beat sense of humor. She can go from sensitive to snarky without missing a beat. She has penned sensitive ballads, such as the song Come Home Soon (about a wife at home while her husband is away at war) and then changed gears and wrote about a female serial killer in the song A Woman’s Work.

Of their seven CDs, five have appeared in the top 10 on the country charts, one has gone gold with another going platinum. The talent is there, the accomplishments are there, so why are these girls in currently in music limbo?

Last March, with the CD A Story to Tell on the launch pad and ready to send to the consumer, they parted ways with their record company, Lyric Street. To my knowledge, they have not yet been signed to another deal. It is true that their last couple CDs, Fortuneteller’s Memory and The Best of SheDaisy, didn’t pull in the numbers that their previous work has managed. While a record company may be quick to blame the artist, I believe they were the possible victims of a label who simply didn’t know what the hell to do with them.

Arguably their best year, in terms of sales, was 1999. Their debut CD, The Whole SHeBANG went Platinum, and they were given the 1999 CMT Rising Stars award. In 2000 they put out what is arguably the best Christmas CD of the modern era. It hit number 10 on the country charts. These two successes were not followed up upon for a full two years. By the time the 2002 CD, Knock on the Sky came out, much of the buzz had faded, and it was reflected in the sales. In truth it was three-years between commercial releases. While they did put out the holiday CD in 2000 and a remixed version of The Whole SHeBANG in 2001, Lyric Street should have been aware of how short the attention span of the American music fan is. Three-years was simply too long between Mainstream commercial releases to maintain momentum in a new band.

In that three-year period, there were also some missed opportunities. A big opportunity that was not seized upon was when in 2001 SheDaisy sang the national anthem at the Christening of the Navy’s most advanced and deadly Aircraft Carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan (perhaps our most advanced and deadly President). Their label should have had them on Fox and Friends in the morning doing a performance and then get them booked on shows like Hannity and Laura Ingraham; talking about how proud they are to be singing the National Anthem at an event that honored the man who ended the cold war. There is a huge crossover audience between country music, Fox News, and talk radio. The label would have been putting them in front of their core audience in the most favorable light humanly possible. Again this looked like a missed opportunity by their management.

While the sales for Knock on the Sky were down, they started to regain momentum with the 2004 release, Sweet Right Here. This CD went gold. Part of the success of this release was because of the brilliant move of having them contribute a song to the album Music from and Inspired by Desperate Housewives. Desperate Housewives was the hottest thing on television at that point in time. The song God Bless the American Housewife, though not on the CD Knock on the Sky, got enough play on radio (along with the supporting video on CMT and other networks),that it helped extend the life of that CD, introduced them to an audience who may have been unfamiliar with them, and reignited interest in the band.

While associating SheDaisy with an incredibly hot TV show was a stroke of genius, the powers that be at the label didn’t seem to put that sort of effort into promoting the 2006 CD Fortuneteller’s Melodies. In fact, over the last several years some of the promotional moves for the band have been hit and miss. SheDaisy has worked with Walt Disney and been the spokes band for Select Comfort Beds. Neither of these are bad ideas, but most entertainment demographics studies (in this case, we are linked to Comcast Spotlight) put the median age for Country Music fans at 40. The Disney audience is more likely to buy Miranda Cosgrove CD’s (or Jeanette McCurdy if they are country fans), and until the middle of the decade, Select Comfort was openly targeting their ads to people over 55. This put SheDaisy in the position of using these vehicles to draw fans from the extreme ends of the demographic, not the heart of it. While working with Disney and Select Comfort were both good things, somebody in the management should have been talking to energy drink manufacturers, car companies, and the universe of other products that appeal to people between the age of 18 and 40.

On this subject I can’t speak from a position of inside knowledge. I am just an outside observer who has a little marketing experience and dies a little on the inside with the knowledge that these young ladies don’t have a record deal but somehow Winger still does. For that matter, Harvey Danger was signed to a label until they retired last year, and Styx (who get most of their sales presumably by hawking CDs from the trunks of their cars) are still signed by a record company. A savvy record executive would realize that besides the annoying habit of putting the word “she” (SHeBANG, A SHeVERY Merry Christmas, SHeLOVE, etc.) in front of just about everything associated with them, these girls have real commercial value that is currently going to waste.

With the holidays coming up quickly, those who still wish their friends and family a Merry Christmas (instead “happy holidays,” or “have a tolerable winter solstice”) should pick up their CD A Brand New Year. It is worth it for the inspired version of Hark the Herald Angels Sing alone.