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BUCKLING UP
The Buckle, a brand new digital-only country music radio station, was launched by the Fairfax Radio Network on December 22.
The station will initially be heard in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, and The Buckle incorporates a modern contemporary country music format, created specifically for capital city listeners.
The initiative by Fairfax Radio has grown out of the perception that whilst many of today’s country music artists are amongst the biggest selling and most successful performers in the world, their music has been all but ignored by the major music stations in Australia.
“A perfect example is KEITH URBAN,” says The Buckle Program Director Gary Hoffman. “He may be a superstar in the U.S. with millions of albums sold, but he is best known by most people in his home country as the bloke who married NICOLE KIDMAN.
“There is no doubt fans of contemporary country music have been short-changed in our major markets for many years, and we are excited to at last be able offer them a non-stop selection of the best that contemporary country music has to offer.”
The biggest challenge for Fairfax Radio was to devise a format that would attract the ears of the more contemporary metropolitan radio audience, and considerable research was undertaken with this objective clearly in mind.
“We are aware that many people will have never heard (or even heard of) the majority of the artists The Buckle will play,” explained Hoffman. “With this in mind, the playlist has been carefully crafted to appeal to non-country music fans as well.
“I wanted to create a format that country music fans would love, but also one that someone who had never listened to country could turn on and say… ‘I have no idea who that is, but what a great song’.”
Hoffman stresses that The Buckle is a contemporary country format, and listeners won’t be hearing the likes of SLIM DUSTY, JOHN WILLIAMSON, or oldies like PATSY CLINE.
“Slim’s contribution to Australian country music can never be devalued or underestimated, and Williamson is a terrific performer,” Hoffman clarifies, “but over the years country, like most other forms of popular music, has developed a range of styles of which contemporary country is just one (albeit the most popular by far), and that’s what listeners will be hearing on The Buckle – Great Country Music.”
Certainly the thrust and direction of the playlist clearly supports the “now” factor of contemporary country, but interestingly doesn’t merely centre on the younger, more pop-orientated group of stars who have recently emerged like TAYLOR SWIFT and CARRIE UNDERWOOD.
It’s actually an amalgam of the new brigade together with many more mainstream artists who have a broad audience appeal that crosses into the urban environment – the likes of U.S. stars DIERKS BENTLEY, BRAD PAISLEY, TIM McGRAW, BROOKS & DUNN & KENNY CHESNEY to Australian hitmakers like LEE KERNAGHAN, THE McCLYMONTS and HARMONY JAMES.
Hoffman says “The McClymonts are the absolute benchmark for contemporary country music in Australia. They have great songs, great production values with their recorded material, and present themselves onstage like the stars they are. Any young aspiring performers could do a lot worse than learn from what those girls have done”.
He stresses that if country is to cross over to an urban audience, it’s artists like The McClymonts who will help pave the way, and Hoffman is confident it will happen although concedes it will take time.
“We see The Buckle as a long-term proposition. We’ve put the music out into the marketplace, but it will take time for listeners to find it and then become familiar with it. We all know just how great country music is, but you can’t beat people over the head and make them listen. The first part of it is to make the music available.
“The Buckle does that, and we can’t see any reason at all why contemporary country can’t become a major radio format in Australia.”
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