Why Jess’ Country Career Flopped

Now that Jessica Simpson’s been dropped by her Nashville label and her country music career has officially been pronounced dead, some experts in the genre give their opinions on why she failed.

The AP reports Simpson’s album “Do You Know” has sold a modest 178,000 copies since its release last fall—about the same number superstar Keith Urban’s latest sold in its first week. This is after the label spent big bucks hyping the country-pop effort.

But the country crowd just wasn’t buying it—the hype or the CD. Lon Helton of Country Aircheck recalled, “Everywhere I saw her around the U.S. at different radio station events she was always well-received. For whatever reason, the music did not resonate.”

Maybe because it wasn’t very good. Or maybe just because the country audience can smell a phony.

Ian Drew, senior music editor at Us Weekly magazine, nailed it when he said, “Working the country market is very different. You really have to work it at country. You have to spend your life on the road building an audience and she didn’t really put the work in. She walked the walk and talked the talk, but she didn’t have the street cred that she needed to make it work.”

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