Dixie Chicks have announced that they will officially change their name amid the current cultural environment regarding protests for racial justice. The band, which consists of Natalie Maines, Emily Strayer, and Martie Maguire from now on, will be called “The Chicks.” This Thursday, they changed their website URL and Instagram handle. Their Wikipedia page has also been updated.
According to the Rolling Stone, the newly named band only offered a statement on their website, stating, “We want to meet this moment.” In their press release, they thanked ‘The Chicks’ of New Zealand, saying, “A sincere and heartfelt thank you goes out to ‘The Chicks’ of [New Zealand] for allowing us to share their name. We are honored to co-exist together in the world with these exceptionally talented sisters. Chicks Rock!”
The Chicks are not the first to make this move, as the former band Lady Antebellum changed their band name to Lady A.
The new band name also comes with a brand new single entitled “March March,” a protest song. This song will appear on their fifth studio album Gaslighter. The article stated that the song “combines a minimalist electronic beat with subdued instrumentation from Maguire’s fiddle and Strayer’s Banjo.” Jack Antonoff produced this title track.
In the lyrics, Maines addresses many things. First, there’s Greta Thunberg and the youth’s active participation in climate protests. Then there’s gun violence, the issue of teachers’ low income. The music video edits together recent footage from Black Lives Matter movements’ protests and police confrontations. In Maguire’s fiddle solo, described by RS as fiery, the names of African Americans who died due to police brutality were featured on the screen. The video ends with a message that reads, “Use your voice. Use your vote” which also included links to social justice organizations and nonprofits.
Their album Gaslighter will be released on July 17.
The original uploader was Wasted Time R at English Wikipedia. / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)