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In case you haven’t heard, Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines is not a fan of President Bush.

The Chicks have an interesting new album in stores, but the former country darlings find themselves talking less about the music and more about their politics while they try to dig out from under a 3-year-old controversy that refuses to die.

As the band members do in-depth interviews — like the one scheduled tonight on Larry King Live at 9 on CNN — appear on magazine covers (Time), and rehearse for a tour that opens July 21 in Detroit, the Chicks also are symbolic of the current state of country music, both on the radio and among the millions of fans.

For the biggest chunk of their career beginning in the mid-’90s, the Dixie Chicks were country radio’s darlings. They sang good, openhearted, catchy songs like “Ready to Run,” “Travelin’ Soldier,” and “Wide Open Spaces” that were safe, sentimental, and polished.

Then three years ago, Maines dared to speak her mind from a stage in Britain, uttering a line during her between-song banter — “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas” — that coincidentally revealed a serious schism within the country fan base.

Country music is an inherently conservative genre, and the backlash sparked a controversy that revealed an important truth about the music and its fans: There’s no room for dissent. Either the artists support family values as defined by flag-wavers like Toby Keith or they’re cast out.

Rock music can comfortably embrace Ted Nugent, an outspoken right-winger, and Neil Young, whose latest album includes a song called “Let’s Impeach the President,” and no one blinks.

But when Maines spoke up, on foreign soil, no less, the reaction from fans was instant and ugly. There were CD burnings and bashings, disc jockeys stopped playing the group’s music, and right-wing radio babblers weighed in with predictable vitriol. The Chicks, far more seriously, were subject to death threats.

Never mind that Maines is from Texas and can think or say whatever she wants about the President, who was just a week away from launching the invasion of Iraq. Never mind that Neil Young, Eddie Vedder, Bruce Springsteen, and countless other artists like Pink routinely bash President Bush and suffer virtually no consequences.

And never mind that Mr. Bush now is suffering from historically low approval ratings, which means there are millions of Americans who, while they may not necessarily be ashamed of the President, certainly don’t think he’s doing a very good job.

Still the Chicks continue to suffer the backlash from the lead singer’s off-the-cuff remark that has cast their new album, “Taking the Long Way,” in a strange light. While the release ought to be viewed as a veteran band taking some chances, working with a new producer (Rick Rubin), and cautiously exploring different sounds, the key question is whether country radio will give the Chicks its love.

This is a band that had 14 Top 10 country singles from 1997 to 2003, including six No. 1s. It won eight Grammys, 10 Country Music Association awards, and sold more than 23 million albums in the United States, according to Billboard magazine.

So the Chicks have been good for country radio, adhering to a sound built around the virtuosic musicianship of Emily Robison and Martie Maguire, who play a number of bluegrass oriented-instruments like fiddle, mandolin, accordion, and banjo. Maines’ twangy, ebullient voice was a perfect fit for the band’s brand of country pop.

Country radio was good for them, too, until now.

Their return last week with “Taking the Long Run” has been rough and no one in this nasty fight is ready to give up. According to published reports, a few radio programmers have tried dropping Dixie Chicks songs into their rotations, but the response has been intense and quick: Listeners don’t want to hear them.

Perhaps it’s because the first single is the angry, bruised “Not Ready to Make Nice,” that unflinchingly addresses some of the people who overreacted to Maines’ comment.

“And how in the world can the words that I said/Send somebody so over the edge/That they’d write me a letter/Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing/Or my life will be over?/I’m not ready to make nice/I’m not ready to back down.”

This isn’t going to help those who were mad at the band get over it. But why should Maines be shouted down and threatened for simply saying what she feels? Why should she make nice to country fans who demand that she embraces their ideology?

The answer to this question exposes a failing in country music today for those who grew up listening to Buck Owens, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard, or George Jones, a bunch of politically incorrect artists who were all over the ideological map and said whatever they wanted.

In today’s sanitized version of country music, faith, family values, and patriotism have trumped artistry.

Which means the Dixie Chicks’ new work is dismissed offhand because their politics fly in the face of the mainstream country crowd. It’s a reaction that says “Wide Open Spaces” was OK back before Maines showed her hand politically, but a comparable coming-of-age song from the new disc, “The Long Way Around,” is dismissed outright.

The other odd, ill-informed reaction to the new disc, the band’s eighth, is that it somehow is a “rock” album. It’s not. Sonically it’s a doppelganger of the Rubin-produced “Wildflowers” by Tom Petty, and the musicians on board include a few of Petty’s Heartbreakers (guitarist Mike Campbell and piano man Benmont Tench), Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, and John Mayer.

But it’s a pop/country album, rich in acoustic-based sound as strings swell on the tracks that aren’t propelled forward by a banjo. “Taking the Long Way” is filled with confessional writing about relationships (the love song “Lullaby” is a first-rate ballad), growing into middle-age, and looking back on what you’ve lost and taking account of what you have. And there are a few clunkers on the disc, most notably the sappy “Easy Silence.”

In short, it’s the sound of a band that’s evolving and taking a few small steps outside its comfort zone in an effort to cross genres. It’s music that deserves a fair airing in the marketplace, and that’s where country radio ought to end its feud with the band and start playing the songs, most of which would be welcome additions to their format.

And the country audience needs to get over it, too.

Plenty of Republican Springsteen fans cringed when he did the “Vote for Change” tour in 2004 because they didn’t agree with his politics. But they didn’t threaten to kill him or burn his CDs. Instead they shrugged and accepted that just because Springsteen thinks differently from them in the voting booth doesn’t change the way they feel about his music.

The country folks ought to embrace the Chicks, rather than reject them. The Dixie Chicks is a progressive band that can point the music in a new direction.

Judging by the continued knee-jerk reaction to Maines’ comment, it’s a crowd that could use a little artistic kick in the seat of the pants.

Contact Rod Lockwood at rlockwood@theblade.com or 419-724-6159.

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