If you want to wildly piss off a bunch of country music fans, go ahead and take a cue from Keith Hill, a man who oversees 300 country music radio stations. He more-or-less said country radio needed to “take females out” in order to boost ratings during an interview with Country Aircheck magazine.
“Trust me, I play great female records and we’ve got some right now; they’re just not the lettuce in our salad,” Hill added in the interview. “The lettuce is Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton, Keith Urban and artists like that. The tomatoes of our salad are the females.”
The offensive comments/weird food metaphor quickly spread over social media, with many prominent artists and songwriters voicing their displeasure at the sexist opinion.
“If you want to make ratings in country radio, take females out,”- Keith Hill This is he biggest bunch of BULLSHIT I have ever heard.
— Miranda Lambert (@mirandalambert) May 28, 2015
I am gonna do everything in my power to support and promote female singer/songwriters in country music. Always.
— Miranda Lambert (@mirandalambert) May 28, 2015
Martina McBride shared her thoughts on her Facebook page.
Wow…..just wow. Just read this from a major country radio publication. How do you feel about this statement? I…
Posted by Martina McBride on Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Kacey Musgraves wasn’t impressed, and retweeted the below message.
So @KaceyMusgraves is a tomato?Seems like country music’s females are killin’ it and they’re all the boys sing about. pic.twitter.com/0Qd6qFLi8R
— Crystal Anne (@CrystalAnne44) May 27, 2015
you say tomato….I say f**k you.
— Shane McAnally (@shanemcanally) May 28, 2015