Country Music / New Country /Modern Country/ Alt -Country / Americana / Traditional Country /Texas Country / Red-Dirt Country
There was a time in my life when I was obsessed with putting each artist I heard into an extremely specific genre. I would get irate when someone would mention anything that had to do with modern day Nashville country. I have since calmed down and discovered many of the new artists that I love fit into more than one of those categories and in some cases; none of those categories. The debate about where and what is country music makes my head spin but an article that I read today hammers the nail on the head.
Here is a little piece of that article
“Every argument that is now made against the current crop of pop-and rock-influenced acts has been made before, during one of Nashville’s previous periods of cross-genre pollination. Traditionalists seethed when countrypolitan was all the rage during the early 1960s, and again when the success ofUrban Cowboy sent the denizens of Music City looking for the bright lights of crossover success. By 1975 author Paul Hemphill had declared, “Country music isn’t really country anymore; it is a hybrid of nearly every form of popular music in America.” Acts from Ray Price to Dolly Parton, and from Conway Twitty to Johnny Cash, have at some point been accused of having insufficient country credibility. (As the keeper of the Country Weekly letters page at the time, I was stunned to find how many older fans wrote in after Cash’s death to declare that they had never considered him “country” at all.)” -The C Word by Chris Neal - Click on the link to read the entire article.
My 2 cents: Remember back in the late 90s when Garth Brooks decided to depart from his country material to record a pop album in preparation for a movie role? Many of the songs that were recorded by Garth Brooks as “Chris Gaines” would fit nicely on current country radio. Seems as though Country Radio has finally caught up to Chris Gaines.
