Overview
By the 1990s, country music had become the most popular and bestselling genre of music in the United States. In this lesson, we will consider how and why country music rose to commercial dominance in the late 1980s and 1990s. The so-called “new country” music of the 1980s was actually in many ways a revival of older, traditional styles of country music. By the 1980s, a number of the top country stars such as Dolly Parton had become increasingly pop-oriented in their sounds and musical styles. The 1980s saw a return to the earlier days of country music, including the fashion, instrumentation, and lyric themes.
Objectives
- Recall how and why George Strait and Reba McEntire were important figures in the “new” country of the 1980s
- Recall the significance of Garth Brooks’s musical style and lyric message and how he was similar to and different from other country artists
- Examine the careers of other popular country artists from the 1990s, including LeAnn Rimes and Shania Twain
Conclusion
In the early 1980s, artists such as George Strait and Reba McEntire returned to the sounds of country music from the 1950s and 1960s. This so-called "new" country movement was actually a revival of traditional sounds and styles that hearkened back to the days of Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. Following in the model set by Strait and McEntire, artists such as Garth Brooks, LeAnn Rimes, and Shania Twain embraced traditional sounds of country music and sold millions of albums. By the early 1990s, country music was outselling every other genre of music.
"I grew up in southeastern Oklahoma on a working cattle ranch, and it was always very romantic to me: The West, the cowboy, the Western way of life."
