Your Take: Decades of Country Music

I got into country around 1980 and I’ve always had a soft spot for 1960s country. Even though it’s before my time, it seems like a Golden Age when people like Merle Haggard, Charley Pride, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette were just getting started. I’m also a sucker for mid-to-late 1980s neotraditionalist country, when Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam, and The Judds ruled the radio airwaves. It was hard to find a song I didn’t like back then.

” If I were just starting out listening to country now, based on the mainstream, I probably wouldn’t.”

Great point. I never thought of it that way, but me too. If I were a teenager just getting to hear country for the first time, I wouldn’t be anything more than a casual fan of the genre. I think I would like Sugarland, but that’s about it.

My golden era of country is the early to mid 90s when country was just exploding. But not only that, even obscure artists like Shenandoah (their collaboration with Alison Krauss is pure greatness), Billy Dean, and Suzy Bogguss were all recording quality material. And of course Garth was leading the pack making way for artists like Reba and Brooks & Dunn and Alan Jackson to become global stars. Everything was just good then it seems.

But I do think your first impression of something (from art to love) is never again recaptured.

My favorite decade is this one, the 2000s

I got into country music in 2003 with Sara Evans’ “Backseat of a Greyhound Bus” … and the album, Restless, was the first country CD I ever owned

The 90s (specifically 1990-1996) were THE pinnacle for the country genre, both in music AND in the way the business was put together. Anyone who says otherwise is either diluting themselves or simply didn’t pay attention.

Here’s the facts

* 90-96 had the most diverse group of artists of any era in country. There was literally something for everyone. Folk and Americana fans had Mary Chapin Carpenter, traditionalists had Alan Jackson, bluegrass fans had Diamond Rio, Midwest/Mellencamp fans had Sawyer Brown, fans of great singing had Trisha Yearwood, and fans who liked the theatre of live performance had Reba and Garth.

* 90-96 was the period where country music had more #1s than any other time in the genre’s history. This was a point of contention at the 1999 CRS where analyst Larry Rosin wrongly convinced radio stations to “slow down the charts.” Fewer #1s = fewer hit acts = fewer engaged fans = less excitement in the genre.

* 90-96 was the period where country music had more radio stations than any other genre. This provided more listeners than any other genre, thus providing more publishing royalties, thus pumping serious money into developing the best songwriters and songs.

* 90-96 was the rise of Garth Brooks – who by nature of selling tens of millions of albums, helped the rest of the genre sell above normal, thus providing more label and publishing revenues, thus pumping serious money into the development of great artists and great songs.

* Contrast the above two points with today – where far fewer writers are creating the Top 40, and as a result, driving down diversity and taking fewer risks.

Tragically, along with the Telecom Act of ‘96, the sheer success of the 90-96 period made Nashville SO greedy, it lost its way and we ended up getting the rise of the Shania Twain era in 97-2000.

Please note, I have nothing against any other decade (except maybe this one). Each decade from the 30s to the 80s offered something unique and memorable, and if I don’t begrudge anyone their favorite. My argument is that the 1990-1996 was the BEST of the BEST.

I’d take the ’80s if I had no choice, but my ideal 10 years would be 1985-1995. That way, you get people like Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam, The O’Kanes and Foster & Lloyd, as well as Marty Stuart, Hal Ketchum, Carlene Carter and Desert Rose Band.

When I say the nineties, I should qualify that the entire decade wasn’t worth writing home about. Things/quality did seem to slowly taper off after ‘96. It all just seems especially bad within the last four or five years though. I know things will turn around, but I’m getting tired of waiting.

I “officially” jumped on the country bandwagon in 1990. Though I was a lifelong rock and southern rock fan, I was “in-the-closet” with an inexplicable collection of a dozen Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell and Albert Lee albums on the shelf next to Molly Hatchet, the Allmans, Clapton, Jethro Tull etc.

I began to take my guitar playing and especially my songwriting more seriously in the late eighties and a friend nudged me towards country since my stuff was leaning that way.

I devoured everything country that I could get ahold of. Spent some time in Music City. Just like Leeann said, the air started leaking outta the baloon in the mid-to-late-nineties.

All but gone are Tritt, Van Shelton, Bogguss, Gill, Whitley…..tho Strait is hanging in there. It’s gotten so bad that I haven’t listened to the radio in about ten years. I find my stuff online in places like 9513 and then grab it on Rhapsody.

So, I’d have to say that my favorite decade of country music is five years on either side of 1990. Just like my favorite decade of rock music was 5 tears either side of 1970 (the year I flipped over R & R)

Yes, I should add, thanks to Rick, that there is still plenty of great country music now, just not on radio.

I’d say my favorite period of Country is 1965-1977 or so when you had Merle, Loretta, Tammy, Willie, Waylon, Charley, Conway, the Flatlanders, Tom T. Hall etc. When you add in Country Rock, which would just be called Country today–acts like the Byrds, the Band, Gram Parsons & Emmylou, Paul Siebel, Michael Nesmith–it’s a pretty unbeatable era.

All this love for the 90s is puzzling. I don’t hear a huge difference between that time and the 00s. Can someone list the classic albums from that period? I can reel off a list of late 80s classics but can barely come up with more than a handful from the 90s, certainly no more than fro the 00s.

People are focusing too much on the radio and Clear Channel. There has been a thriving non-mainstream for quite some time now. I guarantee you that the new Neko Case album will get more publicity in magazines and websites that reach mass audiences than some “hit” mainstream act like, say, Lady Antebellum.

And Neko debuted at #3 on the Billboard charts. She kind of is more or less mainstream now.

There was a lot of good music by those artists in the 1980’s. To begin with, George Jones had a little ditty called “He Stopped Loving her today.” Charley Pride did an amazing song called “Down on the Farm.” A few songs from Willie in the 1980’s were: “The Last Thing I Needed,First thing this Morning,” “City of New Orleans,” “Forgiving You Was Easy” and “Living in the Promise Land.” Merle had “Pancho and Lefty,” “You Take Me For Granted” and all of his lovely work with Janie Fricke.

A few had good “comeback” albums (like “Big City” fer instance) but most were playing catch-up with younger artists and using now-embarrassing production.

Embarrassing in what way? And who, exactly, are you referring to?

@Stormy – Loretta certainly is! The Jack White produced album was amazing – I wish she would do more, more often. Lord knows Willie puts out an album every year if he can help it.

No, but I will say that it is equal.

I listen to and own Country Music recordings as early as Vernon Dalhart, The Carter Family & Jimmie Rodgers, on through to Roy Acuff, Patsy Montana, Ernest Tubb, Bob Wills, on through to Hank Snow, Faron Young, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ray Price, Lefty Frizzell, on through to George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Charley Pride, Conway Twitty, Merle Haggard, on through to Willie & Waylon, Janie Fricke, Don Williams, Hank, Jr., The Oaks, on through to George Strait, Randy Travis, Alabama and Reba, on through Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, Lorrie Morgan…on through Travis Tritt, Mark Chestnut, Marty Stuart and Patty Loveless…then I STOP…

I graduated high school in 1998 from a rural community in Missouri. I believe this is about the time “Country Music” ended. We now have rock & Pop recorded in Nashville on discs with the “label” Country Music.

It’s sick. I don’t watch the CMA awards anymore, or the ACM’s. If it were not for the Grand Ole Opry radio show and “ROADHOUSE” on satalite radio, I would only have my CD collection to hear “COUNTRY MUSIC”

For music in general and country i would say 97-2009. I was born in 92 so i think it has to do with that. I wasn’t born into it my parents listen to classic rock. At first all i listen to was pop but Jamie O’Neal There is No Arizona and Billy Gilman’s One Voice changed that. The reason for liking music now i think is because i started off listen to pop music. I can’t stand 80’s music. I couldn’t make it past two songs of 80 music.

Born in 80’s, started listening to music in the 90’s…guess this places me square with the Garth Brook’s era of thunder. But now as I’m reaching middle-age, I’m going back into the past to see what I’ve been missing and certainly am enjoying the experience. Plus I do agree with the belief that those who are taken with music for the first time (whatever genre/era/style is playing) will be instantly smitten and can’t find a comparable one in the future, or seldom in the past.

My favoite decade is the 1990s, mainly because that’s what I grew up with (born in 1987). I won’t deny that the 1990s had a few clinkers (the insipid “Watermelon Crawl”, defanged “attitude” songs like “I Wanna Go Too Far”, bland love ballads like “It’s Your Love”, etc.). I’m trying to look back on the 1990s as objectively as I can, but even so, I’m finding fewer clinkers than I would in any other decade. I haven’t found one song in the 1990s that I would consider overproduced. Poorly produced or sung, maybe (check out Trisha Yearwood’s “I Wanna Go Too Far” or David Lee Murphy’s “Out with a Bang”, two songs that have attitude-laden lyrics that clash with their totally lifeless production).