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What happened to country music in the 90s?

V

vchimpanzee

I managed to cause a thread to go off topic, so I'm starting a new one.

Garth Brooks is credited with starting a new trend in country music, and for me, that trend was bad, at least at the time. The truth is for Garth, I like "Friends in Low Places", "Two of a Kind", and "Longneck Bottle". I still don't like most of the other songs of his I didn't like.

As 90s songs started showing up on classic country radio I realized maybe they weren't as bad as all that.

I didn't care for Brooks & Dunn at the time. Now maybe they don't seem so bad.

I still think most of Faith Hill's music is too pop sounding. Shania Twain has some good songs and some bad ones in my opinion.
 
I can only say that the 90s is when the Sawyer Brown band finally started to get treated more fairly where radio presence and award show bling was concerned. This was the only time in the 90s that they heard their name announced as a winner during the ACM awards.


Go here for the rest of their award show history.

God bless you and each past and present band member always!!!

Holly
 
^^^ I saw them in concert a couple of months ago. The lead guy hasn't changed.....at all. :) :) :)


God bless you and him always!!!

Holly

P.S. He wrote a book named The Boys and Me and it is awesome. :) :) :)
 
How do you feel about Alabama? I feel like they paved the way for Garth. "Roll On 18 Wheeler" from 1984 is not that different than some of the songs Garth did 5-10 years later.

Alabama was one of the first country bands to use both a fiddle and highly produced guitars and drums (hits like "Mountain Music", "If You're Gonna Play in Texas") in the high-energy way Garth did in "Friends in Low Places", "Callin' Baton Rouge" and several of his other hits.

I also see a lot of overlap in style between Sawyer Brown and Garth. Their biggest hit "Some Girls Do" sounds like a song Garth could have recorded. Garth also made hits out of some ballads, especially early in his career ("The Dance", "Unanswered Prayers") that Sawyer Brown might have done.
 
^^^ To me, Alabama paved the way for everyone who came later.

God bless you and the remaining members always!!!

Holly
 
I believe Mark and Sawyer Brown are still touring to this day.
 
To me, '90s country music was the best era for the genre. As much as some people did not like the lack-of-traditional Shania and her exposed belly, as well as pop-sounding Faith Hill, the '90s combined the best of the old and new. George Strait, Brooks and Dunn, Garth, John Michael Montgomery, and Toby Keith ruled the airwaves. Groups like Diamond Rio, Sawyer Brown, Little Texas, Blackhawk, and Shenandoah were pumping out the hits. John Berry and David Lee Murphy and Rhett Akins had some unforgettable songs.

I love listening to those "Hank FM" stations - Seattle has one, Myrtle Beach has another - that focus on '90s country. What a time for the format.
 
AM-FM-DXer said:
To me, '90s country music was the best era for the genre. As much as some people did not like the lack-of-traditional Shania and her exposed belly, as well as pop-sounding Faith Hill, the '90s combined the best of the old and new. George Strait, Brooks and Dunn, Garth, John Michael Montgomery, and Toby Keith ruled the airwaves. Groups like Diamond Rio, Sawyer Brown, Little Texas, Blackhawk, and Shenandoah were pumping out the hits. John Berry and David Lee Murphy and Rhett Akins had some unforgettable songs.

I love listening to those "Hank FM" stations - Seattle has one, Myrtle Beach has another - that focus on '90s country. What a time for the format.
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In the '90s, country music was changing to accommodate a huge potential new audience: the Baby Boomers who felt alienated from rock by grunge and from pop by hip-hop and boy bands. Now it's being remolded to attract listeners who grew up with grunge and hip-hop and boy bands. Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll, Koe Wetzel, Dan + Shay ... you can hear those influences in much of their music. You're even seeing collaborations with EDM notables like Diplo, again to extend country's reach.

The problem, though, is that the farther away from the pre-'90s sounds the genre gets, the smaller the potential audience actually will get, as today's younger listeners don't use traditional FM radio as much as the previous generations did. So a country station might be getting a huge share in your local market, but it's a share of a much smaller pool of listeners. You also have a reactionary movement whose leading lights-- Red Clay Strays, Turnpike Troubadours, Charlie Crockett, Jason Isbell, etc -- are generating buzz, sales and concert attendance without the cooperation of country radio. It will be interesting to see the future direction Nashville takes. Some think Zach Top, with his retro '90s sound, is in the vanguard of a major shift. We'll see.
 
What happened to country music during the 1990s was determined by what Billboard did in December of 1993 with SoundScan to determine its combined radio airplay and sales charts.

Let me explain. From the late 1970s through the early 1980s, country crossover did quite well on the pop charts, thanks largely to the "urban Cowboy" soundtrack of 1980. Alabama, The Charlie Daniels Band, Juice Newton, Kenny Rogers, Eddie Rabbitt, Willie Nelson, Ronnie Milsap, Rosanne Cash, and Dolly Parton, among others, had a lot of songs that crossed over from the country parts to the pop charts. Beginning in 1983, that crossover went to a crawl with the last crossover Billboard top-40 entry for three years being Alabama's "When We Make Love," from 1984. In 1987, Restless Heart had a minor top 40 hit with "I'll Still Be Loving You," and then we really didn't see any country crossover until after the SoundScan switch.

The big news from that switch was that hip-hop records were being purchased a lot more than they were being played on the radio. The second big story from that switch was the discovery that people were buying more country music than was being played on CHR radio stations. After the switch, Restless Heart reached the top 20 in 1993 with "When She Cries." The following year was, if I remember correctly, when Tim McGraw reached the pop top 20 with "Indian Outlaw,", a song that was controversial because Tim McGraw was white. His Follow-up, "Don't Take the Girl," reached the top 20 as well, if my memory serves. Still later (after I lost my access to the top 10 Billboard songs at the end of 1997), my understanding is that Faith Hill, Lonestar, and Mutt Lange's ex-wife started having billboard top 40 hits as well.

But yes. The 1990s, after the introduction of SoundScan to create the pop charts, showed a reemergence of country songs crossing over to the pop charts.
 
ted chittenden said:
What happened to country music during the 1990s was determined by what Billboard did in December of 1993 with SoundScan to determine its combined radio airplay and sales charts.

Let me explain. From the late 1970s through the early 1980s, country crossover did quite well on the pop charts, thanks largely to the "urban Cowboy" soundtrack of 1980. Alabama, The Charlie Daniels Band, Juice Newton, Kenny Rogers, Eddie Rabbitt, Willie Nelson, Ronnie Milsap, Rosanne Cash, and Dolly Parton, among others, had a lot of songs that crossed over from the country parts to the pop charts. Beginning in 1983, that crossover went to a crawl with the last crossover Billboard top-40 entry for three years being Alabama's "When We Make Love," from 1984. In 1987, Restless Heart had a minor top 40 hit with "I'll Still Be Loving You," and then we really didn't see any country crossover until after the SoundScan switch.
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I liked that crossover country. But not Restless Heart.
ted chittenden said:
The big news from that switch was that hip-hop records were being purchased a lot more than they were being played on the radio. The second big story from that switch was the discovery that people were buying more country music than was being played on CHR radio stations. After the switch, Restless Heart reached the top 20 in 1993 with "When She Cries." The following year was, if I remember correctly, when Tim McGraw reached the pop top 20 with "Indian Outlaw,", a song that was controversial because Tim McGraw was white. His Follow-up, "Don't Take the Girl," reached the top 20 as well, if my memory serves. Still later (after I lost my access to the top 10 Billboard songs at the end of 1997), my understanding is that Faith Hill, Lonestar, and Mutt Lange's ex-wife started having billboard top 40 hits as well.

But yes. The 1990s, after the introduction of SoundScan to create the pop charts, showed a reemergence of country songs crossing over to the pop charts.
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And I don't like the performers mentioned here.
 
AM-FM-DXer said:
To me, '90s country music was the best era for the genre. As much as some people did not like the lack-of-traditional Shania and her exposed belly, as well as pop-sounding Faith Hill, the '90s combined the best of the old and new. George Strait, Brooks and Dunn, Garth, John Michael Montgomery, and Toby Keith ruled the airwaves. Groups like Diamond Rio, Sawyer Brown, Little Texas, Blackhawk, and Shenandoah were pumping out the hits. John Berry and David Lee Murphy and Rhett Akins had some unforgettable songs.
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I have mixed feelings about these artists. Except for George Strait and Sawyer Brown, each one did some good songs and some I just didn't care for. I don't even know of anything by Little Texas except "God Blessed Texas" and to me that was just tock.
AM-FM-DXer said:
I love listening to those "Hank FM" stations - Seattle has one, Myrtle Beach has another - that focus on '90s country. What a time for the format.
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That's why I don't like Hank FM.
 
vchimpanzee said:
I don't even know of anything by Little Texas except "God Blessed Texas" and to me that was just tock.
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Go here for their radio history. "What Might Have Been" made it to #16 on the Adult Contemporary list. :) :) :)

One 90s singer that I still think is good stuff is Lee Roy Parnell. I have his Hits And Highways Ahead CD. :) :) :)

God bless you and the 90s singers that we still have always!!!

Holly (a girl who forever misses Hal Ketchum, Toby Keith, and Joe Diffie)

P.S. Three more singers of the 90s no longer here is Lari White, Jeff Carson, and Daryle Singletary. :( :( :(
 
ted chittenden said:
What happened to country music during the 1990s was determined by what Billboard did in December of 1993 with SoundScan to determine its combined radio airplay and sales charts.
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Keep in mind that Billboard was not the main music magazine used by radio programmers. It was R&R and then the format specific "tip sheets" from Gavin, FMQB and several others.

I can recall in the later 90's when we had two music stations in the top 5 in 18-49 and 35-54 in LA, we'd send someone to a Hollywood newsstand to buy a copy if we heard there was something about KSCA or KLVE. The cluster was billing over $60 million, so we could afford it. We just did not need it.
 
wadio said:
Nobody's mentioned Alan Jackson. One of the best.
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And a truly nice person. I met him first when he was working as a studio board op at the Opry facility, and then again when we did a concert with him when I was overseeing WTNT. On both occasions, he was gracious and not "full of himself".

Most of the country artists I have met are also like that. I think this is a "hidden" reason why some people find country so appealing.
 
vchimpanzee said:
I liked that crossover country. But not Restless Heart.

And I don't like the performers mentioned here.
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What I think you're asking is why you like certain performers now that you didn't really like before. The only answer I can give to that is that your personal tastes have changed though you don't recognize it yet. It turns out that throughout our lives, we change. Sometimes the changes are swift and sometimes they are slow. And sometimes their slowness means that we don't recognize that we have changed until much later in the game, if we recognize those changes at all.

I'm now going to cite an example of a change in perspective about a song I first heard when I was 5 years old back in 1968. It was Frank Sinatra's "Cycles," and I didn't like it. It wasn't rock, the rhythm was too slow, and he seemed to go on and on about nothing in particular.

Fast forward 40 years and I have rediscovered the song and now it holds a lot of interest for me. It's a waltz for one thing, and the last charted song with a waltz beat to make the top 40 would come in 1979. It's acoustic and I find myself enjoying acoustic music more as I age. And I can relate to the lyrics about being fired and recognizing that life really does run in cycles--but I had to experience both firsthand to understand the emotion the song is supposed to generate.

So my musical tastes have changed with time and distance. And, from the responses you are giving to me and others, yours have, too, though you do not realize yet that the changes have come from within you and not necessarily from the songs that were released during the 1990s.
 


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