1993 - hotter than a hoochie-coochie

Vince Gill’s “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away” still had a couple of weeks of 1993 before it slipped away from #1. Good song, but perhaps telling that Gill’s haunting country breakthroughs like “When I Call Your Name” couldn’t quite climb the mountain but a relatively genreless pop-R&B-country groove could stand atop it comfortably for a stretch. Then again, Garth Brooks couldn’t have been bigger, but even he was capable of falling short of #1 if he went too far afield: in anticipation of his fourth album, he released “We Shall Be Free” as a lead-off single and it stalled outside of the top ten. For starters, it was pretty off-format as a sort of soul-gospel pastiche, and the idealistic lyrics at least implied that things like racism and homophobia are bad, which unfortunately was pretty controversial for squeamish country radio and TV programmers in the early ‘90s. Garth rebounded quickly though with the second single, “Somewhere Other Than the Night,” which garnered him his usual #1 despite being a florid, kind-of-overblown ballad that seemed to overextend his voice.

Randy Travis continued to have an unerring handle on what worked for him. “Look Heart, No Hands” was a warm, peaceful purr of a song about love and contentment anchored by some nifty childhood bicycle imagery. Doug Stone remained unassumingly in the mix at or near the top; no one ever tagged him as the next big thing or anything, but he was a near-effortlessly gifted vocalist that could transcend the too-cute lyricism of something like “Too Busy Being in Love.” Travis Tritt, as per usual, continued to rely on slow-burn ballads when he needed a #1 hit, despite being better at onstage rocking-out than most of his peers. “Can I Trust You With My Heart” was a power ballad that didn’t forget the power, and Tritt’s voice was as up to the challenge as usual.

As with the aforementioned Doug Stone tune, sometimes cute was enough. Lorrie Morgan’s “What Part of No” was pretty much just a sarcastic t-shirt with a little barroom vignette built around it and set to music, but it was low-key catchy and quotable with just enough attitude to sell it. George Strait came barnstorming in, at least by his usual non-barnstormy standards, with “Heartland.” It was sort of like a Cajun southern-rock number, sonically speaking, with pleasant but generic lines about rural life; it was prominently featured in the Pure Country movie so I guess the departure from his usual style could be explained by being in character. Sort of like a scruffier, less-androgynous Ziggy Stardust I guess. Clint Black was changing things up a bit too; songs like the breezy “When My Ship Comes In” suggested that he was getting at least a little bored with the hard-country stylings that brought him to the dance and wanted to indulge his love for the pop-folk stylings of folks like James Taylor and Jimmy Buffett. It’s good, Black in his prime had a knack for waxing poetic without drifting pretentious, plus his voice could give just about anything some bite (this would be tested in later years as he waded deeper in soft-rock waters).

Reba McEntire, as I’ve mentioned before, had a thing for hamming it up in elaborate sort-of-cinematic music videos; clearly dying for a Dollyesque multimedia career, she succeeded to some extent (you and I never had our own sitcom or got to be in Tremors with Kevin Bacon) but her sitcom was never as intentionally funny as the videos accidentally were. “The Heart Won’t Lie,” a big torchy duet with Vince Gill, is lovely (if generic) and their voices blend nicely. The video, a weirdly obvious Officer and a Gentleman homage with Gill in the Louis Gossett Jr. role and Reba McEntire reimagining Richard Gere as a plucky little redhead – not to mention an implied romance – is a time capsule I’m sure they both have a good laugh about now and then.

If McEntire and Gill were among the longtime players getting a boost by country music’s rising tide, it was time for a raft of even-newercomers to take the ball for awhile. Sammy Kershaw, a genial Louisiana dude with a big, rich George Jones twang, came rolling in with the affectionately catchy “She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful.” Tracy Lawrence was still going strong with the lead single off his second album: “Alibis” is a mournful, sympathetic little waltz, letting an unfaithful lover off the hook by admitting one’s own faults, a sort of emotional maturity you don’t get with much Top 40 country nowadays. John Michael Montgomery, who looked sort of like Garth Brooks run through a dimple-enhancing Instagram filter, snagged his first of several #1s with “I Love the Way You Love Me.” Montgomery seemed almost genetically engineered for country stardom, a tall athletic good ol’ boy in a Stetson, plus he didn’t have the artistic ambitions/pretentions of a Garth. The industry might respect an innovator, but they downright love someone who’ll just sing whatever you ask him to.  

As that sort of mercenary approach started to pile up, there was certainly value in someone that offered up a point of view. Toby Keith would eventually be one of those guys and then some. He became a bit of a cultural lightning rod a few years later for his strongly pro-military songs and statements in an era when a lot of Americans were feeling at least a little conflicted about some of their country’s deployments, but you wouldn’t have seen any of that coming with “Should’ve Been a Cowboy.” With a little lyrical tweaking I guess it could’ve been a conservative anthem, but as it was it was just a harmless little singalong in tribute to the old-school Hollywood cowboys like Roy Rogers and the Gunsmoke crew. Lightweight, but enough of a smash to give him the cache he’d need to get ornerier and more personal down the line.

Patty Loveless seemed like a born classic, someone whose approach was both timeless and well-timed for an era when the traditionalists at least sort of took over. “Blame It on Your Heart” was co-written by no less a Nashville warhorse than Harland Howard, a breezy groove couching relatively rapid-fire twangy syllables in a kiss-off anthem for the ages. Garth Brooks somehow only snagged one week at #1 with the also-anthemic “That Summer.” It’s a melodramatic story song about a teenage field hand’s affair with a presumably-attractive older widow woman/employer, with a big sweeping Springsteen-ish melody that fits Brooks’ gritty, heart-on-sleeve earnestness like a glove. It’s really too bad that Brooks had mostly sworn off music videos for the moment; I think we all could’ve used a toupee’d Brooks playing the kid and perhaps Rue MacLanahan as the female lead. John Anderson scored one last #1 for his comeback run with the warmhearted roadhouse twang of “Money in the Bank” before genially easing back down the charts as the decade wore on. We haven’t gotten to talk about his finest moment, the previous year’s haunting “Seminole Wind,” because it stalled out at #2. Still a pretty big hit despite voicing some concerns about ecology and disappearing cultures that’d spur a bunch of dorks to complain about its “wokeness” nowadays. Overall, Anderson’s comeback stretch and the quality of songs he filled it up with were one of ‘90s country’s brightest elements.

Alan Jackson was more “defining artist” than “bright spot,” and “Chattahoochee” ended up being a defining moment for both him and the whole genre era. Spurred on by a simple but instantly recognizable electric guitar run and a bunch of Cajun-ish fiddle sawing, Jackson’s folksy recounting of youthful good times by the Georgia river was elevated by its attention to detail and willingness to be knowingly silly (“hotter than a hoochie-coochie,” et al). Maybe I talk about country videos too much, but the images of the usually laid-back Jackson water-skiing in his cowboy hat and generally looking like the most fun guy in the world amplified the appeal of someone who’d already caught pretty damn on. When we talk about ‘90s country, I think it’s fair to say Jackson takes a backseat only to Garth, and if you somehow leave out the pop-crossover stuff it’s not much of a backseat at all.  

The rest of the year seemed pretty calm by comparison. Mark Chesnutt and “It Sure is Monday” were upbeat and clever enough, nothing that’d really stick to the ribs like his best work did. Doug Stone scored with the cutesy lament “Why Didn’t I Think of That,” and Tracy Lawrence nailed the breezy melancholy of “Can’t Break it to My Heart” but it wasn’t monumental or anything. Sawyer Brown’s refreshed roll continued with the likeable groove of “Thank God For You” and Garth Brooks kicked up the tempo considerably with the motor-mouthed country-rock sugar rush of “Ain’t Goin’ Down (Til the Sun Comes Up).” Perhaps discouraged by “We Shall Be Free,” for the moment he was content to relegate his statement songs to album-track status and score #1 singles with engaging but less-personal material. East Texas newcomer Tracy Byrd took over for a week with his hard-country debut “Holdin’ Heaven” but the Garth number snatched it back a week later … it had been decades since that sort of boomeranging had happened, but between the new metrics and the glut of talent, it was just a matter of time.

Vince Gill kept it simple with “One More Last Chance,” more of a pickin’ showcase than a hard-hitting song, although the shout-out to George Jones’ drunken riding mower misadventures was fun (and inspired a Jones cameo in the video). It wasn’t reflected in the top ten at the time, but it was a big trend for young country stars to pal around with George Jones, cover him in concert, bring him in for duets or video appearances, etc. Jones hadn’t had a #1 himself since 1983 but he at least cracked the Top 40 in ’92 with “I Don’t Need Your Rockin’ Chair,” which featured brief but recognizable vocal cameos from all of the “Class of ‘89” plus Gill, Chesnutt, Loveless, Diffie, Pam Tillis and T. Graham Brown. Then again, as more and more new artists broke through, you’d see a little less Jones-style influence with time. Clay Walker, a handsome young East Texas dude with a slightly offbeat growl of a voice and a crowd-pleasing, mostly-for-the-ladies stage presence, busted through with the big bouncy country-pop of “What’s It To You.” He had the hat and the Wranglers and all, and I don’t doubt he grew up on country music, but his style sort of suggested that his biggest influences might’ve been recent arrivals like Garth, Clint, etc. as opposed to the legends that influenced them.

George Strait had moved past the Pure Country album cycle and delivered the low-key hurt of “Easy Come, Easy Go” with the steady maturity of someone who wanted to make it clear he hadn’t been infected by all that Hollywood razzle-dazzle. Reba McEntire, meanwhile, sounded even thirstier for it than usual on the big-ass country-pop balladry of “Does He Love You,” a duet with her much-lesser-known contemporary Linda Davis. Davis was a talented singer on a major record label, it just wasn’t clicking for her and never fully would (her daughter would be a fairly big star years down the line as a member of Lady Antebellum). One wonders if Davis wasn’t recruited for her soap opera-esque good looks as much as anything, because the music video was the real prize here, with McEntire and Davis in the leads and the song’s romantic rivalry fleshed out into glitzy red-carpet vignettes, exploding boats and a Rob Reiner cameo. Again, huge year for Reba videos.

Brooks & Dunn scored again with the straightforward but beautifully sung country lament “She Used to Be Mine.” The cliché of watching one’s ex basking in newfound love at some bar that you both keep going to for some reason is well-worn – George Strait’s “You Look So Good in Love” is probably the best one, but this one’s not half bad. Mark Chesnutt sort of ditched the honky-tonk purism for a big sweeping ballad with “Almost Goodbye,” but his earnest twang kept it all touchingly down to earth. And then, amidst the newcomers who were starting to seem like the pillars of modern country radio, Alabama swung in for one last #1 with “Reckless.”

It didn’t have the weight of finality on it or anything; Alabama would still crack the top ten routinely through the rest of the ‘90s, with their last go being 1999’s “God Must Have Spent a Little Time on You,” a collaboration with ‘N Sync in case you were wondering just what they were willing to do to hang in there. “Reckless” was the sort of breezy country-rock love song they could’ve cranked out five years later or five years sooner, pleasant enough without moving any mountains. But it ended up being a milestone for one of the genre’s defining acts, one that caught on as young bucks and stuck around long enough to be elder statesmen, one that nailed the balancing act of how to tastefully blend various genres of rock and pop into their sound without losing their downhome charm. Sometimes they’d arguably lean a little too heavily on the Southern/small-town pride, the iffy rhetoric of treating being born somewhere as an accomplishment in itself. But then again the bro-country generation that spawned as Alabama finally faded from the Top 40 in the 2000s would provide contrast for how relatively tasteful they could be about it.   

Garth Brooks spun in again, and this time it was a bit of a statement song, albeit a low-stakes one tethered to a pun in “American Honky-Tonk Bar Association.” It felt a little like an attempt to recapture the populist glory of “Friends in Low Places,” but despite consistently being one of the warmest and friendliest-seeming celebrities around Garth was undeniably in a superstar ivory tower of his own by now. Cranking out lyrics about paychecks and that ol’ Uncle Sam diggin’ in your pockets had lost a little of that relatable shine. The relatively down-to-earth Tracy Lawrence did more with less on “My Second Home,” a hangdog-clever number about getting booted out by your old lady and somehow managing to just move into the bar that got you in trouble with her in the first place. And then the year wrapped up with another new face: brawny Texas singer-songwriter Doug Supernaw scored his only #1 with “I Don’t Call Him Daddy,” a divorced-dad narrative that surely hit home for a hefty subset of listeners. Supernaw had tried out Nashville in the late ‘80s, retreated back to Texas to hit the bar band scene, but found himself called back up to the majors in the early ‘90s gold rush. A talented singer with a palpable charisma, he faded from the charts fairly quickly from a combo of health and personal issues (quirkily harmless run-ins with the law would eventually make the news) plus the difficulty of keeping a foothold in the increasingly relentless churn of the new era. One can imagine the paranoia under the good ol’ boy veneer of ‘90s country … when it seems easier than ever to make a star, it’s also easier than ever to replace one.

THE TREND?

Year three or so of a gold rush, pretty much. Lots of new faces, recent arrivals getting footholds, longer-time artists (which included folks who’d only been around a handful of years) either branching out with the benefit of their clout or course-correcting in hopes of keeping it. Lots of folks working their ass off but trying to keep it chill and relatable on the surface, and looking at the ranking down there it bore some good fruit: even the last tunes on the list aren’t stinkers or anything, just lesser lights in a crowded field. For the moment, something resembling traditionalism still seems to rule the day: only the Reba and maybe Doug Stone songs veer into easy listening territory, but still have some recognizable twang. When being a country singer is suddenly bigger business than ever, there’s not much impetus to pretend to be anything else.    

THE RANKING 

1. Chattahoochee – Alan Jackson
2. Blame it On Your Heart – Patty Loveless
3. She Used to Be Mine – Brooks & Dunn
4. When My Ship Comes In – Clint Black
5. Easy Come, Easy Go – George Strait
6. That Summer – Garth Brooks
7. Alibis – Tracy Lawrence
8. Ain’t Goin’ Down Til the Sun Comes Up – Garth Brooks
9. Can I Trust You With My Heart – Travis Tritt
10. Look Heart, No Hands – Randy Travis
11. Money In the Bank – John Anderson
12. She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful – Sammy Kershaw
13. Heartland – George Strait
14. The Heart Won’t Lie – Reba McEntire & Vince Gill
15. Can’t Break it To My Heart – Tracy Lawrence
16. Almost Goodbye – Mark Chesnutt
17. One More Last Chance – Vince Gill
18. Reckless - Alabama
19. Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away – Vince Gill
20. It Sure is Monday – Mark Chesnutt
21. I Don’t Call Him Daddy – Doug Supernaw
22. Should’ve Been a Cowboy – Toby Keith
23. American Honky Tonk Bar Association – Garth Brooks
24. Does He Love You – Reba McEntire with Linda Davis
25. My Second Home – Tracy Lawrence
26. What’s It To You – Clay Walker
27. Thank God For You – Sawyer Brown
28. Somewhere Other Than the Night – Garth Brooks
29. What Part of No – Lorrie Morgan
30. Why Didn’t I Think of That – Doug Stone
31. Too Busy Being In Love – Doug Stone
32. I Love the Way You Love Me - John Michael Montgomery

DOWN THE ROAD ...

By 1993, Miami-born country band The Mavericks were making some inroads into the country Top 40 themselves; their gripping major-label debut From Hell to Paradise was more of a critical success than a commercial one, but they'd tone down the grittiness and steer into a smoother, sweeter, but still entirely distinct sound a year or two later and score some bigger hits. Between frontman Raul Malo's solo work and the band's frequent reunions, they'd eventually arguably be better known for swoon-worthy covers of songs from all over the pop-culture map. Their 2019 release The Mavericks Play the Hits plays cheerfully into that perception, recasting songs old and new with the band's signature blend of Tex-Mex, Bakersfield sound, Orbison-meets-Sinatra crooning, and so on and so on. A cover of Patty Loveless' "Blame it On Your Heart" is the project's sole '90s-country tribute, and it smokes.

1992 - that lonesome feelin' comes to my door ...

The ‘90s country boom brought on by the Class of ’89, the SoundScan revolution, and tons upon tons of savvy industry promotion were now in full force. Labels were scrambling to sign new artists and occasionally rejuvenate old ones. There was more than a little gold-rush vibe in the air. Mainstream rock and pop were losing their younger audiences to alt-rock and hip-hop; country was making big bucks doing a slightly-updated, younger-leaning rendition of what they’d done all along. 

Not all of it was destined to hold up. Collin Raye had knocked around the business since the early ‘80s as a member of an unsuccessful country act called The Wrays before breaking through as a solo artist with “Love, Me.” It’s one of those drippy ballads about a couple’s youthful romance echoed in their golden years and deaths, sort of the audio equivalent of watching the first ten minutes of Up over and over. Arkansas kid Tracy Lawrence went way less gushy but plenty damn poignant on “Sticks and Stones,” a mournfully clever divorce ballad with a brisk two-step beat as a counterpoint. Doug Stone scored his second #1 with “A Jukebox With a Country Song,” a twangy little vignette about finding one’s favorite little dive repurposed as a toney fern bar. Not exactly an emotional gut punch, but songs about how a country music-based lifestyle was just more authentic and relevant continued (and continue …) to be a fairly easy sell.

Garth Brooks was almost more of a lifestyle brand than a mere singer at this point. Going back and listening to “What She’s Doing Now” doesn’t make it all that clear why; it’s kind of overblown, with the string section and big sweeping choruses and a melody that threatens to buck Brooks’ modest voice off at any moment. In the moment, though, he could do no wrong. And his rising tide wasn’t just lifting newbies: a handful of artists who’d been written off to the nostalgia bin a few years prior were getting a second look in the hot-new-country sweepstakes. John Anderson, the uber-twangy roadhouse rocker from Florida who’d scored some big hits in the early ‘80s, got dusted off and run back under the spotlight with the barroom vignette “Straight Tequila Night.” It was nice to see someone who’d been ahead of the New Traditionalist curve get another run at it; he’d be back on the charts for a while.

Alan Jackson stayed on a roll with the upbeat but wistful “Dallas,” the first of several trips to the top in 1992 alone. Reba McEntire retained her top-tier status with “Is There Life Out There,” a little story song about a middle-aged woman yearning to make her mark, and added to her catalog of amusingly overdone music videos with a little mini-movie, scattered with melodramatic dialog breaks and co-starring ‘80s pop-rock guy Huey Lewis as her husband. But speaking of ‘80s throwbacks: the Judds’ long farewell tour for retiring mama Naomi had wrapped up, and Wynonna Judd (usually just called Wynonna for stage-name purposes, a stunt Reba would pull eventually) was ready to shine solo. Wynonna had sung lead on just about all of the Judds’ material anyway, so her vocal firepower wasn’t exactly an untapped resource, but the career rejuvenation did her good. “She is His Only Need” is a thing of sunny, easygoing beauty, vocal runs wrapping affectionately around a subtle slow-burn of a melody. She’d go bigger soon enough, but this wasn’t a bad foot to start off on.

Aaron Tippin might’ve been a brawny blue-collar dude but he could do subtle; you just wouldn’t know it by his first #1, the folksy but driving “There Ain’t Nothin’ Wrong With the Radio.” He’d cracked the top ten the previous year with his signature tune, “You’ve Got to Stand For Something,” but the hardcore country ballads he’d followed it up with didn’t get anywhere close. So it’s hard to fault the guy for going broad … as a writer and singer, he was capable of doing Hank Williams-style laments with such twangy intensity he made most of the other “New Traditionalist” guys sound downright Milsap. But, as is often the case, it was the gimmicky stuff that paid the bills.

Brooks & Dunn would go gimmicky too soon enough, but they could also go sublime. “Neon Moon” still stands as one of the most fondly-remembered songs of the era, a steel-drenched thing of barroom beauty, lonesome couplets pouring out drink by drink from the most heartsick twang Ronnie Dunn could muster, strung up around the indelible central image of broken dreams dancin’ in and out of the beams … of a neon moon. It’s glorious. Meanwhile, John Anderson wasn’t the only ‘80s talent getting a second appraisal: the band Sawyer Brown had a mid-‘80s run of top tens that was probably starting to seem like a fluke, but Curb Records figured they were worth a retool and it ended up being a good bet. They started splitting the difference between more serious material and the upbeat rock hybrids that made them distinctive in the first place; “Some Girls Do” leaned towards the latter, sporting both smartly observed songwriting and the big ol’ blue-collar self-pat on the back that radio was coming to expect at this point. 

It might’ve been a bit gimmicky, but probably not to the level of “Achy Breaky Heart.” I don’t know if the song itself was that gimmicky – it’s just a catchy, upbeat, vaguely bluesy singalong with a bunch of folksy-clever lyrics that would’ve fit right in on an old Elvis-movie soundtrack. But it was delivered by a guy named Billy Ray Cyrus, who from the name down seemed like a walking, drawling, dancing marketing exercise. A square-jawed beefcake with an anachronistic-by-then mullet that was still handsome in context, the accompanying video and choreographed line dance featured within were probably bigger deals than the song itself (which, at five weeks at #1, was the year’s longest-reigning country hit). Alternating between shots of Cyrus dancing and smoldering at the camera and crowd shots of what appeared to be an all-female audience fawning over him, it definitely felt like someone had stuck Bon Jovi and Elvis and Garth Brooks and maybe a little Springsteen into a blender to make an irresistible for-the-ladies concoction. I liked the song back then, and don’t mind it now; I still think it’s more engaging than annoying, but I can see how the hype could be kind of alienating for the average guy. Smash hit in the moment, but the cracks in this new-country marketing façade were starting to show.

Wynonna chased it with the upbeat country-pop kiss-off of “I Saw the Light,” an indication that she was going for a bigger, brassier sound than the Judds usually embraced. It had a strong whiff of “80s pop-rock in the mix; its success indicated that even if the tradition-oriented stuff was ruling the day, it wasn’t going to reign exclusively. Garth Brooks swung back in with “The River,” which was also less traditional country and much more the sort of meditative folk-pop you’d get from an old James Taylor or John Denver hit. Brooks loved that stuff, and had the dream-big personality to pull it off, but in retrospect its pretty damn high-school-poetry lyrics-wise. Choose to chance the rapids, dare to dance the tide, etc.

Brooks & Dunn had only recently become famous but they still had way more country cred than Billy Ray Cyrus, so they didn’t get as much backlash for “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” even though it was at least as much a part of the whole line-dance craze. Soon enough there were extended dance remixes knocking around the nightclubs and the radio, which was either a fun novelty or an unseemly hip-hop/techno import, depending on how seriously you take this shit. At four weeks at #1, it didn’t top “Achy Breaky Heart” but you’re way more likely to hear it (and B&D in general) nowadays than you are Cyrus, whose run of #1s began and ended with ABH. As if to remind everyone that the tried-and-true approach hadn’t gone prematurely extinct, Mark Chesnutt swung back to #1 with a moody, haunting rendition of the old Hank Jr. song “I’ll Think of Something” that transcended its somber setting to become a most welcome hit.

It's a little weird that we’re just now getting around to Vince Gill, and that he was beat to #1 by Diamond Rio, Joe Diffie, Cyrus etc. He’d already been a fixture in the top ten for a couple of years by the time the soaring “I Still Believe in You” hit #1, and had had minor hits going back to the mid-‘80s. As a guitarist and harmony vocalist, he’d been all over various Nashville records, collaborating with the respectable likes of Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash, Pure Prairie League et al. Between his impeccably clear tenor, instrumental chops, and general knack for tastefulness, he’d been a favorite of the Grammys and various country music awards but the soulful country-pop of “I Still Believe in You” snagged what “When I Call Your Name” and “Pocket Full of Gold” couldn’t. Alan Jackson, meanwhile, was on enough of a hot streak that easygoing filler like “Love’s Got a Hold On You” could top the charts without breaking a sweat.

Collin Raye, who’d just broke through at the start of the year with “Love, Me,” went full schmaltz on “In This Life.” A big, sticky power ballad minus any discernible power, Raye could certainly hit every note but the material begged the question of if it was worth it. Randy Travis, as you’d expect, was far more laconic (and baritone) on the jangly shuffle of “If I Didn’t Have You.” Unlike most of the year’s #1s, it only sat atop for one week, a subtle sign of a commercial peak that had passed. Meanwhile, Wynonna was just now hitting hers with the big soul swagger of “No One Else on Earth.” She might’ve been the only big-time female singer in Nashville that could’ve pulled this sort of thing off (Travis Tritt might’ve been the only dude) but she sounded like a genre-busting powerhouse, holding her own against horn sections and big-rock guitars as if she misread the New Traditionalist memo and thought we were doing ‘60s R&B instead. 

Speaking of past-era holdovers, Alabama was finally winding down a bit: “I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why)” was their next-to-last #1 hit (not counting eventual throwback collaborations). They’d remain a big live draw and would keep releasing radio singles to varying returns for another decade, but their time as defining contemporaries of the genre seemed over; that being said, time would reveal them to be among the most influential. Keeping a veneer of down-home charm and a strong whiff of Southern pride while showing some trend-hopping flexibility? That never stopped being huge. Mixing country instrumentation in with big-production arena-friendly beats? The country sound of the ‘90s going into the 2000s, for better or worse, wouldn’t be the same without it. And honestly I can’t think of anyone who did it as prominently and consistently as Alabama did pretty much from the get-go.

In the middle of all this, the movie business decided to capitalize on the country music boom, but took the interesting tack of spotlighting the thespian stylings of George Strait instead of one of the newbies. Expectations for Pure Country were modest: it was a low-budget, mostly-regional release with no big names other than Strait attached (Kyle Chandler hadn’t broken through yet prior to his stint as Buddy Jackson From the Road Crew). But in the country music and media bubble, it was a big deal. It’s not a great film, but to its credit it’s as much of a critique as a cash-in: Strait’s country-star character Dusty, distinguished from his usual charming self by a scruffy beard and rattail and some sequined jackets, gets fed up with his shady manager’s insistence on big generic stage productions (‘the smoke, the lights, it ain’t me!”) and decides to walk off the tour, almost immediately into a barber shop. While he gets back to his roots by hanging out with his grandma and shacking up with a ranching family with a conveniently attractive adult daughter, his manager broaches the unthinkable by dressing Buddy Jackson From the Road Crew up as Dusty and pulling off the same damn show with the aforementioned smoke and lights and some lip-sync tracks. Considering the whole thing’s just one small step above direct-to-VHS, production-wise, it’s kind of neat that it grapples with questions of identity, authenticity, replaceability and a whole country genre if not way of life losing its way. It didn’t waste much time implicitly slamming the arena-rock aesthetics of a Garth Brooks live show – a phenomenon that was barely getting rolling when the movie started production in 1991 – and Dusty’s whole look seems weirdly prescient of Billy Ray Cyrus before he was a thing (rattails and mullets are similar enough). Still, one thing the movie doesn’t nail as well as it seems to think it does is the big climax/resolution where the real Dusty (who now looks like the real Strait) rejoins the tour for a big show in Vegas of all places. He decides to signify his return to his country roots by ambling to the edge of the stage, sitting down with his guitar, looking in the eyes of the pretty female rancher and singing “I Cross My Heart.” Sure, it’s a decent love song, and Strait’s delivery helps as usual, but it also sounds like it was plucked from the easy listening crossover bin and slathered with a big string section. It’s an odd fit for the hard-country ethos the movie seems to be pushing. It’s also odd that some of the songs that were depicted as being arena-country anthems Dusty would do well to shake off ended up being hits for the real George Strait. Country audiences would have plenty of time to ponder these ambiguities as the movie played pretty much every day on TNN/GAC/CMT throughout the next couple of decades.

Alan Jackson’s would circle back to critiques of country music bastardization throughout his career, but mostly he just led by example. “She’s Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues)” acknowledges right there in the title that other genres of music exist, but as per Jackson standard sticks to a warm, offhandedly pure country delivery. His straight-faced “yee haw” going into the solo pretty much sums up his laconic good ol’ boy charm in two syllables. His friendly rival Vince Gill, having finally broke the seal on #1 hits for himself, closed out the year with the breezy groove of “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away.” The song’s solid enough but the video’s a must-see: with his career finally cresting, Gill seemingly drew on his couple of decades of industry goodwill and stacked the stage with everyone from Leon Russell to Carl Perkins to Reba McEntire to Little Jimmy Dickens (that’s a highly truncated list). Gill had been at it long enough, and at a high enough level, to see genre-blurring as more of an opportunity than a threat. His image might’ve been squeaky clean, but George Strait might’ve thought his country was suspiciously impure.

THE TREND?

As we’ve hinted, and as Pure Country lamented, the whole newfound adherence to traditional country sounds for a new generation was already kind of slippin’ away. The year’s best hits were still more or less stone-cold country, but obvious inflections of R&B, easy-listening pop, and more-or-less novelty were making just as big of waves. And what were you gonna do … act like Wynonna Judd and Vince Gill somehow hadn’t paid their dues? Plus might as well recognize that the pitfall of an industry skyrocketing in cross-demographic popularity was going to attract some opportunistic attention grabs like “Achy Breaky Heart" that strained the genre's recently-rebuilt credibility. In decades past, despite no shortage of true believers, country music often seemed like a Plan B for music makers who couldn’t keep up with the ever-shifting pop/rock trends and needed a more stable, conservative home. But the country music of the ‘90s was proving to be a gold rush, and it was no big surprise if just about anyone wanted in. Fortunately, sometimes those someones were folks like John Anderson, Vince Gill, and Sawyer Brown who’d pledged allegiance before the trend kicked in.                   

THE RANKING

1. Neon Moon – Brooks & Dunn
2. I’ll Think of Something – Mark Chesnutt
3. Straight Tequila Night – John Anderson
4. Sticks and Stones – Tracy Lawrence
5. Some Girls Do – Sawyer Brown
6. Dallas – Alan Jackson
7. She is His Only Need – Wynonna
8. She’s Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues) – Alan Jackson
9. I Still Believe in You – Vince Gill
10. If I Didn’t Have You – Randy Travis
11. No One Else on Earth - Wynonna
12. Boot Scootin’ Boogie – Brooks & Dunn
13. I Cross My Heart – George Strait
14. Achy Breaky Heart – Billy Ray Cyrus
15. There Ain’t Nothin’ Wrong With the Radio – Aaron Tippin
16. I Saw the Light – Wynonna
17. I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why) - Alabama
18. The River – Garth Brooks
19. Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away – Vince Gill
20. What She’s Doing Now – Garth Brooks
21. Love, Me – Collin Raye
22. Love’s Got a Hold On You – Alan Jackson
23. A Jukebox With a Country Song – Doug Stone
24. In This Life – Collin Raye
25. Is There Life Out There – Reba McEntire

DOWN THE ROAD ...

"Neon Moon" is such an undeniable gem that, unlike the last few entries, even-more-recent artists couldn't wait out the statute of limitations (or whatever) to cover it. Actually, a whole crew of modern mainstreamers jumped aboard with the B&D dudes themselves for an album called Reboot (clever!) to show some love for their whole catalog, or at least their biggest hits. No less a heavyweight (figuratively speaking ... she's tiny) than Kacey Musgraves must have gotten first dibs, because that's her on the "Neon Moon" remake, giving the heartbroke classic a dreamy, winsome new coat of paint. Musgraves has veered more into pop-folk on some of her more recent releases, but upon her initial commercial breakthrough she was a great example of how the hearty, good-natured, down-to-earth feel of the best '90s country was influencing a new generation.