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