I may be wrong here but my theory is the popularity of country music spikes when it becomes trendy to dress and act below one’s social class. Cosplaying as poor, to put it pejoratively. Happened in the early 70s, mid 90s, and 2020s.
I think this misses an entire dimension of shifting consumer (and creator) demographics. Talking about how Black culture intersects with country-as-a-genre might be too daunting or just too involved for this article, but it should at least be acknowledged.
From a Stats perspective, I really would like to see how the racial demographics of big name creators has changed in various genres.
Talking about how black culture helped create country music, in the first place, would be really nice. A fascinating book on the subject is "Way Up North in Dixie: A Black Family's Claim to the Confederate Anthem," which claims that the southern anthem actually had its origins in Ohio and a black family: https://archive.org/details/wayupnorthindixi0000sack
But that history gets very dark, very fast. And if anything limited more modern country's appeal to a broader cross-section, it's almost certainly because so many of its most vocal fans and artists adopted a politics of exclusion. "Try That in a Small Town" is the most recent, egregious example of this, with lyrics that quite literally bring to mind Sundown Towns more than any positive reading of its message. I certainly don't fault Mr. Parris for not going down that particular old town road.
I may be wrong here but my theory is the popularity of country music spikes when it becomes trendy to dress and act below one’s social class. Cosplaying as poor, to put it pejoratively. Happened in the early 70s, mid 90s, and 2020s.
I think this misses an entire dimension of shifting consumer (and creator) demographics. Talking about how Black culture intersects with country-as-a-genre might be too daunting or just too involved for this article, but it should at least be acknowledged.
From a Stats perspective, I really would like to see how the racial demographics of big name creators has changed in various genres.
Thanks for what you do!
Talking about how black culture helped create country music, in the first place, would be really nice. A fascinating book on the subject is "Way Up North in Dixie: A Black Family's Claim to the Confederate Anthem," which claims that the southern anthem actually had its origins in Ohio and a black family: https://archive.org/details/wayupnorthindixi0000sack
But that history gets very dark, very fast. And if anything limited more modern country's appeal to a broader cross-section, it's almost certainly because so many of its most vocal fans and artists adopted a politics of exclusion. "Try That in a Small Town" is the most recent, egregious example of this, with lyrics that quite literally bring to mind Sundown Towns more than any positive reading of its message. I certainly don't fault Mr. Parris for not going down that particular old town road.
So, you're just going to ignore the whole white supremacy part of country music and its implications in this age of bigoted white wingnuttery?