WHAT IS COUNTRY MUSIC?
2008 had its share of high school reunion country (with the feel-good nostalgic qualities of '80s rock anthems) and bumper sticker country (superficially assuaging anxieties about fragile small-town, Southern identity). Not that that's anything new for mainstream country. Reaching back for upbeat, youthful virility and a long-lost way of life has pretty much become the way of things. Still, there was an anomaly. A few acts found the spot where commercial country viability and broader critical acclaim—hipness beyond country audiences, even—might actually intersect: a vintage country sensibility. Patty Loveless and Jamey Johnson both went there, and Lee Ann Womack conjured old-school heartache, if not an old-school sound. Perfect timing for a vibrant "new" collection from Hank Sr. —Jewly Hight
With Bob Marley, Lil Wayne, Deep Purple, Kid Rock and Hootie all making appearances of some sort at the CMA Awards, the "what is country?" question is as pertinent as ever. But at this point it's also irrelevant. By now it's clear that whoever wants to "go country" can do it if their songs connect with somebody out there in the country audience or industry. It's the most inclusive genre—whether as a survival tactic or just good old Southern hospitality, I'm not sure—which is interesting, since people who don't listen to country tend to treat it as monolithic (as in the old standby, "I like all music except country and rap"). I think the inclusiveness is a great thing, as long as there are people still keeping the traditions alive in some form. I mean, why would a genre not want, say, Sugarland, to be considered within its boundaries? They're megastars, with big songs and personalities. Why would any genre reject the ridiculous amount of hooks in "Love Story" or Taylor Swift's youth and charm? —Dave Heaton
People are pretty quick to badmouth mainstream country music. And by people, I mean music snobs who think that the more obscure a band is the cooler it is. I am not one of those people. And I have to believe that if Taylor Swift sold 800,000 copies of her sophomore album in its first two weeks, I'm not alone. Life itself is deep enough, so can't we all just rejoice in the simplistic stories of country music? And enjoy the steel guitar, the banjo and the fiddle without having to wade through layers of guitar to do so? The best country music, to me, is the stuff that makes you laugh, cry and understand that someone else gets what you're going through. And if that someone is Swift, Kenny Chesney, Sugarland or anyone else who gets labeled as cookie-cutter Nashville, then so be it. —Alison Bonaguro
NEWCOMERS
Popular favorite Taylor Swift and critical favorite Jamey Johnson have one thing in common—they both write lyrics credibly from their own vastly different life experiences, working specific references and images they're at home with to do so. This is more than a little refreshing after so many charting hits built on three chords and a pretty lie. The other thing they share: vocal styles that recall and update older ones, certainly nothing unusual for breakout country singers. It just happens that Jamey Johnson's leathery but frank and vulnerable sound recalls Waylon in the '70s and Taylor Swift's breathy and sometimes thin labors rework for the kids those ancient sounds not of Shania, Faith or Martina but of Lilith Fair. —Barry Mazor
2008 should be remembered as the year outlaw country was reborn, thanks to Jamey Johnson and Hayes Carll. The latter, whose Trouble in Mind I'd missed until late in the year, is a "corker," as my Dad would've said. By the middle of the opening track, he's alluded to songs by the Band and Leonard Cohen, name-checked Louie L' Amour, and drawl-rhymed "drunken poet's dream" with "mescaline." That's my kinda country. So is That Lonesome Song, which wasn't just the darkest mainstream country record of year; it was also the smartest. I love the way "Stars in Alabama" nods to the '30s standard "Stars Fell on Alabama" when Johnson sings about his mom (who could probably hum you the latter), and I respect his turn at music criticism on "Between Jennings and Jones," an exercise in self-mythologizing that for once is fairly true. And I was especially moved by the first verse of "In Color," when his grandpa tells him about a black-and-white photo from the Great Depression and how Johnson "shoulda seen it in color." Looks like he just might, along with the rest of us. —Will Hermes
Taylor Swift is determined and tenuous and confident and wavering and incandescent, and the time is hers—and behind it all is a bomb of pain, and this pain has a name, and its name is "boys." —Frank Kogan
It's no small miracle that Jamey Johnson's starkly traditional-sounding "In Color" found a home in country radio in 2008. Sung with a deep, gritty twang, the song's mainstream success was one of the year's biggest surprises and one of its most encouraging signs. That an artist like Johnson can still find a home within the mainstream proves that despite so much hype to the contrary, real country music remains both artistically significant and commercially viable. With that, Johnson single-handedly destroyed the argument that country music must move to the center if it hopes to remain relevant. —Jim Malec
Superficially, they're as different as can be: Taylor Swift is a Nashville starlet marketed to country lovers and tweens, while Jessica Lea Mayfield is an Ohio native who recorded with the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach and is marketed to...well, mainly me, I guess. Below the surface, however, they made essentially the same record, or at least amazingly similar: two women in their late teens trying to reconcile their teenage dreams with adult realities. "When you're 15 and somebody tells you they love you, you're gonna believe them," sang one. "I was walking with your left hand in my back pocket, and I stared at the sky as you kissed me," sang the other. I rarely get to hear such incisive depictions of adolescent romance, especially during the same year. —Stephen Deusner
Other than the championing of her "potential," perhaps the most common defense of Taylor Swift's place in modern country music is that she is bringing legions of new fans to the genre. While I have no doubt that there are some new converts for whom "Our Song" or "Tim McGraw" served as an "in" to contemporary country, it's simply hard to imagine, absent some actual market research, that a sizable percentage of the 592,000 people who bought Swift's Fearless during its first-week mass-media tsunami also owns copies of recent standard-bearers for artistic achievement within the genre—say, Jamey Johnson's That Lonesome Song or labelmate Trisha Yearwood's Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love. —Jonathan Keefe
Country acts worship honky-tonks, but few play club gigs. What a treat then to see Eric Church and Jamey Johnson (miles before "In Color" jumped into the Top 20) co-headline a benefit show in Madison, Wis. Trading off songs, they were everything every act should aspire to: sharp, spontaneous, edgy and entertaining. May Eric and Jamey each have a tour bus primed to go, and may many fans bypass an arena act and join the fray where there's no need for jumbo video screens. —Tom Alesia
Ashton Shepherd sounds like a caricature of country music—a twang as wide as rivers are deep, no heart left unwrenched, no string untugged. The results are uncannily gleeful and exuberant. Then at the end, "Whiskey Won the Battle"—as clichéd as the rest—is a gut kick of total conviction. Country song of the year, except maybe for Willie Nelson's "The Bob Song." —Frank Kogan
POLITICS AND COUNTRY
Carrie Underwood's "Just a Dream" was domestic melodrama at its redneck best, a Douglas Sirk mini-epic, with that heartbreaking voice that moves somewhere between singing and talking, that skates on the edge of total collapse. The one line takeaway "a pregnant war widow at 18," says more about the murderous and particularity inept American foreign policy than all of Nashville in the last eight years, and I am glad that someone as mainstream as Underwood is finally speaking angrily about such senseless loss. —Anthony Easton
In a year that saw the election of the first African-American president with help from the Southern U.S., two great reissues—the '70s compilation More Dirty Laundry: The Soul of Black Country and the minstrel-era Polk Miller & His Old South Quartette—told fascinating histories of artistic race-mixing in the supposedly lily-white realm of country music. In light of all this, Kenny Chesney recording with the Wailers or Darius Rucker's startlingly fine soul-country move seemed the most natural things in the world. —Will Hermes
Regardless of one's political leanings, it was impossible to ignore the fact that, just days after the United States elected its first African-American president, the Country Music Association broadcast was far and away the blackest awards show in its history, with a solo performance by Darius Rucker, members of the Wailers backing Kenny Chesney, and Lil Wayne pretending to play guitar with Kid Rock. That is significant in and of itself, but whether or not it represents a serious attempt by the country music community at large to embrace diversity remains to be seen. That CMA voters, during that same broadcast, also made some of the safest, most conservative choices in the history of their awards, with nearly half of the previous year's winners repeating and with a tepid slate of nominations that drew considerable criticism from pundits in both the printed and online press, suggests that the genre establishment's well-documented resistance to "change" is alive and well in 2008, even though there are new reasons to hope for something different. —Jonathan Keefe
ALT-COUNTRY
With the alt-country/roots/Americana scene mired in a creative rut for the past several years—it's a near impossible task to tell apart the legion of Ryan Adams, Old 97s, and Tift Merritt sound-alikes who have emerged over the last half-decade—there was ample reason to believe that the relevance of that style had peaked, particularly in comparison to the ongoing infusion of artistic integrity and street-cred that acts like Miranda Lambert, Gary Allan, Jamey Johnson and Little Big Town have brought into mainstream country. But 2008 was handily one of the most diverse, exciting years in recent memory for music on the genre's supposed fringes, with standout albums by Fred Eaglesmith, Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson, the Punch Brothers, Kathy Mattea, Justin Townes Earle, The Duhks, Conor Oberst, Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet and countless others handily outclassing a confused slate of mainstream country offerings from erstwhile pop stars and veterans content to rest on their laurels. —Jonathan Keefe
Like Jack White's outing with Loretta Lynn, one of the year's best country records was delivered by a moonlighting rocker. No, not Darius Rucker (with all due respect). I mean Tom Petty, whose reunion with his pre-Heartbreakers outfit Mudcrutch was the best Flying Burrito Brothers séance since The Jayhawks. Meanwhile, the video for that great remake of The Raconteurs' "Old Enough" with Ricky Skaggs and Ashley Monroe made me hope Jack White has more Nashville-minded projects up his sleeve for 2009. —Will Hermes
I hate the phrase "alt-country," largely because if there's anything "alternative" to country music's roots, it's what passes for country music today. Every year I expect these outsider country-rock acts to make a dent in the public's twangy consciousness, alas to little or no avail. Still, there's no way you can sell me on the idea that Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood have more in common with Loretta and Tammy than, for instance, this marvelously rich Sera Cahoone record. And if you're looking for that elusive high-and-lonesome sound, you won't do better than Will Johnson's songs and arrangements on South San Gabriel's Dual Hawks. Authentic country music lives on, just far from Music Row.—John Schacht
