This is the first study of "hard" country music as well as the first comprehensive application of contemporary cultural theory to country music. Barbara Ching begins by defining the features that make certain country songs and artists "hard." She compares hard country music to "high" American cultu[...]
Fluid by design, the term Alt.Country has forced even the genre's own mouthpiece, the magazine/website "No Depression", to declare its terrain to be 'alternative-country music (whatever that is)'. Although the parameters of Alt.Country have always been muddy, its origins - indeed, its patron saints [...]