Full tank of gas and a ’69 Tempest: An hour of great mainstream country from the ’80s and ’90s
Music Features power hour
Patty Loveless, “Blame It On Your Heart” (1993)
Patty Loveless has a lot of fun with lyrics—there’s the faintly ridiculous wordplay of “Timber, I’m Falling In Love” (1988), and the adjective pileup of a chorus in “Blame It On Your Heart.” With a string of insults followed by a deadpan change of heart, Loveless’ delivery captures the difficulty of trying to stop loving somebody who’s cheated on you. It’s more lighthearted than mopey, and the chorus of “Blame it on your lyin’, cheatin’, cold, deadbeatin’, two-timin’, double-dealin’, mean, mistreatin’ loving heart” never gets any less fun to sing along to.
Dixie Chicks, “There’s Your Trouble” (1998)
The Dixie Chicks existed as a Dallas bluegrass band from the late 1980s, but it wasn’t until they replaced their lead singer with Natalie Maines that they had their breakthrough, Wide Open Spaces, in 1998. With Maines came a newer country sound, balanced against Martie Maguire and Emily Robison’s traditional country and bluegrass instruments, like mandolin, fiddle, and banjo. “There’s Your Trouble” was on that first album with the new Chicks lineup, which heralded change in country music—Maines voice has more brazenness than drawl, and the Dixie Chicks charted new territory with songs like “Goodbye Earl,” in which a woman buries her abusive husband.
Garth Brooks and Chris LeDoux, “Whatcha Gonna Do With A Cowboy” (1992)
Garth Brooks is, first and foremost, an entertainer. He filled his first stadium in 1993, and those early-career tours were more successful than New Kids On The Block’s Magic Summer Tour and Madonna’s Blond Ambition. He was also an early advocate for low-cost concerts, loudly supporting Pearl Jam’s 1994 complaint with the U.S. Justice Department over Ticketmaster prices, and making a point to connect with fans in the nosebleed seats at Texas Stadium—literally, by strapping himself in a harness and fly wire and high-fiving fans in the cheapest seats. This duet with Chris LeDoux showcases just how much fun Brooks likes to have. Listen to the chuckles between the two of them (particularly when LeDoux sings, “You’d be better off to try to rope the wind,” a wink to Brooks’ Ropin’ The Wind). From the opening fiddle slides to the barn-stomping tune, “Whatcha Gonna Do” is an exuberant celebration of good country fun.
LeAnn Rimes, “Cattle Call” (1996)
After years singing at Texas rodeos and opries, LeAnn Rimes, age 13, skyrocketed to fame with “Blue,” written by Bill Mack, whose songs have been recorded by the likes of Dean Martin, Jerry Lee Lewis, and George Jones. Mack wrote the song in 1958, and four years later, tried to get Patsy Cline interested in it. Forty years later, a teenage girl whose voice earned comparisons to Cline’s recorded it and won the Grammy for Song Of The Year in 1996. Rimes’ debut album is filled with retro delights like this, including “Cattle Call,” recorded with county great Eddy Arnold, who popularized the song in 1940s.
Trisha Yearwood, “Wrong Side Of Memphis” (1992)
Trisha Yearwood’s best-known song, “She’s In Love With The Boy,” stands up as a song of simple, true love. But Yearwood’s voice powers a lot more than simple love songs, and “Wrong Side Of Memphis,” from her second studio album, sees her dig into a bluesier sound as she “bronze[s] these blue suede shoes” and hops in a ’69 Tempest to Nashville. Even as she sings about typical country subjects—love, cowboy boots, Nashville—she was one of the female country artists of the 1990s who brought much-needed balance to the industry. In “Wrong Side Of Memphis,” throwaway lines like “I ain’t drivin’ no pink Cadillac” underscore her perspective.
Randy Travis, “Honky Tonk Moon” (1988)
When poppier songs gained traction on country radio in the ’90s, Randy Travis was there with harmonica and a swinging bluesy beat to bring a little nostalgia to mainstream country. Heavily instrumented with fiddle, harmonica, and pedal steel, “Honky Tonk Moon” doesn’t have the slick production of a lot of his contemporaries. Travis’ soulful, gravelly voice sounds almost beautiful against the smooth slide-guitar work, and it’s a rare song of the late ’80s that doesn’t sound stuck in time. Travis’ throwback sound earned him 15 No. 1 songs in the ’80s and early ’90s but was beat back by the burgeoning pop-country hits later in the decade.
Lorrie Morgan, “What Part Of No” (1992)
Truly a song before its time, “What Part Of No” is Lorrie Morgan’s plea for a guy in a bar to stop hitting on her so she can just be alone. It has the strongest feminist underpinnings of any song on this list, and it spent three weeks at No. 1, a sign that country music was inching forward politically even in 1992.
Clint Black, “A Good Run Of Bad Luck” (1993)
Another of the giants of ’90s country music, Clint Black sang a lot of bluesy, poppy songs while wearing a cowboy hat and a big belt buckle. “A Good Run Of Bad Luck” had the good luck of appearing on two albums—Black’s No Time To Kill and the Maverick soundtrack.
Tanya Tucker, “Down To My Last Teardrop” (1991)
Tanya Tucker was just 13 when she released her first hit, “Delta Dawn,” in 1972. Even then, there was a hint of that signature rasp in her voice, and by the ’90s she sounded just world-weary enough. Paired with an upbeat harmonica and hooky midtempo tune, “Down To My Last Teardrop” is downright triumphant as she finally tires of a cheating lover. She sneaks in some cheeky lyrics, too, at least by early-’90s radio standards: “I don’t care who or what you’re doing / there ain’t gonna be no more boo-hooin’.”
Reba McEntire and Linda Davis, “Does He Love You” (1993)
Just about any Reba McEntire song would have worked for this list. She’s been a powerhouse of country radio since she cracked Billboard’s Hot Country Songs Top 100 in 1976 (“I Don’t Want To Be A One Night Stand”), with her first No. 1 song in 1982 (“Can’t Even Get The Blues”). “Does He Love You” spent five months on the charts and one week at No. 1 in 1993, and it’s a rare example (outside The Judds) of a two-woman duet. Another rarity: The song tells the story of an affair from the perspective of the wife and the other woman. It could have been a song about a broken heart or revenge or walking away, but Reba McEntire and Linda Davis tease out compassion from the pain.
Deana Carter, “Strawberry Wine” (1996)
Deana Carter’s 22-year-old ode to teen love wouldn’t feel out of place on a recent Kacey Musgraves’ album. Carter’s bright, clear voice brims with bittersweet nostalgia, but she still slips in a little wry humor (“I was thirsting for knowledge / And he had a car”). “Strawberry Wine” is one of several hit singles from Carter’s debut album, Did I Shave My Legs For This?, which earned multiple Grammy nods in 1997 and ’98.
Ty Herndon, “What Mattered Most” (1995)
Ty Herndon’s soft voice and plaintive love songs were typical of a lot of ’90s country music, and Herndon puts a lot of heart into the sweetly poignant “What Mattered Most.” The narrator’s self-reflection is a less typical perspective, though a refreshing one. It was nearly 20 years after this song was released that Herndon came out publicly as gay—even if the industry and the music were slowly making way for new voices and new sounds, country music has maintained a conservative, even regressive, outlook.
Alan Jackson, “Chattahoochee” (1992)
Country music can be a helluva lot of fun, and nothing captures that quite like “Chattahoochee,” a honky-tonk coming-of-age tale with the soul of a drinking song. Released in May, just in time to become the song of summer, it works just as well as a line dance as a roll-down-your-windows-and-sing-along song. It kept a foot firmly in neo-traditionalist country, but unlike tracks by greats like Randy Travis, did more to welcome in younger listeners.
58 Comments
Some arguments exist for aesthetic relativism. However, on the whole, I’d rather poke my eardrums out with a knitting needle than listen to this dross.
Go for it.
Too late – there was already a Billy Joel retrospective playing on the radio this morning.
Ugh, right? Other people’s enjoyment of things is so lame!
I like Garth Brooks. His show “Darkplace” on Channel 4 was really good.
Starring a very young Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt. Never seen it, but I bet it’s brilliant.
I was very sick of British television trying to shove Fielding and Barratt to my face everytime, but then James Corden appeared and I’m like “please bring back Fielding and Barratt”
However his selections in his Premiership Team of the Week on the BBC website are generally woeful.
Also, remember when The Dixie Chicks was almost destroyed by the country music industry for daring to oppose a stupid fucking war in The Middle East only to be proven right 15 years later?“That’s why Earl had to die”, said Pepperidge Farm
Nashville seemed to have it in for them for a while, as the Chicks were never willing to just shut up and do what the record company said. Even sued their record company to actually to paid fairly, which was unheard of country music at the time. So when they spoke out against idiot Bush, it was easy for the industry to pile on and villify them as an act revenge. It was at the same time the Chicks produced one of my favorite verses in the history of the genre:
We listen to the radio to hear what’s cookin’,
But the music ain’t got no soul.Now they sound tired but they don’t sound Haggard,
They’ve got money but they don’t have Cash.
They got Junior but they don’t have Hank.
Great list! Nothing takes me back to childhood like old country. It’s like turnip greens in the sense that I hated it at the time but love it now.
New York Flat Top Box
I’m not a country fan but one song from the 80’s I do love is “Stranger In My House” by Ronnie Milsap.
Ronnie Milsap’s sister used to live up the street from me when I was a little kid and I remember his tour bus being parked outside her house most Christmases. That was always neat to see for a kid
Decidedly lacking in Mary Chapin-Carpenter.
(I also wouldn’t have minded seeing Boot Scootin’ Boogie if I’m being totally honest.)
Wynonna singing MCC’s “Girls with Guitars” also hits home for me from that time. Lots of fun (incredible live), and also a song where a woman doesn’t need to be with a man to be herself.
Yeah, she had a good run there, coming along at the right time to do good music and get a ton of airplay.
Since then she’d kept getting better and better, though the uptempo and radio-friendly gave way to the Sad Ladies with Acoustic Guitars genre. (I’ve fallen a couple of albums behind and need some rainy weekends or car trips to catch up…)
Whereupon thinking of “Passionate Kisses” sends me on a mental ramble to Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, and Steve Earle’s album El Corazon (mostly genius and a lot of it as country as lead poisoning from radiator moonshine), and the Kate Wolf tribute Treasures Left Behind, and all the other great music from those years that we’ve learned to call “Americana” and couldn’t have gotten onto commercial country-western radio at gunpoint even though it was right next door…
“I Take My Chances” could be a lost Warren Zevon song.
And Foster & Lloyd. But a pretty good list, overall. Love Yoakum, Cash, Judds…
Love MCC. I need another hour to get to everything!
Nice list. To quote my Auntie Lena, “There’s only two types of music, and that’s country & western.” (I’m sure she was quoting someone else.) I feel like Dwight Yoakam got short shrift here, just a passing reference to him. For my two cents, him and Randy Travis had the best country voices in the 80s/90s.
“I’m sure she was quoting someone else.”It’s a joke in the Blues Brothers movie, if that helps.
I should have remembered that. Funny, my aunt wasn’t the Blues Brothers type.
YES. MR YOAKUM WAS CONSIDERABLY MORE THAN A BAD AD.
Not to mention, he was great in Sling Blade.
He absolutely was! I need another hour or five.
The C&W line is from the Bob’s Country Bunker scene in The Blues Brothers. Probably.“$200, and you boys drank $300 worth of beer.”
When the Blues Brothers hijack a band’s gig at a bar, they ask what kind of music the bar usually features. The bartender answers, “Oh, we got both kinds — we got country and western.”… and now I see many other people have pointed this out. Why didn’t Kinja show me those responses before I responded? And why didn’t I just assume someone had pointed that out? It’s The Blues Brothers, for heaven’s sake.
Needs some John Anderson, specifically ‘Straight Tequila Night’. Nice to see Randy Travis made the cut though.
I came across Straight Tequila Night some years back out of a random encounter on … an online music-sharing service, yes, that will do … and man, what a great song. “She Just Started Liking Cheating Songs” is another killer.
I still remember going to the mall with my dad and spending allowance money on a couple Randy Travis 45s. He seemed old-school to me even then, but that voice!
My wife told me the other day that one of the first things that attracted her to me was that my voice reminded her of Randy Travis. It’s one of the nicest things she’s ever said.
Missing some big names out there…Diamond Rio, Little Texas, Restless Heart, Tarvis Truth (T-R-O-U-B-L-E, Here’s a Quarter). I do agree that Country music has been predominately dominated by men though. I did really like Suzy Bogguss, Terry Clark, and Emmylou Harris!
Suzy Bogguss and that giant hat! Hello nurse!
Great stuff! This is my favorite decade of country (I guess 1987ish to 1999ish). Man, that Deana Carter album was huge, and was loaded with great singles. And “There’s Your Trouble”? That is just a straight-up bad ass song.A few of my favorites during this time period: Blue Clear Sky, Carried Away (George Strait); Heads Carolina, Tails California (Jo Dee Messina)Every Light in the House (Trace Adkins)Her Man (Gary Allan)Ain’t That Lonely Yet (Dwight Yoakam)Wild One (Faith Hill)Beer and Bones (John Michael Montgomery)Whose Bed … (Shania)
Yes there’s plenty of good to mine, and nice additions. Glad to see Patty Loveless, Clint Black; missing Dwight Yoakam, Martina McBride (but they are both mentioned in the text). A random favorite is John Michael Montgomery, “Sold”, kind of silly but super fun.
Honestly, I prefer Deborah Allen’s version of “Blame It On Your Heart”The Thing Called Love is a great film either way
Those years may not have been the best years for country music, but they were still leagues better than the crap they’re making now. I’ll take even an idiotic “Chattahoochee” over any of this yuppie pop (but with a pickup truck) garbage that passes for modern country.
Tim McGraw’s “Refried Dreams,” which includes the unfortunate line “I’m down here in Mexico / Livin’ on refried dreams,” and was left off this list for good reasonRemember Indian Outlaw? Talk about uber cringe worthy.
I took my husband on a YouTube journey through the best & worst of my high-school country music memories recently (yes, there was a lot of beer involved) and put that video on — SO BAD. Tim McGraw’s mullet alone is offensive, then the song takes it to another level.
I’m pretty sure that mullet was the inspiration for David Spade’s look in Joe Dirt. Some guys really could pull off a good mullet back then — remember Joe Lando’s from Dr. Quinn? Tim McGraw wasn’t one of them. Faith Hill was undoubtedly the best influence on his look.
Laura, though I appreciate the article of my hometown, nearly none of the videos that you’ve linked are working. A bit frustrating.
No Vince Gill? No “When I Call Your Name”? No “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slipping Away”? No “One More Last Chance”?That’s just … wrong …
I’ll cut a bitch over 70s country, but the genre really lost me in the 80s…
I was literally just
talking to someone the other day about how country music from the 80s and early
90s is just a giant black hole for me. I know all the classic stuff, the 70s
stuff, the post-Shania crossover stuff and the modern stuff. But when I was a
kid, all I knew of country was Garth and Achy-Breaky Heart, and it seemed like a
genre for me to stay as far away from as possible. Excited to check some of
this out.
Pretty good, but “Honkey Tonk Moon” is not the Randy Travis I would go with. Should be “Deeper than the Holler,” although “If I Didn’t Have You,” “Is it Still Over?” or even “Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart” are also acceptable.
Thanks to Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, most everybody knows a certain Statler Brothers song from the group’s 1966 debut. “Flowers On The Wall” is a direct descendent of early country-pop groups like the Everly Brothers (1957’s “Bye, Bye Love,” 1961’s “Walk Right Back”)I’d’ve thought it was a direct descendent of Ricky Nelson, who had a top ten hit with it five years earlier.
I’m not a country fan, but who am I to tell you pieces of your childhood aren’t enjoyable. I am familiar with roughly 2/3 and most of them are benign. That said playing “Chattahoochee” in public should be a war crime. I’ll let you have the bulk of this list. But that song was not fun. I hate Nickleback and Creed but if it’s between this and that, pile on the Creed. I’ll endure.
“Lorrie Morgan killed Keith Whitley” was the country music version of Kurt and Courtney. I knew several people who insisted on it back in the day and refused to listen to her because of it
Good list, but I’m missing me some Jimmy Buffett “Volcano”
This is where Country went:
I hated Uncle Tupelo breaking up, but then this came out. I was okay with it after that.Got turned onto this Seattle band you might like by a woman I was seeing when I was living in Portland briefly about a decade ago.
Thanks. Yeah, that’s the sound.
I drove a ‘69 GTO for a while, and the most appropriate song was “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith. I don’t particularly like that song, but I liked it in that car.
Thanks so much for this playlist and for the background on country music. It’s not the genre I list to the most but I do like a lot of older stuff I’ve heard. I only wish I’d had the playlist on my recent trip home, when I was reminded that my mom and I rarely agree on anything to listen to besides Fleetwood Mac and Dwight Yoakam.
Joe Diffie and Mary Chapin Carpenter would like to have a word
No love for Vince Gill?YOUR LIST IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD