Urban Cowboy: Pop-Influenced Country Music

As the 1980s dawned, pop-influenced country music was the dominant style, through such acts as Kenny Rogers, Eddie Rabbitt, and Crystal Gayle. Crystal Gayle best known for her 1977 country-pop crossover hit, the jazz-flavored ballad, "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue". Kenny Rogers’s crossover success was important; his lush, easy listening productions and smooth croons showed that country stars could conquer the pop audience, if produced and marketed correctly. By the beginning of the '80s, Rogers' audience was as much pop as it was country, and singles like his cover of Lionel Richie's "Lady" confirmed that fact, spending six weeks at the top of the pop charts. Neocountry disco music was a new style in 1980 it became popular with the help of the movie film Urban Cowboy. Urban Cowboy had included pop-styled country music. …show more content…
In 1984, 900 different radio stations played country or neocountry pop full time. By the mid-1980s, country music audiences were beginning to tire of country pop and by 1985, a New York Times article declared country music "dead". A new group of artist in the mid-1980s found a more polished country-pop sound and the charts showed people liked more traditional music. The year 1986 brought forth several new artists who performed in traditional country styles, such as honky-tonk. This sparked the "new traditionalist" movement, or return to traditional country music. In 1989 Garth Brooks, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt and Dwight Yoakam were introduced into Country music Hall of Fame; they also had their first country