At Mass Torts Made Perfect in Las Vegas, Levin Papantonio’s Mike Papantonio interviewed Keith Urban. He asked Urban about the evolution of country music.
Urban started his answer with a line from a Talking Heads song,”Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. It’s the same as it ever was.”
He explained, “Country music in the fifties made a business choice to change its sound because it was losing market share of this new thing called ‘Rock and Roll.’ Owen Bradley and Chet Atkins, the architects of the Nashville sound, decided to make it a bit more cosmopolitan. And so you ended up with luscious strings and luscious backup vocals and twinkly piano. You have things like crazy by Patsy Cline.
“Those things that may be looked at as a traditional country song, but it doesn’t sound like Hank Williams. It doesn’t sound like Bob Wills. It doesn’t sound like all the country music that came before. It sounded much more slick and much more city. And that was intentional.
“That’s simply never changed in country music. It’s just the version of twinkly piano or luscious strings and those things. The instruments have changed. So today it would be hip hop, drum machines, other things, but it’s a new form of country music.
“That’s the cyclical nature of country music. I’ve always seen country music as a breathing lung, so it expands outwards, it gets more mainstream, more pop, more pop, more pop. And then everyone freaks out and quickly run back to simplicity and truth. And it contracts and then everybody loves it. And then a new thing comes in and slowly expands back out each decade, each generation. And then we freak out, we go back in again.”
