90s Traditional Revival
tagStarted 1990Peak 1991–1996Last big hit 1999
The 90s traditional revival warms and broadens the 1980s neotraditional sound for a bigger market while keeping fiddle, steel, and classic country phrasing clearly audible. Compared with 80s counterparts, the mixes are often fuller and the choruses more overtly commercial, but the songs still stand with one boot in tradition.
History
Alan Jackson, Mark Chesnutt, Patty Loveless, Joe Diffie, Clint Black, and others carried traditional country into the decade of country's huge commercial expansion. The style later lost ground to larger pop-country and arena-rock gestures, but it remains the reference point for many listeners' idea of "real 90s country."
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Country Music Project
- LiveAbout
- The Boot
- Britannica