Ethnomusicology Commons^™

Wrong’S What I Do Best: Hard Country Music And Contemporary Culture: Introduction And Table Of Contents, Barbara Ching

Barbara Ching

This book is about hard country music for two reasons. First, it's impossible to really understand country music, now one of the most popular forms of music in the United States, without recognizing that its "country" is a disputed territory where a mainstream-oriented pop production style reigns over a feisty and less fashionable form-"hard country." Second, hearing hard country music offers an important perspective on the bewildering cultural situation, often called postmodernism, in which we find ourselves. Conversely, once we recognize the postmodern rhetoric of cultural distinction embedded in contemporary hard country, we can hear the music as something more …