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Interesting Research Paper Topics About Country Music

Country music originated in the Southern Appalachian with fiddle recordings made in 1910. However the kind of recorded music we listen today came to be in the early 20’s. First commercial recordings were done by Eck Robertson on Victor records in 1922. The first national country star in 1924 was Vernon Dalhart with the song “Wreck of the old ’97 “. However historians point to 1927 when Victor Records signed Jimmie Rodgers and the carter family, who are considered the true country music originators. The fact that country music has been a popular genre for many decades makes it one of the favorite research paper topics that students are required to complete. If you are wondering the best choice of topic for your research paper on country music, here are some ideas that are worth considering.

• Country music. This is among the genres that are always changing. There are songs that have a beautiful story and a happy ending while others can leave you heartbroken. However, despite the differences both types of songs can deliver some great messages.
• How country music has evolved over decades. Unlike other American genres, country music has some deep roots. It was among the most influential styles of the 20th century.
• The role of black artists in the growth of country music. Charlie Pride was a hit in 1971 while in 2009, we had Darius Rucker. However, these are the only two black musicians to have won Country Music Association Award. Why are there few blacks in country music?
• How country music has affected the society today. Some people love country music while others find it boring and provocative. Does country music have a negative effect on the society?
• How the country music culture has changed. The original theme of country music was about cheating, drinking and driving trucks. However, this has changed in the recent past to conservative themes that concentrate on core values.
• Country music vs hip-hop
• Female artists in country music
• Luke Bryan and Johnny Cash
• Why country music is a lifestyle
• Johnny Cash
• Brooks & Dunn
• Keith Urban
• Country music and its effect on Southern voters
• How class consciousness has changed country music

With this country music topic, you will be on your way to write a great research paper topic.

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• A Research Guide
• Research Paper Topics

120 Music Research Paper Topics

How to choose a topic for music research paper:.

Music Theory Research Paper Topics:

• The influence of harmonic progression on emotional response in music
• Analyzing the use of chromaticism in the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach
• The role of rhythm and meter in creating musical tension and release
• Examining the development of tonality in Western classical music
• Exploring the impact of cultural and historical context on musical form and structure
• Investigating the use of polyphony in Renaissance choral music
• Analyzing the compositional techniques of minimalist music
• The relationship between melody and harmony in popular music
• Examining the influence of jazz improvisation on contemporary music
• The role of counterpoint in the compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven
• Investigating the use of microtonality in experimental music
• Analyzing the impact of technology on music composition and production
• The influence of musical modes on the development of different musical genres
• Exploring the use of musical symbolism in film scoring
• Investigating the role of music theory in the analysis and interpretation of non-Western music

Music Industry Research Paper Topics:

• The impact of streaming services on music consumption patterns
• The role of social media in promoting and marketing music
• The effects of piracy on the music industry
• The influence of technology on music production and distribution
• The relationship between music and mental health
• The evolution of music genres and their impact on the industry
• The economics of live music events and festivals
• The role of record labels in shaping the music industry
• The impact of globalization on the music industry
• The representation and portrayal of gender in the music industry
• The effects of music streaming platforms on artist revenue
• The role of music education in fostering talent and creativity
• The influence of music videos on audience perception and engagement
• The impact of music streaming on physical album sales
• The role of music in advertising and brand marketing

Music Therapy Research Paper Topics:

• The effectiveness of music therapy in reducing anxiety in cancer patients
• The impact of music therapy on improving cognitive function in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease
• Exploring the use of music therapy in managing chronic pain
• The role of music therapy in promoting emotional well-being in children with autism spectrum disorder
• Music therapy as a complementary treatment for depression: A systematic review
• The effects of music therapy on stress reduction in pregnant women
• Examining the benefits of music therapy in improving communication skills in individuals with developmental disabilities
• The use of music therapy in enhancing motor skills rehabilitation after stroke
• Music therapy interventions for improving sleep quality in patients with insomnia
• Exploring the impact of music therapy on reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• The role of music therapy in improving social interaction and engagement in individuals with schizophrenia
• Music therapy as a non-pharmacological intervention for managing symptoms of dementia
• The effects of music therapy on pain perception and opioid use in hospitalized patients
• Exploring the use of music therapy in promoting relaxation and reducing anxiety during surgical procedures
• The impact of music therapy on improving quality of life in individuals with Parkinson’s disease

Music Psychology Research Paper Topics:

• The effects of music on mood and emotions
• The role of music in enhancing cognitive abilities
• The impact of music therapy on mental health disorders
• The relationship between music and memory recall
• The influence of music on stress reduction and relaxation
• The psychological effects of different genres of music
• The role of music in promoting social bonding and cohesion
• The effects of music on creativity and problem-solving abilities
• The psychological benefits of playing a musical instrument
• The impact of music on motivation and productivity
• The psychological effects of music on physical exercise performance
• The role of music in enhancing learning and academic performance
• The influence of music on sleep quality and patterns
• The psychological effects of music on individuals with autism spectrum disorder
• The relationship between music and personality traits

Music Education Research Paper Topics:

• The impact of music education on cognitive development in children
• The effectiveness of incorporating technology in music education
• The role of music education in promoting social and emotional development
• The benefits of music education for students with special needs
• The influence of music education on academic achievement
• The importance of music education in fostering creativity and innovation
• The relationship between music education and language development
• The impact of music education on self-esteem and self-confidence
• The role of music education in promoting cultural diversity and inclusivity
• The effects of music education on students’ overall well-being and mental health
• The significance of music education in developing critical thinking skills
• The role of music education in enhancing students’ teamwork and collaboration abilities
• The impact of music education on students’ motivation and engagement in school
• The effectiveness of different teaching methods in music education
• The relationship between music education and career opportunities in the music industry

Music History Research Paper Topics:

• The influence of African music on the development of jazz in the United States
• The role of women composers in classical music during the 18th century
• The impact of the Beatles on the evolution of popular music in the 1960s
• The cultural significance of hip-hop music in urban communities
• The development of opera in Italy during the Renaissance
• The influence of folk music on the protest movements of the 1960s
• The role of music in religious rituals and ceremonies throughout history
• The evolution of electronic music and its impact on contemporary music production
• The contribution of Latin American musicians to the development of salsa music
• The influence of classical music on film scores in the 20th century
• The role of music in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States
• The development of reggae music in Jamaica and its global impact
• The influence of Mozart’s compositions on the classical music era
• The role of music in the French Revolution and its impact on society
• The evolution of punk rock music and its influence on alternative music genres

Music Sociology Research Paper Topics:

• The impact of music streaming platforms on the music industry
• The role of music in shaping cultural identity
• Gender representation in popular music: A sociological analysis
• The influence of social media on music consumption patterns
• Music festivals as spaces for social interaction and community building
• The relationship between music and political activism
• The effects of globalization on local music scenes
• The role of music in constructing and challenging social norms
• The impact of technology on music production and distribution
• Music and social movements: A comparative study
• The role of music in promoting social change and social justice
• The influence of socioeconomic factors on music taste and preferences
• The role of music in constructing and reinforcing gender stereotypes
• The impact of music education on social and cognitive development
• The relationship between music and mental health: A sociological perspective

Classical Music Research Paper Topics:

• The influence of Ludwig van Beethoven on the development of classical music
• The role of women composers in classical music history
• The impact of Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions on future generations
• The evolution of opera in the classical period
• The significance of Mozart’s symphonies in the classical era
• The influence of nationalism on classical music during the Romantic period
• The portrayal of emotions in classical music compositions
• The use of musical forms and structures in the works of Franz Joseph Haydn
• The impact of the Industrial Revolution on the production and dissemination of classical music
• The relationship between classical music and dance in the Baroque era
• The role of patronage in the development of classical music
• The influence of folk music on classical composers
• The representation of nature in classical music compositions
• The impact of technological advancements on classical music performance and recording
• The exploration of polyphony in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach

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CMA RESEARCH & INSIGHTS

Cma is the leading provider of country music research and audience insights. through an ongoing lens of tracking and analytics, we support the industry with actionable learnings that address audience growth, music consumption, and lifestyle purchasing to address the ever-evolving country music market landscape..

Country Music Continues to Grow

Continuing significant growth, the Country Music Audience now reaches more than 139 million U.S. teens and adults due to a 9% listener growth rate over the past 5 years.

• More growth among Millennials than ever before
• Growth across all regions of the map, including non-traditional market regions
• More daily music listening versus other genres

COUNTRY MUSIC CONSUMER INFOGRAPHICS

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How The Sound Of Country Music Changed

Jewly Hight

In 2013, Kacey Musgraves emergence onto the country music scene hinted at changes that would arrive over the next five years. Musgraves' new album, Golden Hour , might signal her freedom from that same landscape. Kelly Christine Sutton/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

In 2013, Kacey Musgraves emergence onto the country music scene hinted at changes that would arrive over the next five years. Musgraves' new album, Golden Hour , might signal her freedom from that same landscape.

Evolution follows a familiar pattern in plenty of popular music genres. Fearless newcomers or agile established stars with credibility to burn veer from the dominant aesthetic, adopting approaches to music-making that come off as savvy correctives to what everyone's used to hearing. And if what they're doing really begins to catch on, bits and pieces are absorbed into the mainstream, subtly or significantly shifting the genre's center, before something completely different comes along to catch the public's ear. Just think of how many hip-hop trends, from the street-hardened fatalism and stark beats of trap music to the punchy, triplet flow spawned by Migos' experimentalism , have bubbled up from the underground, and eventually even altered the feel of mainstream pop .

These cycles propel country music forward too, but they're unfolding at a more deliberate pace in a genre where innovation tugs against preservation and the path to success often passes through conservative terrestrial radio. That's why it's taken years for the stylistic shifts anticipated by Kacey Musgraves, Sam Hunt and Maren Morris to actually arrive. Musgraves' emergence, five years ago, generated discussion about the potential for changes in country's outlook, attitude and style, but it's only now, with the release of Golden Hour , her third proper, major label album, that she sounds truly freed from having to claim her place in the country landscape.

Pop, hip-hop and R&B have far higher turnover rates for hits, thanks to massive streaming numbers and radio programming that favors the hot and new over the familiar. But besides making the most of the digital outlets favored by young listeners, most mainstream country artists are still expected to pledge their fealty to the format and court radio's long-term support, which can be a deeply demoralizing endeavor due to programmers' tendency to stick to one thing that's working at a time and pay attention to little else.

Is Politics Gone From Country Music? Listen Closer

Since participating in the country world has always been as much a matter of cultural identification as musical identification, and as much about being claimed by the audience as branded for the marketplace, artists also face a tension between engaging with popular trends and conveying a sense of connection to country's lineage and core values. Some of modern country's most frequently invoked archetypes, Garth Brooks and Shania Twain, were initially viewed as interlopers, their modernizing of studio and show production, self-presentation and songwriting disrupting the genre's status quo and grabbing ears beyond it. Over time, they both made convincing cases that redefining what country superstardom looked, sounded and behaved like didn't undermine their country affinities — that their broader ambitions needn't threaten their places in the format. And eventually, plenty of other artists followed their lead in making flashier music videos, beefing up their backbeats and staging shows with the energy and theatricality of arena rock.

"Every time someone starts to make a real noise or pisses people off, later they get revered for it," observes Shane McAnally, now one of Nashville's most influential writer-producers and developers of new talent. "This [rising] class of artists right now, most of them would say their number one favorite artist is Shania or Garth. And at the time those people came along, it was like, 'Y'all are ruining country music.' I mean, it seems like every time I hear those words, we just get a whole lot more people listening to country music."

Earlier this decade, there was a prolonged moment when contemporary country sounds and sensibilities seemed to consolidate around the so-called "bro country" template . Male acts at every tier of the industry were incorporating sometimes dated hip-hop flourishes into feel-good hybrids and cocksure, youthful displays of masculinity. The tailgating soundtrack was having its day, while hard times, relational strife and emoting in general receded from country radio playlists. But in the midst of that beat-driven bluster, noteworthy new arrivals on the margins of the mainstream forecasted shifts in momentum.

First came Kacey Musgraves, a singer-songwriter salvaged from the roster of Mercury Nashville's shuttered roots imprint. She blended deliciously arch and detailed songcraft with western kitsch and indie irreverence with a low-key insistence on tolerance , an approach to making social statements that helped map the coming changes in country discourse ( see the accompanying timeline ). But the coolness of her delivery was so antithetical to the muscled-up performances dominating playlists in 2013 that, at least in the short term, she enjoyed more visibility than commercial clout. It couldn't have helped her standing with country radio that she didn't really labor to hide her disdain for the direction pop-country was taking at the time, though she was plenty pop-savvy (and would eventually even go on tour with Katy Perry).

Taylor Swift had proven the potential of a personalized singer-songwriter approach half a decade earlier. Stepping into the spotlight as a teenage striver, she invested equal energy in winning over young, female fans and powerful, middle-aged gatekeepers, and achieved success on such an astounding scale that she established a new paradigm for mainstream country aspirations. Musgraves's arrival couldn't have felt more different; she seemed far more comfortable in an individualistic role that didn't require asserting her place at the center.

Sam Hunt on stage in Nashville during CMA Fest in June 2015. Rick Diamond/Getty Images hide caption

Sam Hunt and Maren Morris arrived on the scene in the years that followed, each of them possessing fluency in the postures and cadences of millennial pop that turned heads and blurred boundaries. "[M]odern country singers love to flaunt phrases and attitudes borrowed from hip-hop, but Hunt's borrowings are softer and sneakier," observed Kelefa Sanneh . Jon Caramanica had a similar take on what Morris was up to: "Think of all the ways dissenters have tried to upend country in recent years: by sneaking in rhythmic vocal tics learned from rappers, by thinning out the genre's musical baggage, by pledging inclusive values. Ms. Morris, an astute synthesizer, has studied and perfected them all."

Hunt was a southern college quarterback-turned-country brooder, staking out a position between sensitivity and swagger. After a youth spent performing on the local circuit in her native Texas, Morris was on track to write for other artists on Music Row until it became clear that she was the one best equipped to convey the real-talking perspectives in her songs. In 2013, Hunt tested the waters with an initially free acoustic mixtape — his version of rap's preferred buzz-building tool — before releasing a 2014 album that applied a conversational flow reminiscent of Drake to small-town settings and downtempo country-pop production. Morris self-released an EP in the summer of 2015 whose surprise success on Spotify landed her on a major label that fall and led to a full-length debut the following year that was sleekly rhythmic, casually irreverent and slyly sensual . She proved she could belt at the top of her range, like many a country-pop diva before her, but spent more time luxuriating in her lower register, sauntering into hooks with her sultry attack and deftly delivering eye-rolling inflections .

Hunt's music had pensiveness and finesse and felt a little ahead of the country curve. His vocal style shared little with the boxier rapping other country artists had tried, so much so that Brad Paisley made Hunt's delivery a punchline during a CMA Awards monologue. (That was also the year that Chris Stapleton — a grizzled, southern soul belter who'd labored beneath the radar for years and earned Nashville's goodwill in the process — gave a breakthrough performance alongside his wife Morgane and buddy Justin Timberlake.) Seemingly every discussion of Hunt's music took up the question of whether it could legitimately be called country . Even so, what he was doing felt like a descendant of the hick-hop already populating radio playlists, and his songs quickly spread from streaming sites to airplay.

Maren Morris performs in Las Vegas in April 2016, just before the release of her debut album, Hero. Bryan Steffy/Getty Images for ACM hide caption

Maren Morris performs in Las Vegas in April 2016, just before the release of her debut album, Hero.

The format was slower to acknowledge Morris' cultural and stylistic impact . Radio's decision-makers claimed that their market research proved playing women was a liability to the format , a commercial justification that nonetheless had substantial social impact, marginalizing female voices and viewpoints. Morris wasn't terribly interested in adopting an attitude that radio would consider sufficiently agreeable for a woman; she was slightly brash and sexually frank , and her initial breakthrough brought little airplay.

Last year, the country scene didn't generate any galvanizing new trend-setters. (Affable everyman Luke Combs easily stood out, but his strength was harmonizing country's red-blooded recent past with its beat-propelled present.) Instead, 2017 was the year that the pop-conversant mindsets informing Hunt and Morris' music finally moved the center of gravity in the country mainstream, and other artists made their own use of the space they helped clear. "The perception has changed," notes McAnally, who's worked closely with Musgraves and Hunt and co-written with Morris. "People in the immediate industry aren't seeming as offended by people blatantly using the sounds that are considered pop." Even though Stapleton was something of a one-man bulwark against glossy, beat-driven production — his sinewy, classic sound selling millions of albums to adult fans — his rule-breaking success was also frequently invoked as a sign that things were changing.

Hunt mostly laid low in 2017 aside from releasing a pair of songs. "Body Like a Back Road," a breezy, braggy number with slinky organ and guitar licks over a bass-and-handclaps groove, was the one that received all the promotion. It became not just the song of summer, but spring and fall too with its record-setting, 34-week stay atop Billboard 's Hot Country Songs chart, fueled to a great degree by streams and downloads. Morris made a long, slow, 10-month climb to her first solo No. 1 with " I Could Use a Love Song ," reaching the pinnacle a couple of weeks into 2018. She was also called upon to lend her voice to a cross-genre collaboration with the DJ Zedd and a euphoric, dance-pop-influenced hit that signaled the stylistic repositioning of one of country's ascendant superstars, Thomas Rhett.

An agile centrist eager to please fans and industry gatekeepers alike, Rhett displayed an excellent instinct for the pace of evolution in the format. He'd begun applying lessons learned from the suave showmanship of Bruno Mars and Justin Timberlake on his 2015 album, finding his greatest success as a crooning romantic , but now felt even freer to try out any pop flavor that captured his attention. He covered an impressive amount of territory in 14 tracks, from a hard-twanging, line dance-friendly number featuring his country songwriter dad to dejected, conversational balladry , surging, EDM-style synths, quiet storm seduction and mellowed-out dancehall grooves, some of his production choices aligning closely with the aesthetics taking center stage in the pop world.

Rhett made clear that his unfettered stylistic sampling didn't undermine his core identity as a country artist, which was his way of acknowledging country-pop's competing priorities. "I think my voice is the glue," he told Jon Freeman, "and I think just being so involved in the production process and just having my identity all over this record is what makes it cohesive."

Kelsea Ballerini was another congenially striving young star with a handful of hits under her belt who made use of country's coziness with current pop last year. The arena-headlining duo Florida Georgia Line did the same, teaming up with a newbie country hit-maker, guesting on EDM pop and trop-house singles and pulling off a reverse crossover move with pop singer Bebe Rexha. Some artists seized the opening to roll out more dramatic reinventions. Distancing herself from her previous rep as an earnest teenage belter, Danielle Bradbery insisted on shaping last year's album around sensibilities that she could claim as her own, resulting in wintry, programming-reliant production and a sulkier style of singing .

RaeLynn had spent her first several years in Nashville searching for middle ground between her inclinations and the whims of country radio. On some of her early releases, it felt almost as though she was trying to hold the rhythmic friskiness of her delivery in check . But in Hunt and Morris's wakes, she found herself between record labels and newly emboldened. Working with a vocal coach, RaeLynn shed the notion that she needed to distinguish between the "country side of [her] voice," with its deliberate exaggeration of her peppery Texas twang, and her more relaxed pop mode. She hunkered down with her collaborators to make her debut album, an appealing portrait of young womanhood's vacillation between audacity and insecurity that was framed with precise picking, brittle beats and whooshing synths.

Says RaeLynn, "I felt with my other records, 'This has to sound like this.' And instead of stressing about where it should fit in, we just made the record we loved and what we thought sounded incredible and what I wanted to hear over and over again."

McAnally was put in charge of a major label imprint last year (along with Musgraves' manager Jason Owen), and one of his first moves was to sign Walker Hayes, who'd gotten zero traction earlier in the decade with an amiable, Barenaked Ladies-ish, pop-rock angle on country. Cribbing a move from the Sam Hunt playbook, McAnally had helped lay the groundwork for Hayes's rebranding as a breezily wisecracking, beatboxing, sung-spoken storyteller by releasing a pair of minimalistic mixtapes, cheekily dubbed 8-tracks, through his publishing company in 2016. For the proper album that followed, they made only minor tweaks to the formula: a live rhythm section here, a whimsical piano countermelody there. It would've been hard to imagine Hayes's DIY-style quirkiness and mischievous, Macklemore-ish delivery adding up to a top 10 country album several years back.

"Now that I know what's possible, if I meet an artist that somebody else thinks just does not fit, that makes me really drawn to 'em," McAnally explains. "That was the Walker Hayes story. The more I heard people say, 'This will never work on country,' that made me want to work with him more. And [I] wanted to push him more and say, 'What would you do if you had no limitations?'"

During a recent event at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum honoring the accomplishments of Cindy Mabe, the president of UMG Nashville, the label exec spoke of how much more sustainable and satisfying it is working with artists who have distinct musical identities, personas and vantage points, who have potential to be what she called "disrupters" of the format's status quo, rather than soundalikes. That wasn't just business speak. There's an element of self-awareness to country's current evolution, which is not to imply that there's any sort of coordinated, industry-wide effort to counterbalance the excesses of the bro country years. Individuals involved in making or promoting the music have ideas about where they'd like to see the genre go, what elements they want to add to the mix, what the multi-generational audience will identify with. That's a big reason why a mover-and-shaker like McAnally takes on such a wide array of projects (including those on the traditional side, like Midland's meticulously crafted Urban Cowboy update ). It's a way of trying to make room.

When Hayes took up familiar country themes, like a marriage ruined by drinking, he did so from a fresh, acutely diaristic angle, describing in detail what it's like to stew in self-loathing, unable to toss out the last beer haunting him in the fridge. Likewise, the title track of Rhett's album Life Changes was a droll summation of his journey from aimless college kid to country headliner whose fans follow his wife on Instagram. Both songs were in step with " Drinkin' Too Much ," the sleeper that Hunt quietly released ahead of "Body Like a Back Road." "Drinkin'" was meant to feel like it was ripped straight from the pages of his life. Over fingerpicked acoustic guitar, Hunt bared his guilt-ridden soul to an ex — whom he identified by name — pleading, "I know you want your privacy, and you've got nothing to say to me/But I wish you'd let me pay off your student loans with these songs you gave to me." People compared it to " Marvin's Room ," a likeness Hunt surely recognized himself, having frequently including the Drake song in his live sets . "Drinkin'" may not have been a smash, but it may be an indication of where country-pop is headed from here.

In the past, country artists weren't expected to sing their autobiographies in any literal sense. But in songs like these, and those by a small but growing number of compelling, post-Musgraves arrivals like Kassi Ashton and Jillian Jacqueline , the implication is that they're conveying the specificity of their experiences and asserting their individuality. That's happening on a musical level too, with those importing the outsider postures of pop-punk and emo (see: Kalie Shorr , Muscadine Bloodline , Tucker Beathard ) and preparing to put out albums that flaunt their musical eccentricities, be it Dierks Bentley's gestures toward mountain mysticism or the Brothers Osborne's funky, wild-eyed improvisation . Stapleton's impact can certainly be seen in the momentum building behind brawny, band-based music-making.

Pop music has become increasingly withdrawn of late, alienated in its skepticism and chilly textures. A hermetic aesthetic would never fly in country, where there's a premium placed on conveying widely shared sentiments and just generally being accessible. But artists sprinkled across the country landscape, from the fringes to dead center, are exploring the potential of playing up the particular. And Musgraves is once again clearing and claiming space for her music, this time just a few steps beyond where some of the most interesting country-pop action is.

On Golden Hour , she hasn't entirely abandoned the tools with which she built her persona, the understated sarcasm, subtle use of psychedelic western imagery or artfully idiosyncratic references to kitsch. But none of that is the main event. Musgraves' new priorities are pensive reflection, confessional clarity and delicate sentimentality in the key of classic country and pop. And her current fascination? What comes of outgrowing the appeal of blissfully detached, carefully curated images and deciding to explore the emotional landscape beneath them.

There's an airy lift to the album's melodies and a sparkling sophistication to its textures, all gentle strumming, crystalline steel guitar, precise, plucked banjo and gauzy synths. The overall effect brings to mind everything from Glen Campbell to Laurel Canyon singer-songwriters, Beck's moony introspection on the album Sea Change and the adult folk-pop of Mindy Smith .

That's no accident. Musgraves co-produced the album with a new pair of collaborators, Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian, with whom she also co-wrote just over half of its 13 tracks. Though Tashian and Fitchuk have each assembled quite a list of mainstream country credits in recent years, they first found their footing working with the quietly refined voices that populated the Nashville songwriting scene, like Smith, Sarah Siskind , Griffin House and Tashian's own soft rock band The Silver Seas . Now Musgraves's latest work is uniting contemporary perspectives, intimate expression and awareness of writerly lineage in a way that nobody in her space quite has before.

• Kacey Musgraves
• Maren Morris

Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Music — Country Music

Essays on Country Music

The importance of writing an essay on country music.

Country music is a genre that has been a significant part of American culture for decades. Writing an essay on country music is important because it allows you to explore the history, evolution, and impact of this genre on society. Country music has not only influenced the music industry but has also reflected the social and political climate of the times. By writing an essay on country music, you can analyze the themes, lyrics, and musical elements that make this genre unique.

Writing Tips for an Essay on Country Music

• Research: Before you start writing, conduct thorough research on the history of country music, influential artists, and key events that have shaped the genre.
• Outline: Create an outline to organize your thoughts and ideas. This will help you structure your essay and ensure that you cover all the relevant points.
• Thematic Analysis: Consider exploring the recurring themes in country music, such as love, heartache, patriotism, and rural life. Discuss how these themes have evolved over time and their significance in the genre.
• Impact on Society: Examine the influence of country music on society, including its representation of cultural values, traditions, and the portrayal of rural America.
• Musical Elements: Discuss the musical elements that define country music, such as instrumentation, vocal styles, and songwriting techniques. Analyze how these elements contribute to the genre's distinct sound.
• Summarize your findings and provide insights into the enduring popularity and relevance of country music in contemporary culture.

Writing an essay on country music provides an opportunity to delve into the rich history and cultural significance of this genre. By following these writing tips, you can effectively explore the various aspects of country music and convey its importance to your readers.

• The Evolution of Country Music: From its roots in folk and blues to its modern-day sound
• The Influence of Country Music on American Culture
• The Role of Women in Country Music
• The Influence of Country Music on Other Genres
• The Relationship Between Country Music and Politics
• The Influence of Country Music on Film and Television
• The Rise of Country Music Festivals
• The Influence of Country Music on Fashion
• The Global Appeal of Country Music
• The Future of Country Music

Country music is a vibrant and ever-changing genre that has had a significant impact on American culture and the world of music. From its humble beginnings in the rural South to its current status as a mainstream music genre, country music continues to evolve and shape the world around it. Whether it's through its influence on fashion, film, and television, or its global appeal, country music remains a powerful force in the world of music and entertainment.

The Perception of The Country Music by Audience in The USA

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The Nashville Sound and Development of Country Music

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A Report on The Country Music Concert

The song ‘i will always love you’, changes in today’s country music, informative speech: ryan upchurch, compare and contrast country and pop, relevant topics.

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Articles on Country music

Displaying 1 - 20 of 27 articles.

The real ‘Big Bang’ of country music: How Vernon Dalhart’s 1924 breakthrough recordings launched a genre

Ted Olson , East Tennessee State University

The genius of Cowboy Carter is Beyoncé’s accent – a musicologist explains

Conor Caldwell , University of Limerick

Beyoncé and Dolly Parton’s versions of Jolene represent two sides of southern femininity

Kadian Pow , Birmingham City University

Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ transmits joy, honours legends and challenges a segregated industry

Vinita Srivastava , The Conversation and Ateqah Khaki , The Conversation

Beyoncé’s ‘Blackbiird’ breathes new life into a symbol that has inspired centuries of Black artists, musicians and storytellers

Katie Kapurch , Texas State University and Jon Marc Smith , Texas State University

The most important voice on Beyoncé’s new album

William Nash , Middlebury

With Beyoncé’s foray into country music, the genre may finally break free from the stereotypes that have long dogged it

Small-town America’s never-ending struggle to maintain its values hasn’t always been good for US democracy

Joseph Patrick Kelly , College of Charleston

How Canadian R&B artists like Drake and Justin Bieber complicate ideas of race, music and nationality

Amara Pope , Western University

How this summer’s hit ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ was appropriated by both the right and left

Frédérick Guillaume Dufour , Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and Alexis Harton , Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

With ‘Goodbye Mary,’ Molly Tuttle extends country music’s lineage of reproductive rights songs to the post-Roe  era

Tina Turner: an immense talent with a voice and back catalogue that unites disparate music lovers

Freya Jarman , University of Liverpool

Willie Nelson at 90: Country music’s elder statesman still on the road again

Jason Mellard , Texas State University

Doc Watson at 100: The virtuoso guitarist brought Appalachian music to a worldwide audience and influenced generations of musicians

Loretta Lynn was more than a great songwriter – she was a spokeswoman for white rural working-class  women

Stephanie Vander Wel , University at Buffalo

Lil Nas X’s dance with the devil evokes tradition of resisting, mocking religious demonization

S. Kyle Johnson , Boston College

Charley Pride – country music has obscured and marginalised its Black roots

Liam Kennedy , University College Dublin

Winter Winds by hippy cowboy Mickey Newbury: the perfect soundtrack to wintry times

John Willsteed , Queensland University of Technology

When the Calgary Stampede rises again, so too will local roots, folk & country musicians

Gillian Turnbull , Toronto Metropolitan University

Dolly Parton’s broad appeal: She understands alienation, home and the need to belong

Travis Salway , Simon Fraser University

Related Topics

• Dolly Parton
• Music history
• Music industry
• Popular music

Top contributors

Professor of American Studies and English, Middlebury

Adjunct Lecturer of American Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Professor of Appalachian Studies and Bluegrass, Old-Time and Roots Music Studies, East Tennessee State University

Course Director MA (Music Industries), University of Liverpool

Director of the Center for Texas Music History, Texas State University

Assistant Professor of Writing Studies, University of British Columbia

Associate Professor of Music, University at Buffalo

Professor of Literature and Director of Irish and Irish American Studies, College of Charleston

Reader in the Department of Music, University of Liverpool

Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities, School of Information Studies (Faculty of Arts), L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

Professeur en sociologie politique, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

Lecturer in Anthropology, Catholic University of Malawi

PhD Candidate/Teaching Fellow in Systematic Theology, Boston College

Étudiant à la maîtrise en sociologie, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

Assistant Professor in Irish Traditional Music, University of Limerick

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Research Guide

Many of the assignments you complete this semester will require you to locate research sources that relate to particular artists and subgenres. The UT Library system provides you access to many databases and materials, but still you will have to do some investigating. This guide will address the following topics:

• Searching for Artists Related to Your Topic
• Finding Sound Recordings (CDs)
• Finding Album (Liner) Notes
• Finding Books and Book Chapters
• Getting Copies of Book Chapters
• Finding Articles in Journals and Other Periodicals
• Using Other Online Resources

1. Searching for Artists Related to Your Topic

In Unit 1, you will research a subgenre of country music (close harmony, western swing, country rock, etc.). You will find some compilation CDs, book chapters, and other written materials by searching for the subgenre. However, you will find even more if you search for the names of artists that are commonly associated with the subgenre.

Before you conduct your research, do quick Google and Wikipedia searches for the subgenre, and keep a list of the performers that are referred to. If you do this, you will know that searching for the Delmore Brothers will help you with close harmony, searching for Bob Wills will help you with western swing, and searching for the Byrds will help you with country rock. (These are just a few examples; you will find many more.)

2. Finding Sound Recordings (CDs)

The more you read about country music, the more you will want to listen to it. You can buy music in lots of places, including iTunes and the Amazon Mp3 store, but you can also listen to and collect the vast majority of country music without spending a dime.

Borrowing CDs from the UT Library: The Fine Arts Library has an incredible inventory of country music, including rare materials and expensive box sets.

• Start at the UT Library’s homepage .
• Click the “Catalog” tab on the teal search box. Then click the “CDs” box. These steps will ensure that your results include materials that are physically available at UT, but exclude  older formats (LPs, 8-tracks, etc.) that you probably cannot play.
• Type the name of the artist, song, or album you’re researching, and press “Search.”
• When you find an item you want to borrow, click the “Pick It Up” button on the top left of the search screen. After you input your UT EID and password, you will be able to select the library location to which you would like the music to be delivered. You will receive an email when the item is available for pick-up (it usually takes 2-3 days).
• Note the “Subject” row that appears near the bottom of most item listings. I have found a lot of helpful resources by clicking on the subjects I am interested in (for example, “Country Music — 1961-1980”) and exploring the related materials.

Borrowing CDs from the Austin Public Library: The APL also boasts an extensive collection of country music, and it usually gets new CDs before the UT Library does.

• To check items out, you will need to apply for a library card. This is an easy process that only takes a few minutes. All you need is a photo ID and a piece of mail with your local address. Take a look at the application form . Note that you must be 18+.
• Start at the APL’s homepage . Type the name of the artist, song, or album you’re interested in into the search box on the top right of the screen. Press “Search.”
• On the results screen, you will note a sidebar that will limit the items that are listed by location and format. If you have a lot of results, try checking the “Music CD” box.
• When you find an item you want to borrow, click the “Place a Hold” button. After you input your card number and password, you will be able to select the  library location  to which you would like the music to be delivered. You will receive an email when the item is available for pick-up (it usually takes 4-5 days).

Downloading older albums from file-sharing websites : If you are researching artists who recorded before 1970, you will probably find some of their albums on websites like Don’t Fence Me In , Lonesome Lefty’s Scratchy Attic , or Uncle Gil’s Rockin’ Archives . The guys running these sites update them constantly, so be sure to check back often.

You can also listen to many songs (without downloading them) on YouTube and Vimeo .

3. Finding Album (Liner) Notes

Sometimes the best information about an artist or subgenre is contained in an album’s liner notes. In fact, there is even a Grammy Award for the Best Album Notes written in a particular year, and albums like Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison (1969), Bob Wills’ For the Last Time (1975), and The Blue Sky Boys (1977) have won or been nominated for it.

It can be difficult to tell from a CD’s listing on the UT or Austin Public Library sites which albums have extensive liner notes, and which ones don’t. The UT Library usually lists how many pages there are in the album booklet, which can sometimes be a clue. However, the best way to find useful liner notes is to look for retrospective (“greatest hits”) compilations or reissues of highly influential albums (like the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo ).

Two companies that consistently recruit excellent people to write them are Rhino and Bear Family. In addition to its great single-artist collections, Rhino is also responsible for the excellent “Heroes of Country Music” series. Bear Family is a German label that puts out enormous, expensive box sets chronicling the careers of country legends like the Carter Family, Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, and Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner. The UT Library owns about 150 Bear Family sets, which you can explore by searching “Bear Family.”

4. Finding Books and Book Chapters

There are lots of books about country music, but generally these fall into four categories: (1) encyclopedic overviews that sum up the whole of country music; (2) books that address specialized topics within country music like race, gender, or a particular subgenre; (3) artist biographies; and (4) artist autobiographies. Some of these books may be written by one author, others by multiple authors. Our textbook, WTCBU , spans these categories.

You will find excellent information printed in books, but let’s be real. You have a deadline and lots of better things to do than read entire books. Fortunately, you can usually figure out what is in a book without even picking it up. Here are a few recommendations:

Start by searching the MLA International Bibliography.

• On the Library’s homepage , click “Databases” and then the letter “M.” On the following screen, click the “MLA International Bibliography” link.
• If you are not connected to UT’s wireless service, you will need to enter your UT EID and password. After that, conduct a search using terms related to your topic.
• On the results page, you will find journal articles, book articles (chapters), and book collections (whole books) connected to your topic. The icon on each listing’s left side will tell you what type of text it is. For example, the following item is a chapter about Dolly Parton in a book called Reading Country Music (1998).
• When you find a chapter that interests you, see if the book is available at UT.

Skim the table of contents in several country-related books.

There are lots of books about country music, but not so many that you can’t browse their tables of contents. I find this information in three different places:

• The UT Library’s webpage. Starting at the Library’s homepage , I click “Catalog” and “Books.” Then, I enter a search term (“honky tonk”) or the title of a country-related book that I know ( Will the Circle Be Unbroken ). I scroll through the results, looking for other titles that may be relevant. I also click the author’s name or the subjects listed on the bottom of the item’s page, which link me to other potential resources. Most of the time, the item page will include its table of contents, but not always.
• Amazon.com. If the UT Library’s site doesn’t include a book’s table of contents, I look it up at Amazon. If a book’s picture includes the “Look Inside” icon, you can skim its first few pages, which usually include the table of contents. The item pages at Amazon also include sections for related titles and “Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed.” I have found a lot of resources following these recommendations.
• Google Books . If I can’t find a table of contents at the UT Library’s page  or Amazon, I try Google Books. At Google Books, you can also conduct searches through their vast collections of texts, but it’s hard to say what you will and won’t be able to see.

5. Getting Copies of Book Chapters

The awesome thing about modern research is that you can do almost all of it without stepping away from your computer. In the previous section, I suggested you use electronic resources to figure out what’s inside a particular book. If something interests you, you can have the library scan and deliver it to you electronically.

• From the UT Library’s homepage , click “Library Services” and then “Interlibrary Services.” On the following screen, click “Get a Scan.”
• After you enter your UT EID and password, you will complete a form letting the library’s staff know exactly what you need. Be prepared to give them the book’s name, the book’s author, the title of the chapter, and the chapter’s pages. (If you don’t know the page numbers, type “don’t know”).
• You can request scans for chapters from books that UT owns as well as from books that it does not own . In the latter case, UT will request it from another library.
• It usually takes 2-3 days for the scanned text to arrive, and you will be notified by email when it is available. You will download it by returning to the Library’s site.
• Note that some books, for example Paul Kingsbury’s Encyclopedia of Country Music , are available through the UT Library as e-books. Please do not submit chapter requests for e-books because you can download those on your own.

6. Finding Articles in Journals and Other Periodicals

Many of the best journal and magazine articles are republished as chapters in books, so you should be prepared for some overlap. The UT Library has access to many databases, but some of the best ones for finding articles about country music are the Academic Search Complete, MLA International Bibliography, and Music Index.

• On the Library’s homepage , click “Databases.” If you want to use the Academic Search Complete, you can click the quick link that is located under the search bar. For the MLA International Bibliography and Music Index, click the letter “M.”
• If you receive a large number of results, you can use the left sidebar to limit them by date of publication and type. See the following image:
• Sometimes, you are able to download articles directly from the database. For example, the full text of item #2 in the above image is available as a PDF file.
• More often, you will need to track down articles that seem interesting to you by using the UT Library’s other resources. Open another window, return to the UT Library’s homepage, and click the “Journals” tab. Type the journal’s name into the search bar.
• If the journal is available at UT, the following screen will tell you how to download articles from it. Note that you will need to remember the date and volume number.
• If the journal is not available, UT will find a copy for you at another institution. From the UT Library’s homepage , click “Library Services” and then “Interlibrary Services.”
• On the following screen, click “Borrowing.” After you have entered your UT EID and password, you will be able to input information about the article that will help the library’s staff locate it. Try to input as much information as possible (all of it should be available on the original database listing).

7. Using Other Online Resources

Eventually, you will want to also consult the wealth of resources available to you on the internet outside of the UT and Austin Public Library databases. Here are a few options:

• Google.com . I’m guessing you know how to use this.
• Google Scholar . In theory, Google Scholar collates the same sources as the Academic Search Complete and other databases owned by the UT Library. However, I have often found different items here. I also love that each listing tells you how many other people have cited it and (if you click on the number) who they are. If you find a source you want, you can request it from the UT Library.
• Wikipedia . You probably have used Wikipedia before. But you may not know that if you scroll to the bottom of an entry you will see a list of research sources. Some of these are linked; you can request sources that are not linked from the UT Library.
• Search for:

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country music , style of American popular music that originated in rural areas of the South and West in the early 20th century. The term country and western music (later shortened to country music ) was adopted by the recording industry in 1949 to replace the derogatory label hillbilly music .

Ultimately, country music’s roots lie in the ballads, folk songs, and popular songs of the English, Scots, and Irish settlers of the Appalachians and other parts of the South. In the early 1920s the traditional string-band music of the Southern mountain regions began to be commercially recorded, with Fiddlin’ John Carson garnering the genre’s first hit record in 1923. The vigour and realism of the rural songs, many lyrics of which were rather impersonal narratives of tragedies pointing to a stern Calvinist moral , stood in marked contrast to the often mawkish sentimentality of much of the popular music of the day.

More important than recordings for the growth of country music was broadcast radio. Small radio stations appeared in the larger Southern and Midwestern cities in the 1920s, and many devoted part of their airtime to live or recorded music suited to white rural audiences. Two regular programs of great influence were the “National Barn Dance” from Chicago , begun in 1924, and the “Grand Ole Opry” from Nashville , begun in 1925. The immediate popularity of such programs encouraged more recordings and the appearance of talented musicians from the hills at radio and record studios. Among these were the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers , whose performances strongly influenced later musicians. These early recordings were of ballads and country dance tunes and featured the fiddle and guitar as lead instruments over a rhythmic foundation of guitar or banjo . Other instruments occasionally used included Appalachian dulcimer , harmonica , and mandolin ; vocals were done either by a single voice or in high close harmony .

With the migration of many Southern rural whites to industrial cities during the Great Depression and World War II , country music was carried into new areas and exposed to new influences, such as blues and gospel music . The nostalgic bias of country music, with its lyrics about grinding poverty, orphaned children, bereft lovers, and lonely workers far from home, held special appeal during a time of wide-scale population shifts.

During the 1930s a number of “singing cowboy” film stars, of whom Gene Autry was the best known, took country music and with suitably altered lyrics made it into a synthetic and adventitious “western” music. A second and more substantive variant of country music arose in the 1930s in the Texas-Oklahoma region, where the music of rural whites was exposed to the swing jazz of black orchestras. In response, a Western swing style evolved in the hands of Bob Wills and others and came to feature steel and amplified guitars and a strong dance rhythm . An even more important variant was honky-tonk , a country style that emerged in the 1940s with such figures as Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams . Honky-tonk’s fiddle–steel-guitar combination and its bitter, maudlin lyrics about rural whites adrift in the big city were widely adopted by other country musicians.

The same period saw a concerted effort to recover some of country music’s root values. Mandolin player Bill Monroe and his string band , the Blue Grass Boys , discarded more recently adopted rhythms and instruments and brought back the lead fiddle and high harmony singing . His banjoist, Earl Scruggs , developed a brilliant three-finger picking style that brought the instrument into a lead position. Their music, with its driving, syncopated rhythms and instrumental virtuosity, took the name “ bluegrass ” from Monroe’s band.

But commercialization proved a much stronger influence as country music became popular in all sections of the United States after World War II. In 1942 Roy Acuff , one of the most important country singers, co-organized in Nashville the first publishing house for country music. Hank Williams’ meteoric rise to fame in the late 1940s helped establish Nashville as the undisputed centre of country music, with large recording studios and the Grand Ole Opry as its chief performing venue . In the 1950s and ’60s country music became a huge commercial enterprise , with such leading performers as Tex Ritter , Johnny Cash , Tammy Wynette , Buck Owens , Merle Haggard , Patsy Cline , Loretta Lynn , and Charley Pride . Popular singers often recorded songs in a Nashville style, while many country music recordings employed lush orchestral backgrounds.

The 1970s saw the growth of the “ outlaw ” music of prominent Nashville expatriates Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings . The gap between country and the mainstream of pop music continued to narrow in that decade and the next as electric guitars replaced more traditional instruments and country music became more acceptable to a national urban audience. Country retained its vitality into the late 20th century with such diverse performers as Dolly Parton , Randy Travis , Garth Brooks , Reba McEntire , Emmylou Harris , and Lyle Lovett . Its popularity continued unabated into the 21st century, exemplified by performers Kenny Chesney , Brad Paisley , Alan Jackson , Blake Shelton , Carrie Underwood , Miranda Lambert , the Zac Brown Band, and Chris Stapleton, among others. Despite its embrace of other popular styles, country music retained an unmistakable character as one of the few truly indigenous American musical styles.

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CMA-Commissioned Study Examines Country Music’s Multicultural Audience Opportunities & Barriers

The study, conducted by Horowitz Research, delves into the perceptions surrounding country music.

By Jessica Nicholson

Jessica Nicholson

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As country music grapples with how to become more inclusive, a study commissioned by the Country Music Association reveals that while the number of  people of color enjoying the genre is rising, 20% of BIPOC attendees say they experienced racial profiling and/or harassment at a country music live event–and 20% of white people say they have witnessed it.

That was one of the key takeaways from “Country Music’s Multicultural Opportunity,” a Horowitz Research study commissioned by the CMA, whose results were presented during a Dec. 7 webinar by CMA senior director of market research Karen Stump and Horowitz’s chief revenue officer and insights & strategy lead Adriana Waterston.

Chart Rewind: In 1999, Chely Wright Got a No. 1 Country 'Single'

The study also weighed participants’ perception of “things that happen ‘more’ at country music events” (but didn’t specify as opposed to what other kind of events), with 50% of overall respondents who had listened to country music at a live music venue saying they “feel more like it is a family-friendly event” than other events, and 33% saying they “feel safe” “more at a country music events.” Additionally, 17%  perceived that seeing racist symbols (certain flags or hand gestures) happens more at country music events.

Trending on Billboard

White listeners over-indexed for many of the “positive” feelings listed, while Black listeners more frequently reported feeling uncomfortable, feeling that that they stand out due to their race/ethnicity.

The study emphasized the importance of reframing the perception that the country audience is “white,” given that the research showed that one in four Black and Latinx fans and one in five Asians listen to country music on a weekly basis.

The Horowitz study included a three-week online community of Black, Latinx, Asian and white participants, as well as an online survey of more than 4,000 consumers, ages 18 and older, 1,000 of whom identified as Latinx, 1,000 as Black, 1,000 as Asian and 1,000 as white/non-Latinx.

As the country becomes more multi-culturally diverse, it is vital that the country music community find a way to reach potential listeners who may feel excluded from the genre. Over the last decade, the multi-racial population grew by 30%, according to the Horowitz research. Specifically, the white population declined 8%, while Hispanic and Asian-American populations grew by 20% each and the Black U.S. population grew by 8.5%.

Reaching Multicultural Audiences

Multicultural listeners spend 2.9 of every 10 music listening hours with country music, while white/non-Hispanic listeners spend 4.2 out of 10 music listening hours tuning in to country music.

The study showed that in order to increase engagement, engaging fans via video, YouTube and television is essential: While 69% of white participants report viewing music-related video content weekly, that percentage was higher for Black (76%), Latinx (79%) and Asian (75%) study participants.

The study also broke down which audiences used various platforms most frequently, reporting that only 45% of white participants reported using YouTube’s free version, as compared to 51% of Black participants, 55% of Asian participants and 55% of Latinx participants. Overall, Black participants overindexed on platforms including YouTube’s free version, TikTok and Instagram, while Latinx study participants overindexed on platforms including YouTube’s free version, Spotify, Tiktok and Instagram. Asian study participants overindexed on YouTube’s free version as well as Spotify.

Barriers and opportunities

When asked why participants do not listen to country music, the most common response selected was “Just not that into it,” a response selected by 57% of Latinx participants, 53% of Black participants and 59% of Asian participants.

Drilling down, Black, Latinx and Asian study participants said barriers keeping them from engaging with country music included not receiving streaming music playlists/recommendations that include country music, as well as feeling that the country music industry is not interested in attracting people of color to the genre, that the country music industry does not market or advertise to them and that they do not see enough Black, Latinx and Asian artists in country music.

According to the study, 35% of participants believe the industry is not interested in attracting people of color. However, among study participants who identify as “core” country music listeners, 71% of white core listeners feel that country music is becoming more diverse lately, as do 66% of core Asian country music listeners, 59% of core Latinx listeners and 66% of core Black listeners.

Working to Diversity Country Music

Asked which initiatives could have the most impact on attracting higher multicultural listenership in country music, the most-cited response from Black, Latinx and Asian participants was collaborations with artists of other genres, as well as seeing more Black, Latinx, Asian and other diverse country music artists, seeing more artists speak up for racial and social justice and the industry itself doing more to celebrate cultural diversity.

The study found that it is not only Black, Latinx and Asian country music listeners who support these initiatives. Among the “white core” country music listeners in the study, many agreed with the same initiatives. 67% said they “Very/Somewhat agree” that they would like to see more collaborations between country artists and artists in other music genres, while 60% selected that they “Very/Somewhat agree” with seeing more Black, Latinx, Asian, and diverse artists in country music, while 59% supported the industry doing more to celebrate cultural diversity. 58% of white core country music listener participants supported artists speaking up for racial/social justice.

CORRECTION : This story has been updated to reflect the percentage of respondents who answered questions based on their perception of things that happen “more” at country music events. The story originally reported the data as percentage of respondents who had experienced a specific action at a concert, not perceived it in relation to other events. 

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Country music — Why Is It Doing So Well?

Toby Barrett

The Northwestern Business Review

Love it or hate it — country music is trending upward.

Indeed, the genre boasts huge recent growth, making up 8.6% of 2021 album sales (as compared to pop’s 10.7%), according to MRC Data. And, according to the Country Music Association, 51% of adults in America are listeners.

More recently, MRC Data’s 2021 U.S. Year-End report named country artist Morgan Wallen’s album Dangerous: The Double Album the most popular album of the year .

The recent growth of country music presents a complex question: how — despite its seemingly exclusive regional ties and poor reputation — is country music quickly becoming one of the biggest genres in the American music industry?

Country has a long past of growth. While tracing its roots to the early 20th century, the genre’s mainstream growth stems from ’50s and ’60s . Much of country’s growth continued from this period into the 21st century.

Bienen musicology professor D.J. Hoek said that some of the technical aspects of the music contributed to the genre’s continuous success.

“One of the things I think that’s helped country music as a genre maintain some distinction and some appeal to some people is that it’s still very songwriter-driven,” Hoek said. “There are songs that are carefully written, and they follow in most cases a pretty traditional established form and structure. American popular music song form … verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, maybe have a guitar solo in there, you’re done.”

However, country’s somewhat specific targeted regional appeal seems to put people off.

Indeed, Chicago native, non-country music fan and McCormick sophomore Francia Quirarte cited the regional demographic of country listeners as a reason people may not listen.

“It probably would have something do to with some of the people that listen to it … most of country listeners I feel like are from the south,” Quirarte said. “Some of the south is known for being aggressively Republican, and so maybe that’s why some people don’t like country.”

While the music features rural themes, and the singers themselves usually intone with certain southern and midwestern accents, Weinberg freshman and country fan Tyler Powderly maintains that the music is relatable, which gives it appeal.

“My family, we all started listening to it, and I like how it’s a story,” Powderly, from Massachusetts, said. “You actually can relate a little bit to lyrics … maybe sometimes you can relate to the themes and the music’s easy to listen to. It’s usually happy tones.”

Jaren “Grey” Carpenter, member of local country music group Yankee Cowboy Band, feels similarly.

“When I started with the country music, it was like, ‘Oh, this is real,’” Carpenter said. “This is somebody’s real life. There’s these ballads about love, about heartbreak, that I couldn’t even begin to feel until like later in life when I was like, ‘Oh, that that song really means more to me now,’ but even then I knew it was real. And then there’s like these party songs that just get you going and there’s just the broad spectrum of human emotion is all within one genre.”

And while the themes may not be those that typically represent city life, country music is huge in Chicago itself, which leads Spotify country music streaming, according to Carpenter.

“Most country artists on Spotify, their top city is Chicago,” Carpenter said. “I mean, it’s a very big city too, so just the sheer numbers probably help it out. But I think in Chicago there are a lot of folks who are not from a city or not from Chicago. I think it still has a lot of broad appeal to people who grew up in small towns and moved to the city.”

A Chartmetric study presented at the Country Radio Seminar Febuary 2022 confirms this: America’s largest cities dominated the market share of non-unique listeners by city, with Chicago holding 12%, Dallas holding 14%, Atlanta holding 15%, Los Angeles holding 8%, Houston holding 12% and New York City holding 9% of total market shares.

So, while country music may seem too specifically rural in its appeal and features repetitive form and themes, it seems to be reaching and garnering support from less rural areas.

Another critique of country is lacking diversity both within the industry and across its fanbase: the genre has a long history of racism and poor diversity , which could make it hard to reach broader audiences. The Country Music Hall of Fame inducted only its third Black artist this year (Ray Charles) and the only two Black country artists to hit number one on the Billboard — Darius Rucker and Jimmie Brown — did so in 2008 and 2018, respectively.

And, according to Powderly, the industry is not doing anything to fix its exclusion.

“There’s not necessarily an active movement to increase the diversity in the country’s industry,” Powderly said. “When country music first kind of originated, there was zero diversity. But now there is more, just obviously not nearly as much as other industries.”

Carpenter feels disappointed that the industry does not try to extend its reach and worries that the gatekeeping may prevent increased diversity within the industry, he said.

“I’ve definitely seen it growing,” Carpenter said. “It is unfortunate that it’s taken this long. There are a lot of diverse fans of country music … I don’t think country music makes enough of an effort to reach out to those fans. They’re worried about upsetting their fan base.”

In “Country Music’s Multicultural Opportunity,” a Country Music Association-commissioned study released in 2021, researchers found that 35% of people did not believe there was a real interest across the country music industry in improving multiracial appeal. Participants in the study included a sample of both listeners of country music and non-country-music fans.

Although diversity in ountry has been poor historically, perhaps as country becomes more mainstream, the problem will gain more attention.

“I mean, as anything mainstream, people tend to scrutinize it more and more,” Powderly said. “People will ask those questions, like, ‘Why isn’t there as much diversity?’ And then maybe something will start to change from there.”

Indeed, Kane Brown — a biracial country artist — ranked in the top 10 in most popular country albums in 2021, and Allen won New Artist of the Year at the 2021 Country Music Awards. According to the Country Music Association study, the diversity of the country music fanbase is growing as well. With country music gaining more traction across demographics across the country, as well as earning more mainstream attention and becoming more popular in America’s biggest cities, it seems likely that country music’s growth is not done.

In addition, the Chartmetric study found that the current country music audience is largely comprised of Americans 18 to 24 in age.

Taking into account the age of the majority of country music’s fanbase, as well as the genre’s growth, development and Chicago-area support, Wildcats may be hearing more and more guitars, violins and harmonicas.

Written by Toby Barrett

Text to speech

Department of English

Literature and Digital Diversity

The country corpora: an analysis of country music before and after 9/11, special thanks to sarah connell, ash clark, and micah weston for helping me (try to) learn python for my scraping journey there was no way i could’ve pulled this together without all of your help and support., introduction.

I grew up in rural Upstate New York, just below the Adirondacks. In case you’re unfamiliar with the area, it’s similar to living in the American South but with lots and lots of snow in the wintertime. Given the nature of where I lived, I was surrounded by country music for most of my young life. I enjoyed the majority of it, but as I grew older I began to realize a shift in the styles of country music that I’d hear. Instead of hearing The Chicks’ “Cowboy Take Me Away” like I was used to, songs like Zac Brown Band’s “Chicken Fried” or Toby Keith’s “Beer For My Horses” would play constantly on the radio. I’d always wondered what had happened to the music I used to love, and didn’t get anything close to an answer until I had nearly finished high school.

Music has historically been used as an outlet for a particular generation of people to express their thoughts, from anti-war sentiments with rock of the ’60s and ’70s, to antiracist ideals with modern-day rap and hip-hop. Country music is no exception. The most memorable songs of the mid-to-late 1900s often discuss the lives of working-class Americans living in rural areas, like “Coal Miner’s Daughter” by Loretta Lynn and “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton, for example. While this theme is still seen in the country music of today, topics like beer, trucks, girls, and God seem to steal the show. Though often anecdotal in evidence, many point to the attacks on September 11, 2001 as the reason why country music shifted to its current beer-drinkin’, tractor-ridin’, all-American state. The patriotism embraced by the nation during the War on Terror, especially in rural areas, is reflected in many songs explicitly inspired by 9/11 — The Charlie Daniels Band’s “This Ain’t No Rag, It’s a Flag” and Toby Keith’s “American Soldier” to name two. Ironically, though songs like these position the United States as unified against terrorist forces (Boulton, 374), the blatant hyper-patriotism within them has caused a world of generalization, and turned many would-be country fans off to the genre as a whole.

Given the background describes above, my goal for this project was to explore the following research question using the R programming language and word2vec analysis:

Do the lyrics of American country songs reflect the general consensus that an increase in patriotism took place within the genre following September 11, 2001?

That is, do lyrics across the genre contain more words related to patriotism, war, and religion after 9/11 than they did in the years prior to the attacks?  While it may seem that the answers to these questions are simply ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ through my research and the creation of my corpora I observed much more nuance that should be taken into account.

Methodology

The process of creating these corpora was much more involved than I ever anticipated. In order to compare the lyrics of country songs before and after 9/11, I needed to create two corpora. The first, which we shall call the Old Corpus, includes lyrics from country albums from 1950 to 2000. The second, which we can call the New Corpus, contains lyrics from 2002 to 2020. I used the Genius API to scape the lyrics I needed using John W. Miller’s GitHub client LyricsGenius , but ran into several hurdles along the way. After struggling with an inability to scrape due to issues with metadata formatting on Genius (as well as my general lack of knowledge of Python), I was eventually able to pull the lyrics through a combination running code that would search for and write lyrics by album and artist, and copy and pasting the lyrics into text files by hand. The code below is what I used to pull multiple albums at a time. It was crafted by Ash Clark — without eir help I am certain that I would not have been able to complete this project.

names = [‘[insert album here]’,'[insert album here]’] for thisalbum in names: album = genius.search_album(thisalbum, “[insert artist name here]”) album.save_lyrics(extension=’txt’)

Initially, I focused on pulling lyrics from only the most popular artists from each period of time, but after realizing how many more lyrics would be necessary to yield productive results I chose to pull lyrics from prominent artists’ entire discographies. Unfortunately, the corpora were not as large as I would have liked due to the time constraint and the issues explained above, but the Old Corpus and the New Corpus’ models were trained in RStudio with ~811,000 and ~844,000 words, respectively. Rankings from Taste of Country , The Boot , and Billboard were instrumental in choosing what appeared to be country music’s most important artists (and their albums) in the creation of the corpora.

Data and Analysis

Given the way songs are written, there is no single word that allows us to analyze the effects of 9/11 on country music (something like ‘patriotism’ is ridiculously on-the-nose). It is for this reason that I chose to split my analysis of my corpora into a few sections, making queries based on words that fall into one of three categories: religion, nationalism, and military, topics that are generally considered to be found together especially in conversations about rural areas. Looking at several words in each of these categories and finding which terms are closest to them in both the Old Corpus and New Corpus allows us a firmer grasp on the common contexts in which these words are found. Significant change in the contexts from the Old to the New Corpus may tell us a bit more about the contributions post-9/11 patriotism made on the genre.

For this section, I took a look at three terms: ‘pray,’ ‘bible,’ and ‘god.’ While these terms seem rather general and somewhat trivial in the broader conversation of religion’s place in country music, just looking at the 15 terms most similar to these in both the Old and New Corpora offered some intriguing results. It is important to note that country music has seen the rise and fall of different uses of religion in songwriting across the decades. As I saw during the process of building my corpora, many artists in the 1950s and 1960s would often release hymn albums or records where they’d sing gospel in specific. At the end of the 20th century and into the 2000s and 2010s, Christmas albums were much more common than hymnals, a shift that most likely contributed to what is analyzed below.

Looking at the terms most similar to ‘god’ is also quite interesting, providing somewhat similar results to what we saw with ‘pray.’ In the Old Corpus, ‘god’ seems to be found in contexts where religion is spoken about rather broadly. Words like ‘bless,’ ‘lord,’ and ‘prayer’ reflect this, while those like ‘gathers,’ ‘tidings,’ and ‘witness’ point toward contexts where going to a church service is sung about, or perhaps the birth of Jesus Christ is referenced (both of which may be the result of the common hymn records I mentioned earlier). In the New Corpus, ‘god’ appears to be referenced in contexts where they are being thanked for having blessed an individual or a group of people (numbers 2 and 7), or maybe having been a part of a religious upbringing (‘hometowns’ and ‘teaching’). The result I found most interesting here was the inclusion of ‘america’ on the list. Though it doesn’t appear here in the Old Corpus, the phrase ‘God Bless America’ was common in the 20th century because of the song by the same name . This use in the New Corpus may point toward a new focus on religion’s importance to the nation at the start of the 21st century, which is discussed in the next section.

Nationalism

To analyze nationalist tendencies across my corpora (to an admittedly very small extent), I chose queries that would allow me to see the changes that may have taken place in the contexts for the terms ‘america’ and ‘nation.’

When analyzing the first term, one will immediately notice the strange set of words apparently similar to ‘america’ in the Old Corpus (‘le,’ ‘ho,’ ‘eehee,’ etc.). I believe this is the result of grouping of songs from an artist who yodeled in many of their works, though what it has to do with America I cannot infer. When making the query “ w2vModel %>% closest_to(~’america’-‘le’,15)” the results are all <0.3 cosine similarity, but terms include ‘her,’ ‘snoring,’ ‘cope,’ and ‘heartbeat.’

To me, the most interesting takeaways from this query of ‘nation’ use are the Old Corpus’ inclusion of ‘united’ and ‘bleeding,’ and the New Corpus’ ‘vietnam,’ ‘bloody,’ and ‘slinging.’ Interestingly both of these data sets seems to offer a general focus on war, as well as what I believe may be discussion of rural/blue-collar life given the presence of terms like ‘downstairs,’ ‘gears,’ ‘association,’ and ‘backdoor’ in the Old Corpus and ‘factory,’ ‘generation,’ ‘trash,’ and ‘mall’ in the New Corpus.

As the title may suggest, this section is concerned with the queries I made for terms relating to warfare. Specifically, I analyzed use of the terms ‘war,’ ‘army,’ and ‘gun.’ Each of these is rather broad and somewhat blunt, which was a decision I made in order to avoid being too specific for my corpora (the terms ‘terror’ and ‘terrorist,’ for example, produce no results).

Overall, the results I got from my military-related queries were interesting in what they seemed to lack: differences across the corpora. When looking at these data, it seems that songs from the Old Corpus were focused on the more general aspects of war in the cases of the three terms queried. It does seem, though, that songs from the Old Corpus speak to war as a concept whereas the New Corpus offers what one may consider to be a more personal approach to the topic with words like ‘bruises,’ ‘hospital,’ ‘cousins,’ and ‘granddaddy’s.’

Conclusions

Given the relatively small scale of this project, it is difficult to offer any definitive answer to my initial research question, but based on the data presented above I can confirm to a certain extent that country music post-2001 takes a slightly more personal approach to the concepts of religion, war, and patriotism. While country music from 1950 to 2000 certainly has its fair share of emotionally-charged songs, including those relating to war and religion, given the prevalence of the terms shown in the previous sections one can reasonably state that country music of the 21st century is more focused on these areas than it was in preceding years. It goes without saying that much more research can be done into the questions I presented in this project. It is my hope that the preliminary work here allows for the questions to be considered on a much broader scale, perhaps with a more comprehensive method of pulling lyrics for analysis (and perhaps a lyric database offering more accurate lyrics than the fan-contributions of Genius).

Reflections & Looking Forward

A point I think is crucial to make comes from Andrew Boulton’s ‘The Popular Geopolitical Wor(l)ds of Post‐9/11 Country Music, Popular Music and Society’:

“…country music songs do not exist in a vacuum, and that meanings are made both inside and outside the text (O´Tuathail ‘‘Condensing’’). Expectation matters; context matters; lyrics do not speak for themselves. The meaning of the Dixie Chicks’ successful Vietnam-themed song ‘‘Travelin’ Soldier’’ (2003), for example—conceivably glorifying the bravery and sacrifice of a young soldier, in a similar way to Trace Adkins’s reverential ‘‘Arlington’’ (2005)—bears re-reading in light of what we know about the politics of the song’s performers.” (Boulton 375)

Context is ridiculously important when considering song lyrics, especially in dealing with conversations rooted in politics. While Word2Vec modeling offers a glimpse into the contexts individual lyrics are found in, we unfortunately lose the ideological contexts of these artists in the process. As indicated in the Boulton quote above, certain artists may use very similar words in their lyrics, but the meanings may be completely opposite rather than contributing to the same trend.

If future work is to be done on this question using textual analysis, looking at individual country artists’ takes on the aftermath of 9/11 and the War on Terror in general may provide some helpful context. Additionally, looking into other potential causes for the patriotic shift seen in the genre would add dimensions to studies. Perhaps the Great Recession contributed to some of the sentiments seen in country music of the mid 2000s, and maybe the end of the Recession contributed to the party-oriented country music we see nowadays from artists like Florida Georgia Line.

My love for certain types of country music hasn’t changed. If anything, I’ve grown even fonder of the genre as a result of my research. Each artist has something to add to the genre as a whole, and while whether or not September 11, 2001 played a direct role in that creative expression for artists overall, I hope that the data presented in this project has helped make evident that  a  shift has taken place, one that should be examined further.

Works Cited and Further Readings

Boulton, Andrew.  (2008) The Popular Geopolitical Wor(l)ds of Post‐9/11 Country Music, Popular Music and Society, 31:3, 373-387, DOI: 10.1080/03007760701563518

Carraway, Katherine. “A Frustrated Lifelong Fan: Country Music Must Stop Pigeon-Holing Itself: Opinion.” The Tennessean , Nashville Tennessean, 7 Jan. 2020, www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2020/01/07/county-music-pigeon-holed-after-911/2803772001/.

Miller, John W. “Trucks and Beer 🍺.” John W. Miller , 7 Feb. 2018, www.johnwmillr.com/trucks-and-beer/.

This project was created using the CERES: Exhibit Toolkit with help from the Digital Scholarship Group at the Northeastern University Library .

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The Top 10 Most Interesting Music Research Topics

Music is a vast and ever-growing field. Because of this, it can be challenging to find excellent music research topics for your essay or thesis. Although there are many examples of music research topics online, not all are appropriate.

This article covers all you need to know about choosing suitable music research paper topics. It also provides a clear distinction between music research questions and topics to help you get started.

Find your bootcamp match

What makes a strong music research topic.

A strong music research topic must be short, straightforward, and easy to grasp. The primary aim of music research is to apply various research methods to provide valuable insights into a particular subject area. Therefore, your topic must also address issues that are relevant to present-day readers.

Also, for your research topic to be compelling, it should not be overly generic. Try to avoid topics that seem to be too broad. A strong research topic is always narrow enough to draw out a comprehensive and relevant research question.

Tips for Choosing a Music Research Topic

• Check with your supervisor. In some cases, your school or supervisor may have specific requirements for your research. For example, some music programs may favor a comparative instead of a descriptive or correlational study. Knowing what your institution demands is essential in choosing an appropriate research topic.
• Explore scientific papers. Journal articles are a great way to find the critical areas of interest in your field of study. You can choose from a wide range of journals such as The Journal of Musicology and The Journal of the Royal Musical Association . These resources can help determine the direction of your research.
• Determine your areas of interest. Choosing a topic you have a personal interest in will help you stay motivated. Researching music-related subjects is a painstakingly thorough process. A lack of motivation would make it difficult to follow through with your research and achieve optimal results.
• Confirm availability of data sources. Not all music topics are researchable. Before selecting a topic, you must be sure that there are enough primary and secondary data sources for your research. You also need to be sure that you can carry out your research with tested and proven research methods.
• Ask your colleagues: Asking questions is one of the many research skills you need to cultivate. A short discussion or brainstorming session with your colleagues or other music professionals could help you identify a suitable topic for your research paper.

What’s the Difference Between a Research Topic and a Research Question?

A research topic is a particular subject area in a much wider field that a researcher chooses to place his emphasis on. Most subjects are extensive. So, before conducting research, a researcher must first determine a suitable area of interest that will act as the foundation for their investigation.

Research questions are drawn from research topics. However, research questions are usually more streamlined. While research topics can take a more generic viewpoint, research questions further narrow the focus down to specific case studies or seek to draw a correlation between two or more datasets.

How to Create Strong Music Research Questions

Strong music research questions must be relevant and specific. Music is a broad field with many genres and possible research areas. However, your research question must focus on a single subject matter and provide valuable insights. Also, your research question should be based on parameters that can be quantified and studied using available research methods.

Top 10 Music Research Paper Topics

1. understanding changes in music consumption patterns.

Although several known factors affect how people consume music, there is still a significant knowledge gap regarding how these factors influence listening choices. Your music research paper could outline some of these factors that affect music consumer behavior and highlight their mechanism of action.

2. Hip-hop Culture and Its Effect on Teenage Behavior

In 2020, hip-hop and RnB had the highest streaming numbers , according to Statista. Without a doubt, hip-hop music has had a significant influence on the behavior of young adults. There is still the need to conduct extensive research on this subject to determine if there is a correlation between hip-hop music and specific behavioral patterns, especially among teenagers.

3. The Application of Music as a Therapeutic Tool

For a long time, music has been used to manage stress and mental health disorders like anxiety, PTSD, and others. However, the role of music in clinical treatment still remains a controversial topic. Further research is required to separate fact from fiction and provide insight into the potential of music therapy.

4. Contemporary Rock Music and Its Association With Harmful Social Practices

Rock music has had a great influence on American culture since the 1950s. Since its rise to prominence, it has famously been associated with vices such as illicit sex and abuse of recreational drugs. An excellent research idea could be to evaluate if there is a robust causal relationship between contemporary rock music and adverse social behaviors.

5. The Impact of Streaming Apps on Global Music Consumption

Technology has dramatically affected the music industry by modifying individual music consumption habits. Presently, over 487 million people subscribe to a digital streaming service, according to Statista. Your research paper could examine how much of an influence popular music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music have had on how we listen to music.

6. Effective American Music Education Practices

Teaching practices have always had a considerable impact on students’ academic success. However, not all strategies have an equal effect in enhancing learning experiences for students. You can conduct comparative research on two or more American music education practices and evaluate their impact on learning outcomes.

7. The Evolution of Music Production in the Technology-driven Era

One of the aspects of music that is experiencing a massive change is sound production. More than ever before, skilled, tech-savvy music producers are in high demand. At the moment, music producers earn about $70,326 annually, according to ZipRecruiter. So, your research could focus on the changes in music production techniques since the turn of the 21st century.

8. Jazz Music and Its Influence on Western Music Genres

The rich history of jazz music has established it as one of the most influential genres of music since the 19th century. Over the years, several famous composers and leading voices across many other western music genres have been shaped by jazz music’s sound and culture. You could carry out research on the influence of this genre of music on modern types of music.

9. The Effect of Wars on Music

Wars have always brought about radical changes in several aspects of culture, including music styles. Throughout history, we have witnessed wars result in the death of famous musicians. If you are interested in learning about music history in relation to global events, a study on the impact of wars on music will make an excellent music research paper.

10. African Tribal Percussion

African music is well recognized for its unique application of percussion. Historically, several tribes and cultures had their own percussion instruments and original methods of expression. Unfortunately, this musical style has mainly gone undocumented. An in-depth study into ancient African tribal percussion would make a strong music research paper.

Other Examples of Music Research Topics & Questions

Music research topics.

• Popular musical styles of the 20th century
• The role of musical pieces in political movements
• Biographies of influential musicians during the baroque period
• The influence of classical music on modern-day culture
• The relationship between music and fashion

Music Research Questions

• What is the relationship between country music and conservationist ideologies among middle-aged American voters?
• What is the effect of listening to Chinese folk music on the critical thinking skills of high school students?
• How have electronic music production technologies influenced the sound quality of contemporary music?
• What is the correlation between punk music and substance abuse among Black-American males?
• How does background music affect learning and information retention in children?

Choosing the Right Music Research Topic

Your research topic is the foundation on which every other aspect of your study is built. So, you must select a music research topic that gives you room to adequately explore intriguing hypotheses and, if possible, proffer practically applicable solutions.

Also, if you seek to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree in Music , you must be prepared to conduct research during your study. Choosing the right music research topic is the first step in guaranteeing good grades and delivering relevant, high-quality contributions in this constantly expanding field.

Music Research Topics FAQ

A good music research topic should be between 10 to 12 words long. Long, wordy music essay topics are usually confusing. They can make it difficult for readers to understand the goal of your research. Avoid using lengthy phrases or vague terms that could confuse the reader.

Journal articles are the best place to find helpful resources for your music research. You can explore reputable, high-impact journal articles to see if any research has been done related to your chosen topic. Journal articles also help to provide data for comparison while carrying out your research.

Primary sources carry out their own research and cite their own data. In contrast, secondary sources report data obtained from a primary source. Although primary sources are regarded as more credible, you can include a good mixture of primary and secondary sources in your research.

The most common research methods for music research are qualitative, quantitative, descriptive, and analytical. Your research strategy is arguably the most crucial part of your study. You must learn different research methods to determine which one would be the perfect fit for your particular research question.

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Education Related Topics

Country Music Topics

Country Music Topics: Country music, with its rich history and diverse subgenres, offers a plethora of interesting and engaging research topics. Here are some country music topics that you might consider exploring:

• Evolution of Country Music: Tracing the Roots and Influences from Folk and Blues Traditions.
• Women in Country Music: Analyzing the Representation, Challenges, and Contributions of Female Artists.
• Outlaw Country Movement: Examining the Countercultural and Anti-Establishment Aspects of Outlaw Country Music.
• Country Music and Identity: Exploring How Country Music Reflects and Shapes Cultural, Regional, and National Identity.
• Country Music Lyrics: Analyzing Themes, Motifs, and Narratives Across Different Eras and Subgenres.
• Social and Political Commentary in Country Music: Investigating How Country Songs Address Current Issues and Events.
• Bluegrass Music: Tracing the Origins, Techniques, and Influences of this Unique Genre.
• Country Music and Technology: Studying the Impact of Technological Advancements on Country Music Production and Distribution.
• Country Music and the Nashville Sound: Examining the Development and Influence of the Nashville Sound on the Genre.
• Country Music and the Urban-Rural Divide: Exploring the Representation of Rural Life in Country Songs.
• Country Music and Gender Stereotypes: Analyzing the Depiction of Masculinity and Femininity in Country Music Lyrics.
• Country Music Festivals: Investigating the Cultural, Social, and Economic Impact of Country Music Events.
• Country Music and Pop Crossover: Examining the Blurring Boundaries Between Country and Pop Music Styles.
• Honky-Tonk Music and Working-Class Culture: Exploring the Themes of Hardship and Resilience in Honky-Tonk Songs.
• Country Music and Social Movements: Analyzing the Role of Country Music in Civil Rights, Feminist, and Labor Movements.
• Country Music and Nostalgia: Studying How Country Songs Evoke Sentiments of Nostalgia and the Past.
• Country Music and the Digital Age: Investigating How Online Platforms and Social Media Impact Country Music Promotion.
• Country Music Icons: Examining the Lives, Legacies, and Influences of Legendary Country Artists.
• Country Music and Patriotism: Analyzing the Depiction of Patriotism, Nationalism, and American Values in Country Songs.
• Modern Trends in Country Music: Exploring Contemporary Themes, Styles, and Innovations in the Genre.

These country music topics offer a wide range of opportunities to delve into the historical, cultural, social, and artistic aspects of this genre, providing a comprehensive understanding of its significance and influence.

Steve George is Blogger, a marketer and content writer. He has B.A. in Economics from the University of Washington. Read more about Mzuri Mag .

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Best 100 music research topics (just updated).

If you are reading this, you are probably looking for the best music research topics for your next essay. Truth be told, choosing the right topic is very important. It can make the difference between a B and an A, or even between an A and an A+. Unfortunately, choosing the best topics is not as simple as you think. Even though the internet is full of music research topics, most of them are plain and, quite frankly, boring.

Your professor wants more than this. Let’s see why you need the most interesting topics and where you can find them. Of course, you are free to use any of our 100 topics for free and even reword them as you see fit. Read on!

Choosing Good Music Research Topics

By now, you are probably wondering why everyone keeps telling you to come up with the best music topics. The truth is that there are many, many benefits to choosing an awesome topic. Here are just some of them, so you can get a better idea of the importance of a great idea:

• Excellent music research paper topics show your professor that you really did your best to get a top grade.
• A good topic is one that you know much about. It should be relatively easy to you to research it and to write about it.
• An awesome topic will pique the interest of your professor and will keep him or her reading. You will often get bonus points for this.
• Great topics make you stand out from your classmates. Your professor will notice you, and the grade will reflect this.

Where Can You Find Decent Music Topics?

Finding amazing music research topics is easier said than done. Yes, the Internet is full of websites that are offering ideas. There are even websites where you can buy bundles of topics. However, the music argumentative essay topics you will get from these websites are not of the highest quality. Most of them are actually quite boring. And remember, you classmates are probably searching for music history research paper topics on the same websites as you do. You want your research topics on music or book review topics to be original, so your professor can have a reason to award your paper some bonus points. The best place to get excellent music topics to write about is this page. The list of ideas is updated frequently, so you can get an original topic for free right now.

Music History Research Topics

Are you looking for the most interesting music history research topics? If you do, just pick one from our list for free:

• How did the Catholic church influence Renaissance music?
• Social issues described in Baroque-period music.
• Analyze the evolution of Romantic-era music.
• How did the Baroque Opera come to be?
• Who invented Medieval music and when?
• Why has western music almost disappear in the last 10 years?
• Analyze the evolution of music in the Classical era.
• Analyzing violin music performance during the Romantic Era.

Music Argument Topics

Are you looking to find an argument and support it? Then you absolutely need to check out our exceptional list of music argument topics:

• Music today is better than music in the 90s.
• The most lucrative career for a musician.
• Music helps you memorize faster.
• The most popular kind of metal music.
• The evolution of blues songs over the last 30 years.
• Music helps children develop faster.
• Hip-hop is a misunderstood music genre.
• Jazz music is not obsolete.

Music Theory Topics

Interested in writing about music theory? Our amazing academic writers have put together a list of music theory topics for you:

• Analyze the most important aspects of modern music.
• Classical music has specific medical applications.
• Hidden symbols in Renaissance-period music.
• The unique features of Baroque-age music.
• Analyze the evolution of music in the Baroque era.
• The best music compositors in the Romantic era.
• Remarkable characteristics of Romantic-age songs.
• The peculiarities of Asian modern music.

Music Industry Topics

Writing about the music industry can be fun and entertaining. Your professor will love it. Pick one of our music industry topics and start writing:

• What do you associate rock music with and why?
• Should the music industry pay songwriters more?
• How does illegal pirating of songs affect the music industry?
• Do music sharing sites help new artists become famous.
• Analyze the evolution of music labels in the US.
• What differentiates a music label from all others?
• Music talent shows and their effects on a musician’s career.
• The difficulties of signing a contract with a major music label in the US.

Research Paper Topics on Music for High School

Are you a high school student? In this case, you will need our research paper topics on music for high school:

• The best compositors of the Baroque Era.
• What differentiates modern music from classical music?
• Notable women in classical music.
• Analyze the evolution of music in the Modern age.
• How was Beethoven’s music influenced by his loss of hearing?
• How would our world be without music?
• Does music cause negative effects on US teens?

Music Thesis Topics

Writing a thesis about music is not easy. In fact, it can be one of the most difficult projects in your academic career. Start right now by choosing one of the best music thesis topics:

• What made a musician stand out in the Baroque Age?
• The most notable musical experiments in the Classical age.
• Comparing Renaissance and Medieval music styles.
• Analyze the evolution of music in the Renaissance age.
• How did royalty in the UK benefit from music in the Renaissance era?
• Discuss a folk song from the Renaissance age.
• Differences between Asian and European classical music.

Music Controversial Topics

Music, like most other disciplines, has plenty of controversial topics you can talk about. Don’t waste any time and pick one of these music controversial topics:

• Does digital music cut the profits of musicians?
• Who owns the intellectual property to a song?
• The difficulties of getting songwriting credit.
• Illegal downloads are changing the music industry.
• Should music education still be included in the curriculum?
• Analyze medieval liturgical music.
• Music should be free for everyone to download and use.

Persuasive Speech Topics About Music

Are you required the write a persuasive speech about music? If you are, you may need a bit of help. Pick one of these persuasive speech topics about music (updated for 2023):

• Music has a significant effect on advertising.
• The changes rap music has brought to the US culture.
• Indie is a term that should not apply to music.
• Metal music should be banned from the US.
• Does listening to music have a great influence on mental health?
• The amazing evolution of music in the Medieval age.
• People should be free to listen to the music they like for free.
• The fashion industry wouldn’t be where it is today without music.

Easy Topics About Music

Perhaps you don’t want to spend 5 or 6 hours writing the research paper . You need an easier topic. Choose one of these easy topics about music and write the essay fast:

• How can one become a symbol of modern music?
• My favorite singer today.
• Which musician from the past would you bring back to life and why?
• Do politics influence modern music?
• Compare and contrast two music genres.
• Analyze the evolution of music in the modern age in the United States.
• The side effects of turning the volume too loud.
• How is classical music used in Disney movies?

Music Education Research Topics

Are you interested in talking about music education? Perhaps you’ll have some suggestions to make after you’ve done the research. Just choose one of the music education research topics below:

• Can E-Learning be applied to music education?
• Can music teachers offer distance learning services?
• The advantages and disadvantages of Zoom music lessons.
• Why are music worksheets so important for high school students?
• How did the Internet change music education?
• Why are modern music studies so important?
• Should we learn more about Asian music in school?
• How can students learn music while respecting COVID19 measures?

Highly Interesting Music Topics

We know you want a top grade on your next music research paper. We advise you to select one of these highly interesting music topics and surprise your professor:

• How did pop music came to existence and why?
• Analyze the history of hip-hop music.
• Compare metal music with classical music.
• Why is rock music so popular in the United Kingdom?
• Which song would best present our species to aliens?
• Compare and contrast Korean and Chinese music.
• Analyze the popular themes of Japanese music.
• The stunning rise of K-pop bands.

Informative Speech Topics About Music

It’s difficult to find good informative speech topics about music these days. If you want to stand out from the rest of your classmates, choose one of our topics:

• Discuss the ideas presented in romantic music.
• What do people who appreciate classic music have in common?
• Analyze the most popular Bach music.
• Describe the role of market music in the Baroque era.
• Analyze the evolution of European music.
• Ways to make classical music popular with teens in the UK.
• Discuss the most popular musical instrument in the Classical age.

Music Essay Topics for College

Are you a college student? If you want an A+ on your next research paper, use one of these music essay topics for college students:

• Does modern music contain medieval themes?
• Analyze a song from the Renaissance age.
• Why is blues music so important for our culture?
• Who invented the blues genre and when?
• Analyze the evolution of American folk music.
• Most popular names in Baroque-age songs.
• Modern interpretations of medieval songs.
• Listening to blues music can lead to depression.

Need some more music history paper topics? Or perhaps you need a list of music related research topics to choose from for your thesis. Our best paper writer can help you in no time. Get in touch with us and we guarantee that we will find the perfect music topic for your needs. You will be well on your way to getting the A+ you need. Give us a try and get an amazing research topic on music in 10 minutes or less!

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• Why country music is booming in Britain

TikTok, tattoos and dreams of Texas

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“A ll aboard  the freight train,” Rattlesnake Johnny announces from the  DJ  booth, as he plays Alan Jackson’s “Freight Train”. A large crowd, sporting cowboy hats and boots, obediently falls into a Conga line and belts out “wish I was a freight train, baby”. They are led by “Memo the Hero”, a Turkish man from Newcastle, who waves an American flag as dancers gyrate on tables.

The line soon turns into “shot limbo”. Two dancers hold aloft a shot tray that punters must limbo under before downing a drink, while singing “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” by Mr Jackson and Jimmy Buffett. It is, in fact, 3pm on a Saturday in Revolution, a bar in Ipswich, a market town in the quiet English county of Suffolk. Ipswich, an attendee declares, is “the Texas of the UK ”.

Country music has never been more popular in Britain. Streaming of country songs increased by 70% in the first four months of 2024, says the British Phonographic Industry, a trade body. It has overtaken easy listening to become the nation’s sixth-most loved music genre. Although its share of streams (3%) still lags a long way behind dance (9%), the fifth-most popular genre, country music is on a roll.

In the past stars of country music, which is predominantly popular in America, were little known in Britain. But Spotify, a music streamer, and TikTok, a video-sharing platform, have exposed more Britons to the genre. Rattlesnake Johnny, who was born in Newcastle before moving to North Carolina as a child, says new ways of consuming music have “broken down geographical barriers” so modern country stars can gain fame in Britain, too.

British fans are now forming a country scene in real life. Yeehaw, Rattlesnake Johnny’s events company, has packed out clubs from Aberdeen to Milton Keynes. Rhinestone Rodeo, another events-planning firm based in Edinburgh, has played clubs across the country and also held boat parties on the Thames. Y’allternative, which runs country-music club nights, has moved from a 400-capacity venue to Scala, a 1,000-capacity venue in London.

Organisers say punters want to enjoy the entire country-music experience. YeeHaw’s ambition is to become “the Cirque de Soleil” of country music, which explains the line-dancing and acrobatics, if not the alcohol. Rhinestone Rodeo brings hay bales to its club nights. One organiser says fans are drawn to his shows because they dislike the drugs prominent in much of Britain’s club culture. “They just want to sing songs,” he says. Country music, says a young hairdresser attending the gig in Ipswich, makes her happy—unlike the drill music she liked as a teenager and now believes is “brainwashing the youth” to become more violent.

Many in the crowd think country music fits with conservative values. A tattooed man in a cowboy hat says, for him, country is about the “freedom to do whatever you want”. He elaborates: “You think of Texas…farmsteads…little family units.” A man in his 20s, who lifts his sleeveless denim jacket to reveal religious tattoos beneath, says his conservative politics and his Christian faith intertwine perfectly with country music. It helps him find a connection with a “higher power”, he says.

Organisers of these events are quick to say that conservatism is not as relevant to the British scene as it is in America. Inside the crowd sing the Zac Brown Band anthem, “Chicken Fried”: “Salute the ones who died / The ones that give their lives / So we don’t have to sacrifice / All the things we love…like our chicken fried.” Your correspondent decided to slip out early, his stomach rumbling. ■

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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “What ho, y’all”

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