The Big Hat Decade: country dominates the mainstream

Country music became the voice of mainstream music in the '00s, spreading its wings stylistically to cover a wider range of artists and generate hits that cross the genre's borders. As commercially successful rock acts continue to age and pop acts rarely show decade-to-decade staying power, country music has become a haven for career artists, even those who got their starts outside of Nashville. For the first time in country music's 80-year existence, crossover became a two-way street. The ol...

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