I’m a Country Boy: Country Music, Identity, and the Changing Relationship between Country and City

Have you noticed that everyone on country radio is singing about being a country boy or country girl lately?  Professor Longan confirms that you aren’t imagining things, explains why artists started singing about their rural identity at the beginning of the 21st century, and explores what country-identity songs say about what it means to be country in the age of Wal-Mart, the Internet, and exurbanization.  As it turns out, being country is about much more than drinking beer and driving a jacked-up truck.