The Bad Penny (beta)

Years before anyone reading this article was born — unless you’re a member of the AARP, in which case, holla! — country-music mecca Nashville had already established its own original variety of music. “The Nashville sound” wasn’t exactly the most inventively named subgenre, but it didn’t matter: Record labels like Columbia and RCA Victor, along with teeming masses of musicians eager to embrace the next big thing, gave birth to a smoother, poppier take on country that endures to this day.

Problem is, when a city builds its reputation on a particular sound, it simultaneously confines itself. Musicians hoping to make it big are often constricted by the same phenomenon that lured them to the city in the first place. It’s worse than ever nowadays, with major labels having stripped the authenticity out of “The Nashville sound” in favor of a commercial strain that makes country music virtually indistinguishable from pop. Deforestation isn’t just happening literally; billionaires are cutting down creativity as well, in a metaphorical sense, with artists becoming an endangered species.