I chose country music for my digital scavenger because it has been something that I have grown up with my whole life. I feel as though I have listened to the transition of country music throughout my life. My dad liked to listen to older country music on the AM radio and listen to artists like patsy cline. So I thought it would be intresting to look up where it started and the transformation it went through. According to Gogle’s Ngram Viewer, Country music dates back to the 1800’s but became increasingly popular in the 60’s. Because I know that the genera was called “hillbilly music” before it was country, I thought about comparing when that was popular compared to country. Surprisingly the database has little to nothing on hillbilly music because I feel that this was around and before it turned into country music. When I was looking on the library of congress, I think that the first couple of things I found that coorolates to country music is a country club, and then later on in the 1917, I found the first article really addressed country music, but kept refearing it to “bluegrass” which according to the Ngram Viewer, was popular since the 1880’s. It was intresting to see country music rising in popularitys as bluegrass decreases. I feel like there are different subgeneras within country music, so maybe that relates to the hillbilly music. Hilbilly country wasn’t as popular as the bluegrass kind of country.

I find it intresting how country music has always been in it’s own world. I came to this conclusion after looking at the earliest references on google books, but I feel as if it is something I have always known. It’s almost like they just live in Nashville and make their songs and have theior own awards show in the south and that’s essentially it. They don’t really cross over into other generas and they aren’t associated with other cultures of music. I think that is why Taylor Swift was hated and then loved for so long because she played with the fine line of what is country music and what is pop music and who gets to make up those rules. Some of the earliest country music that I can find are songs and artists such as the carter family and jimmy rogers. It is intresting to me how people lable George strait as the founder of country music because it has been around for son long before him. I feel he is more of the fifth generation of country music, Almost as if country music found a new sound in the 90’s. To this day I still listen to country music. Not so much the older stuff, but the songs from my generation and whats on the radio today. Its interesting how country music has come this far and morphed into what it is now. Today country music sometimes crosses over into the pop radio stations or is featered on the occasional hip-hop songs. Which I like because I listen to all those generas, too. My family listenes more to the third and fouth “generations” of country and I listen more to the fifth and sixth generations. I guess music grows as we grow.