Talk:List of years in country music

Untitled

Since the early days of Wikipedia, there have been pages chronicling years in music. From my observation, those have focused more on mainstream popular music, rather than genre-specific country music.

This page will start to change that.

Country music is one of the most important and popular music genres in the United States. As they develop, what these pages will attempt to do is catalog the most important events, songs, albums, awards, etc. in country music for a particular year. In other words, somewhat follow the format of X-year in music.

Let's have fun, but be factual in developing these pages. And you may learn something before we're through, too! Briguy52748 4 June 2005 15:55 (EDT)

Criteria for additions

After a couple of years, I thought I'd add some criteria for submitting items to this page. Generally, I'd like to keep consistent with the format established earlier with the "Years in music" series. Generally (and this will be a list in progress, so if it is incomplete at first, then it will probably be updated later):

Events

The top news stories of the year, along with any references or sources you may find. Keep it brief; usually, a link to the subject will suffice. Be sure to order by date. An example is on the 1983 in country music page:

• March — In a span of two days, two major cable networks signed on the air. Country Music Television (aka CMT) went on-the-air March 6, while The Nashville Network (TNN) came on one day later. CMT was chiefly video-oriented, while TNN offered more feature-oriented programming.

Top hits of the year

These have been divided into two sections — a section for the No. 1 songs (according to the Billboard magazine Hot Country Songs chart and other top hits of the year.

For the No. 1 songs, I have used a tabular form, an example of which is at 2002 in country music. The table incldues (left to right) the date, the title of the song (wikified if the song has a separate article), the artist, total number of weeks it spent at No. 1, and any relevant information. Usually, there will not be any relevant information, but sometimes a song will be particularly noteworthy for one reason or another; use your judgement here. Please keep No. 1 records relevant to Billboard magazine, however (since it is the source being cited) in any notes. Also, several editors have included such footnotes as whether that particular song was his/her first, his/her last, or the No. 1 song of the year; these are often very helpful to the reader.

For the other hits section, please keep this primarily to the most notable hits of the year. Generally, I have included all Top 25 hits for years after 2000; and limited it to Top 15 earlier. However, there are always exceptions; for instance, a song that peaked very low on the chart may, for some reason, continue to be very popular for years after its peak or have other notability attached to it. A couple of examples:

• "Gentle On My Mind" by Glen Campbell. The song only peaked in the mid-30s on the Billboard Hot Country Singles charts in 1967, but won several Grammy Awards, has continued to enjoy immense popularity and has become one of Campbell's signature songs.
• "Hurt" by Johnny Cash, an award-winning song from 2003 that became his last major hit before his death. The song included a video which vividly included images of his early life and later, time-worn days.

By all means, these songs should be included.

Also, if a non No. 1 Billboard song peaked at the top on another chart and if it can be documented, then include a footnote with the song and a brief statement attesting to its accomplishment on that other chart at the end of the listing. Eventually, if the research can be done and valid sources are available (e.g., not artists' websites, because these are sometimes manipulated for publicity reasons), we may include a separate page listing all the No. 1 songs from that trade publication (e.g., Radio & Records for all No. 1s between 1973 and 2006).

Formatting

Formatting wise, please follow the following style — title and singer; the peak position is probably optional at this point, but if you can add it, great. As thus, one example looks like this:

• "Alyssa Lies" – Jason Michael Carroll (#5)

Only if the song has an article about it is it wikified. The artist is always wikified.

Please alphabetize all titles; remember that "a," "an" and "the" are ignored if they are the first word in the title.

Also, we go for the year in which a particular title actually peaked — a hit can be released in the middle or near the end of the year, but might not peak until the first few months of the following year. One example is "500 Miles Away From Home," which singer Bobby Bare released in the fall of 1963; the song did not peak until the first weekend of January 1964, and is thus included on the 1964 in country music page, even though the bulk of the song's popularity likely came at the very end of 1963. As the years go on, some songs will be in the top 10 the last week of December but will not yet have peaked (e.g., those songs that are top 10 for the weekend of December 29, 2007); just simply cut and paste the titles and include them on the following year's page.

Births

Put in the date, a dash, the person's name and what makes him/her notable. If that person is now deceased, then after the notability section put (d. 19XX); for example, on the 1983 page is the following:

• March 10 – Carrie Underwood, 2005 American Idol winner, boosting her career.
• July 2 – Michelle Branch, member of The Wreckers.
• November 10 – Miranda Lambert, country singer-songwriter and former "Nashville Star" contestant.
• December 29 – Jessica Andrews, popular teen singer of the early 2000s.

Deaths

Put in the date, a dash, the person's name followed by his/her age at death, and what made him/her notable. If the cause of death is known, put that in too. For instance, also on the 1983 page:

• October 20 – Merle Travis, 65, singer and composer of classic songs such as "Sixteen Tons", "Dark as a Dungeon", "So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed" and "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that Cigarette." (heart attack)

Country Music Hall of Fame Inductees

Self explainatory; a list of all inductees into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Listed thusly (example taken from the 2006 page:

• Harold Bradley (b. 1926)
• Sonny James (b. 1929)
• George Strait (b. 1952)

Be sure to check that all spellings are correct and are wikilined to their correct articles. If by chance an article is redlinked (and all spellings are correct, a redirect under the incorrect name doesn't exist, etc.), then the subject should probably be made into an article. Obviously, the subject is notable or else he would not be a Hall of Fame inductee.

The honorees are usually named in the late summer (in 2006, it aired live on CMT), and these should be added once announced.

Major Awards

As of right now, these include the Grammy Awards, the Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association awards. Unfortunately, not all these are complete for all years; if any Wiki editors out there would like to contribute, please look at the 2006 in country music page's Major Awards section for formatting styles and tips.

For past years, most of the categories are readily available through online databases maintained by each of the major awards programs (as well as numerous history books on country music). Current year award-winners are not to be added until after the broadcast, although the date and site of each awards show should be added upon announcement.

References

Some general reference books (i.e., history books) have been added for each year's page. More recent years that have readily available news stories should be footnoted per Wikipedia style.

More later. [[Briguy52748 13:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)]]

New pages for years 1922-1939

Given that I've been able to compile lists of births, deaths, events and musical hits for the years 1922-1939, I've created new pages for each of those years. The articles The 1930s in country music and The 1920s in country music will eventually become redirects. [[Briguy52748 22:37, 16 May 2007 (UTC)]]

Gossip

Many events in these articles depict gossip-like events (arrested by police for drunk driving, diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, sent to hospital after suffering from cancer, getting drunk and involved in a bar fight, divorces his wife or her husband), which I think belongs in gossip magazines rather than Wikipedia.

I think we should stick to their performances as musical artists (or, in other cases, sportspersons, politicians or whatever). I can understand if some articles about the persons have such information (if it has reliable sources). J 1982 (talk) 17:36, 29 November 2018 (UTC)