"Sometimes I Live in the Country, Sometimes I Live in Town”: Discourses of Authenticity, Cultural Capital, and the Rural/Urban Dichotomy in Alternative Country Music

Alternative country (or alt.country) offers to its listeners a complex juxtaposition of punk and country aesthetics and sentiments, rendering music that is considered to be a heartfelt, rustic, and authentic alternative to mainstream popular music. This suggests an expansive genre style, with ever-shifting musical parameters, as well as potential for negotiation regarding the genre’s seminal artists. Thus, alt.country is primarily understood and organised in relation to the lofty concept of authenticity, usually prior to musical or lyrical considerations. The genre therefore offers an illuminating approach to considering the socially constructed and negotiated demarcations of genre. Although genre is often perceived to be unmovable and absolute, every announcement of a genre and its associated performance works to change the fabric of the genre itself. Despite this, genre facilitates common expectations between audience members, offering a shortcut to understanding particular musical events and their relation to one another. The appearance of authenticity is a cornerstone of the alt.country genre. Genuine characteristics, lived experience, and emotion are highly valued within the alt.country subculture. Authenticity too is dependent on changing social conceptions of the term and what it actually means to be ‘authentic’. Attempts by No Depression, the genre’s coalescing magazine, to guide the audience’s perceptions of authenticity are frequent, but not always successful, supporting the assertion that individuals have their own socially-informed and nuanced understanding of the concept. Notions of authenticity contribute to Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital. Alt.country possesses its own world view, characteristics and knowledge which are valuable and exchangeable within this setting. There too exists a visible hierarchy. Within the genre, a knowledge of a wide array of music (country or otherwise), dressing in the right clothes and generally appearing unkempt, unpolished and unprofessional all results in high amounts of cultural capital. Musicians and the audience alike must play into and contribute to these values to be given the right to be part of this community. Traditionally within popular music, the critic has acted as an intermediary, between the music and the listener, communicating the specifities of cultural capital and the music’s value (or otherwise). Their vast and superior musical knowledge (capital) places them in this respected position. No Depression’s critics though must put this traditional dynamic aside, instead adopting a self-effacing, unprofessional tone, thus contributing to the genre’s characteristics to subsequently retain respect and continue to have authority within this subculture. Alt.country functions as a self-knowing community. The music maintains a preoccupation with both American ruralities, and the vices and people that bind them to everyday urban life. Rural geographies and the glorious escape to the country is portrayed as an absolute point of freedom, offering what they currently lack. This ignores the often harsh realities of rural sustenance. The appeal of this music to the audience is similarly located. Physical escape to the country is not practical (and often not wanted), so these desires are played out as a fantasy within alt.country and its lyrical tropes. It offers emotional resonance for its audience, making the genre highly affective, despite both the audience’s and musicians’ urban realities. These contradictions suggest the underlying complexities of making ironic yet emotionally connected music in the postmodern age. It is acknowledged that authenticity is produced and constructed, yet alt.country can still provide a sense of comfort, solace, and escape.