as “cow-punk” bands such as Jason and the Nashville
Scorchers, whose lead singer’s style owed as much to
Johnny Rotten as to Johnny Cash.
Impact Country music became both more main-
stream and more diverse during the 1980’s. Film and
music videos brought country music to a national
audience, as did the development of country radio
conglomerates. While this initially led to a hybridiza-
tion of country with rock and pop music, it also pro-
vided the platform for movements reacting against
the more mainstream, less distinctive sound of new
country. These movements included new tradition-
alism and alternative country, the latter of which
featured uncompromising, independent artists who
reveled in the country music’s history of quirky re-
gionalism and who were not afraid to graft punk
rock, rockabilly, bluegrass, and blues onto tradi-
tional country in order to maintain and reinvent
that regionalism.
Further Reading
Cusic, Don.Reba: Countr y Music’s Queen.New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1991. Biography of quintessen-
tial country music performer and 1980’s success
story Reba McIntyre. While Cusic relies on McIn-
tyre’s own autobiography, he places her achieve-
ment in the context of the transformation of the
country music industry during her rise to fame.
Fenster, Mark. “Country Music Video.”Popular Mu-
sic7, no. 3 (October, 1988): 285-302. An analysis
of the development of the country music video in
the 1980’s, highlighting the crossover appeal of
Reba McIntyre and Hank Williams, Jr., as well as
the use of iconic country images by the new tradi-
tionalists.
Fox, Pamela. “Recycled ‘Trash’: Gender and Au
thenticity in Country Music Autobiography.”Amer-
ican Quarterly50, no. 2 (1998): 234-266. Survey of
popular autobiographies of female country mu-
sic stars, including Reba McIntyre, Dolly Parton,
and Naomi Judd. Analyzes the performance iden-
tities created by women in country music and
considers their negotiation of maternal and sex-
ual imagery.
Goodman, David. Modern Twang: An Alternative
Countr y Music Guide and Director y. Nashville:
Dowling, 1999. A comprehensive guide to the al-
ternative country subgenre that includes entries
on forerunners such as Gram Parsons, as well as
the major figures from the 1980’s: Jason and the
Nashville Scorchers, Dwight Yoakum, Steve Earle,
and others.
Valentine, Gill. “Creating Transgressive Space: The
Music of k. d. lang.”Transactions of the Institute of
British Geographers, n.s. 20, no. 4. (1995): 474-485.
Examination of lang’s subversion of traditional
country music themes and audience to create les-
bian community through her recordings and live
performances.
Luke PowersSee also Farm Aid; Mellencamp, John Cougar;
MTV; Music; Music videos.Crack epidemic
Definition Invention, proliferation, and media
coverage of crack cocaine
Crack cocaine is highly addictive and cheaper than powder
cocaine, and its use quickly became prevalent among Amer-
ica’s urban poor. Media portrayals of its proliferation
among minority populations of inner cities created in-
creased concern over illicit drugs and led to more punitive
drug laws, while increasing people’s fear of urban crime.
In the late 1980’s, the media focused significant at-
tention on a new drug, crack cocaine. Crack is a
modified version of freebase cocaine formed by add-
ing baking soda or ammonia to powder cocaine,
then heating it. It is typically smoked by users. As a
smokable form of the drug, crack is absorbed more
effectively and more quickly by the body than is
snorted cocaine hydrochloride. Thus, it is effectively
both stronger and cheaper than powder cocaine,
even though molecule for molecule of cocaine, pow-
der cocaine and crack cocaine cost the same. When
it was first introduced, a rock of crack could be pur-
chased for as little as $2.50 in some areas. Because of
an oversupply of cocaine in the 1980’s, dealers de-
cided to convert powder cocaine to crack to expand
their markets to poorer individuals who could not af-
ford the more expensive powder cocaine.
Crack users who were interviewed in the 1980’s
said that one puff of crack could lead to instant ad-
diction. The media exaggerated the prevalence of
the drug, as well as the consequences of crack use.
They portrayed crack addiction as an epidemic in
America’s inner cities. This portrayal led to drasticThe Eighties in America Crack epidemic 259