Popular music has long been used as a political tool by artists from Joe Hill to the Dead Prez. Yet, the commodification of popular music has brought forth questions about the efficacy of music as an agent of change. In a time when music is fully commodified and rebellion can be bought and sold, can music still function as an agent of change? This work explores that question and others by investigating the cultural politics of alternative country music. Alternative country music was an amalgamation of rock 'n roll and country music that emerged during the 1990s. This music was quickly positioned in opposition to Nashville and the corporate country music industry found there. It was created predominately outside of Nashville, in the industrial centers of the Midwest and South and drew heavily on the places and imagery of country music to document life in these towns and cities as they dealt with significant socio-economic changes.

My dissertation is grounded in 'new' cultural geography. It is based in over a year of fieldwork in Chicago and various other cities, multiple years of analysis of the listservs where this music is discussed, and examinations of the various media created around this music. It combines ethnography and discourse analysis to better ascertain the political possibilities of alternative country music. In the chapters of this dissertation, I use these methodological tools to explore the formation and definition of alternative country music; to analyze the significance of virtual spaces on the cultural politics of alternative country music; to highlight the politics of songs in alternative country music and also to explore the construction of authenticity in this genre; and to contextualize the construction of anti-Nashville sentiment within this music.

I argue that alternative country music demonstrates one way that popular music can still be used to create change in an era when music is commodified. It speaks to the ways people can change their relationship with popular music by organizing for change. But it also speaks to efforts to use music to critically engage in discussions of socio-economic change in the contemporary United States.