More Students Tune in Country Music

Vince Gill. Reba McEntire. Alan Jackson. Names sound familiar?

They may be replacing college music stalwarts like REM and Bono, according to some Harvard students and Boston radio stations.

"I've kind of turned my friends to it," says Erin A. Pond '98. "There are a lot more country stations in Maine now."

In New England, country music is booming, according to local stations.

"Country music is sweeping America," says George A. Johns, programming consultant for Boston's newest country station, WCLB. "It's the most popular music right now, and it's growing all the time."

Johns reports an audience of between 500,000 and 600,000 in the Boston area alone. They're not all Southern transplants, either.

"Very few of the people calling in have Southern accents," says country station WBCS's daytime disc jockey, Carolyn Kruse. "Most have very heavy Boston accents."

Harvard students are definitely among those who tune in.

"My two best friends and I started listening to country music at about the same time, but we didn't tell each other," says Boston native Julia A. Brookins '98.

Not all undergraduates want to abandon classical or alternative music, however.

"I don't care for it," says Rhode Islander Hassen A. Sayeed '96. "Country music's popularity is like a snowball in hell. I don't know why it's lasted beyond five minutes."

So why is anyone listening? Some students say country's longtime stigma is wearing off.

"Country music is no longer considered white man's music for hillbillies and red-necks," Pond says. "It's no longer limited."

The Harvard country music fan, however, is hardly hard-core.

"Of my 49 CD's, I have about five certifiable country ones," says Jamie S. Flatt '95. "Here at Harvard, I would be a considered a country fan, relatively speaking."

Flatt adds that country is not taking over the airwaves on campus. "I get ridiculed about it," she says.

So she listens to country only "when I get homesick here or am at home in Texas, mostly."

Still, some students say students are now more approving of roommates with tastes in country.

"People are getting more open-minded," Brookins says. "It's not all I listen to. We all have very broad musical tastes--that's why we started listening."