Vince Gill Speaks on How Country Music Changed From the ’80s to the ’90s and Shares His Favorite Era

Vince Gill is synonymous with ’90s country. The Oklahoma native scored his first No. 1 hit in 1992 with “I Still Believe In You.” From there, he would go on to solidify his place in country music lore, notching 22 GRAMMY trophies, eight ACM Awards, and 18 CMA Awards. However, Gill has earned a living from country music since 1978—making him well positioned to speak on the genre’s shift from the ’80s to the ’90s.

Vince Gill: “Everything Aligned” For Country Music in the ’90s

The 1980 blockbuster hit Urban Cowboy catapulted country music to the forefront of popular culture. That momentum continued as the calendar flipped to 1990. “[Some] of the best storytellers and musicians of all time emerged in Nashville and across the nation,” wrote Katie Quine on the Grand Ole Opry website in 2022.

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That included Vince Gill, “a tenor with a distinctive voice” who still ranks among “the industry’s most masterful lyricists.” In an interview with Vulture last year, Gill acknowledged he “couldn’t have picked a better stretch to have fallen into.”

“The ‘90s were such a powerful stretch, because everything aligned,” said the singer-songwriter. “There were a couple of channels devoted just to country music — which had never happened — tons of record companies, tons of artists, tons of people selling millions of records. It was by far the most visible and successful stretch in the history of country music in terms of numbers.”

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Which Era Is Gill’s Favorite?

However, the “Go Rest High On That Mountain” singer said he personally prefers the folksier tunes of the ’50s and ’60s. “But that’s just a matter of what I like,” he said.

Vince Gill continued, “I think we revere our past and think, “Oh, that was the greatest stuff ever.” But I contend that in every stretch of creativity, there were a lot of great records and a lot of bad records. With time, we’ve forgotten so many of the bad records and the bad songs. We only remember the great ones.”

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