The Nashville sound is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the 1950s in Nashville, Tennessee. It replaced the dominance of the rough honky tonk music with "smooth strings and choruses", "sophisticated background vocals" and "smooth tempos" associated with traditional pop. It was an attempt "to revive country sales, which had been devastated by the rise of rock 'n' roll".

Country is a music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is primarily focused on singing stories about working-class and blue-collar American life.