I think I'm going to start calling the phenomenon of "dude country" something else. (dude here used advisedly, there are several female singers who have constructed their own versions of the phenomenon. I think dude works here in the BillNTed *Dude* sense, if nothing else. Further, I am being descriptive here, not trying to express an opinion.)

I think I'm going to call it Audrey's Revenge.

There's a bit to unpack here. First, by "dude country" I mean the shirt-popping, chest-thumping song, video, and stagecraft style of many country songs and singers these days. It's a little grating when it's becoming a dominant public-facing form of a music that was usually supposed to be known for being a little more adult than pop. How did "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "Whiskey Lullaby" turn into forty different iterations on the "Red Solo Cup"?

So be it, not my bag and I'm not ragging on the musicians. They've got checks to cash and bills to pay and an audience that's willing to pony up for it.

That said, the particular cultural style (and it is a conscious, very well polished, stylistic choice) is, from observation, descended from one particular person: Hank Williams, Jr.

Hank Junior appears from this seat to have consciously constructed his act, both musically and in terms of stagecraft, and in terms of the audience he courted.

This audience thing happened later, after Hank Junior became the first person to win back-to-back Entertainer of the Year awards from the CMA. That's when the videos and the self-parody stage set in, again from what I saw.

But Hank Junior did, and does, appear to have a very good idea of the sort of audience that was paying attention to him when that self-parody image began to grow out of control. While Hank Junior ultimately stepped away from that image, except for the Monday Night Football Cash-In which was, let's face it, a once a year video performance, there were plenty of acts (the class of 1989 being the most prominent) who stepped in to fill the void.

Consciously, I'd argue. People tend to go where the money is. And then later, where their idols went. Which is now the generation of artists we're into now.

Ok, that's the immediate phenomenon. Audrey, as in Audrey's Revenge, is Audrey Williams, Hank Junior's mother.

And the reason I think Audrey's Revenge is appropriate is that Nashville basically kicked Hank Williams Senior out of town (literally: 'They' kicked him out of the Grand Ole Opry).

Like Mick Jagger said, if you don't like Hank Williams (Senior), you can kiss my ass. And, at least metaphorically, you could read the "dude country" phenomenon as Audrey's Revenge on the town as a whole.

Of course, to read it that way, you probably have to be the kind of person who knows why Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin put out a full-page spread in Billboard Magazine flipping the bird to the entire industry...