In celebration of Randall King releasing his fabulous new album, ‘Into the Neon’ (review at the link here) we thought it would be a good time to put together a playlist celebrating that staple trope of the Country writing world, the neon light!
Neon lighting consists of brightly glowing, electrified glass tubes or bulbs that contain rarefied neon or other gases. Neon lights are a type of cold cathode gas-discharge light. A neon tube is a sealed glass tube with a metal electrode at each end, filled with one of a number of gases at low pressure.
You can find neon lights in bars all over the world and the use of that imagery has been used in songs in Country music for decades. It’s often associated with a more traditional and neo-traditional sound. The 1980s and ’90s were the time for a new, yet old, take on country music: neo-traditional country. Randy Travis, Alan Jackson, Patty Loveless, Marty Stuart and George Strait, among others, were all ambassadors of the down-to-earth brand of music, which drew on traditional bluegrass sounds and down-home themes. Brooks & Dunn’s ‘Neon Moon’ is a prime example of the sound although our playlist is focused more on newer artists, like Midland, capturing that old, classic sound.
