The CMA Awards at 40: Celebrating a Growth Spurt

"The artists in this format are careful about the things they write about and how they relate to the audience," said Joe Galante, chairman of Sony BMG Nashville. "They're delivering things that people can take away and use in their daily lives."

Said the Texas twang-rocker Jack Ingram: "Country is the only true American music form left that's telling people's stories."

That's not necessarily true, of course; the best hip-hop, R&B and rock can do the exact same thing. It's just that country seems to do it more consistently, and with much stronger melodies.

"Pop music is flat-out boring," said Capitol Nashville's Dungan. "It's in a bad spot, and it's driving listeners away. And they're coming to country and liking what they find."

Though the option isn't always available: Even as country has grown its album-sales share this year, the format continues to evaporate from the airwaves. There are no country radio stations in New York and San Francisco, and Los Angeles lost its lone country outlet in August.

Still, Music City execs don't seem to be rattled. Not even by the sort of negative news that sends chills through the corporate suites in New York and Los Angeles. Tower Records' bankruptcy liquidation, for example, doesn't pose as much of a threat to country because the genre relies so heavily on big-box retailers, which sell roughly 55 percent of the format's albums. That's double the average for other genres, according to Russ Crupnick, president of the music and movies division of NPD Group, a market research firm.

Illegal downloading isn't quite the bugaboo in country that it is elsewhere, either, in part because of country's older demographic (the core audience is 25 to 54), but also because of lower broadband penetration and iPod use in non-metropolitan country strongholds. There's also that little matter of morals, Crupnick said: "There might be more of a values thing going on, where some of the red-state country consumers aren't doing illegal file-sharing or copying." Whatever the reasons, he said, "the digital gorilla in the room hasn't started jumping around yet."

For now, interest in the music and its stars seems to be swelling: Vanity Fair recently published a country pictorial, and People just produced an 80-page special edition devoted to all things twang.

"Country's just very hot right now," said Cynthia Sanz, editor of the People special. "You can't help but notice that it's enjoying a resurgence."

And it's all because of the songs, Paisley said. "We've gotten into a period where people are doing songs that are extremely relatable to people's lives. Some of them are more spiritual in nature, and and some of them are getaway songs, which is what Kenny Chesney does so well. I think we just have our finger on the pulse right now."