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Key the truck, carve your name in the seats, take a Louisville Slugger to the headlights. Carrie Underwood's revenge anthem crossed over from country radio to everywhere in 2006–07, spent 64 straight weeks on the Hot 100, and became — for a time — the best-selling country song, period.
Garth Brooks made country music arena-sized. The wireless headset, the hit-after-hit albums, and "Friends in Low Places" became the sound of the '90s — country that didn't apologize for being enormous, and made it look like the point all along.
Born in 1982, LeAnn Rimes released "Blue" at thirteen in 1996 and became an overnight country sensation with an impossibly mature voice. She won Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 1997, becoming the youngest person ever to win those awards. Her 1997 ballad "How Do I Live" spent a record 69 weeks on the Hot 100—Billboard later ranked it the most successful song of the 1990s.
Canadian country-pop crossover sensation in leopard print and confidence. She sold albums by the tens of millions, and for a moment the whole world was her pickup-truck ballad audience.
The curly-haired country teenager with a guitar who ended the 2000s as the name on everyone's radio. "Love Story" and Fearless made her a household name; the Kanye moment made her a headline. Everything after is a much bigger story—this entry is about when she was new.