Editing Cowpunk (section)

==Etymology and characteristics==
The term "cowpunk" is first attested in 1979, as a blend of "cowboy" and "punk".<ref name="Crystal, David 2014, p. 228">{{Cite book |last=Crystal |first=David |title=Words in Time and Place: Exploring Language Through the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-0199680474 |location=Oxford |page=228}}</ref> The term "country punk" has been proposed as an equivalent term.<ref name="Loudermilk">{{Cite web |last=Loudermilk |first=A |date=2018-06-04 |title=From Cowpunk to Sarah Shook |url=https://www.popmatters.com/sarah-shook-the-disarmers-2571125327.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1 |access-date=15 April 2020 |website=Pop matters}}</ref> Both terms are sometimes hyphenated, especially in late 1970s or early 1980s sources (e.g., cow-punk or country-punk).

In 1984, [[Robert Palmer (American writer)|Robert Palmer]] wrote in the ''[[The New York Times|New York Times]]'' on the emerging aesthetic acknowledged "cowpunk" as one of several catch-all terms critics were using to categorize the [[Country music|country]]-influenced music of otherwise unrelated [[Punk rock|punk]] and [[New wave music|new wave]] bands. The article briefly summarized the music's history, at least in the United States, saying that in the early 1980s, several punk and new wave bands had begun collecting classic country records, and soon thereafter began performing high-tempo cover versions of their favorite songs, and that new bands had also formed around the idea. By 1984, there were dozens of bands in both the U.S. and England "personalizing country music and making it palatable for the [[MTV Generation]]."<ref name="Palmer">{{Cite news |last=Palmer |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Palmer (American writer) |date=1984-06-10 |title=Young Bands Make Country Music for the MTV |work=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/10/arts/young-bands-make-country-music-for-the-mtv-generation.html}}</ref>

A ''New York Times'' writer stated that one issue with the "cowpunk" term was that "...no single term really describes the music of all these bands."<ref name="Crystal, David 2014, p. 228" /> Another author called the term "cowpunk" a critic-coined "misnomer" in 1985.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Robbins |first=Ira A. |title=The Rolling Stone Review 1985 |date=1985 |publisher=Scribner's |isbn=978-0684183329}}</ref> A 2018 article looking back at the 1980s trends states that the "...diversity of styles beyond punk proper" in cowpunk, "...for some, made the category...suspect, [or] at least misleading."<ref name="Loudermilk" />