Alex Harvey's 1971 song "Rings" as cowboy pop. In December 1974, soft rock singer Paul Davis released the song "Ride 'Em Cowboy," which peaked at #4 on Billboard's Pop-Standard Singles and #27 on the Hot 100. In the context of baroque pop music, Van Dyke Parks' employed cowboy aesthetics in his 1989 song "Cowboy," which The Wire described as "a complex narrative about Hawaii and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour." Parks went on to produce Utah Carol's "Cowboy Pop Song" in 2001. 2010s In the late 2010s, the term cowboy pop began to be used to describe several country-influenced indie rock and indie pop bands in New York City. Some associated groups include Babies' Babies, Baby Jey, Cut Worms, Dark Tea, Dougie Poole, New Love Crowd, Sam Evian, Widowspeak, and Wilder Maker, several of whom have performed together. In 2015, Stereogum described Wilder Maker's music as "cowboy pop that’s got one eye wandering toward outlaw territory and one fixed on catchy melodies." The influence of outlaw country was similarly noted by New Commute, which described Dougie Poole's music as an "intersection of experimental pop and outlaw country." London in Stereo called Widowspeak's 2017 release Expect the Best an "accomplished album that would fit snugly in a cowboy pop genre." In a 2018 interview, Baby Jey cited influences such as Prince and 1980s country singers Tanya Tucker, Keith Whitley, and Johnny Lee, giving further context to the development of contemporary cowboy pop. As of 2018, the music blog aggregator Hype Machine employs the term cowboy pop as a music genre. References External links Cowboy pop on Last.fm Country music genres Pop music genres