This week's challenge isn't too difficult-- there have been many country songs released in the last six months! To narrow down my playlist, I chose hit country collaborations, including love duets by real-life couples, a viral "country-trap" hit, and a recent "all-star" collaboration in response to the current public health crisis.
Researching recent popular music can be difficult: scholarly work takes longer than 6 months to move from inspiration to publication. To find information about recent music, I had to turn to sources earlier in the information cycle, like trade publications and magazines, and to crowd-sourced information like Wikipedia. Most of these sources are freely available on the internet, but some require subscriptions. I started with the most recent Billboard Hot Country charts, through UWM's subscription, and focused on songs and albums that hadn't been on the charts longer than 6 months. Other more specific magazines, like Taste of Country and Rolling Stone were also helpful, and Wikipedia and artist websites helped for double-checking release dates. Luckily, UWM Libraries subscribes to some popular music magazines and trade publications as well as scholarly journals.
The Oxford Handbook of Country Music by 
