Progressive country is a subgenre of country music developed in the early 1970s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, mainstream country music was dominated by the slick Nashville sound and the rock-influenced Bakersfield sound of artists like Merle Haggard. A new generation of country artists emerged, influenced by contemporary rock music, singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, and the liberal politics of the 1960s counterculture.