But the public appetite for those qualities was still there, and country artists increasingly encroached upon the classic tropes of classic rock. Cyrus was a caricature of that migration: He wore his hair in a mullet, often performed in sleeveless shirts, and appeared to be more influenced by polished eighties power rock than the roots of country music. There was a level of calculated redness to his neck: It was erroneously publicized that he’d tried to cash a $1.6 million royalty check at his local bank’s drive-through window. When he spoke, he talked like a rural Southerner: His Kentucky
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