By: Maribelle Gordon
It’s no secret that country-western influences are having a massive impact on pop culture right now in a variety of ways. From the ‘coastal-cowgirl’ fashion craze which seamlessly integrates western staples like cowboy boots and straw hats into mainstream fashion to a young and growing interest in cities like Austin, Texas, country culture has taken over. However, no other industry has felt the impact of this trend quite like music has in the past few years.
In September of 2021, the Billboard Hot 100 charts featured just one country song, “Fancy Like” by Walker Hayes, in the top 30 songs (although most country purists may argue against that being considered as a part of the genre). Exactly a year later, the top 30 songs featured six country songs, and this past September, that number grew to 13, with almost half of the top 50 songs being country. According to Billboard Magazine, consumption of country music in the United States increased by over 20% in the first half of 2023.
Artists like Zach Bryan, Morgan Wallen, and Luke Combs are putting up incredible numbers that reflect the massive cultural resurgence that country music is having right now.
Most recently, Bryan released a self-titled album that absolutely dominated the charts, with the track “I Remember When” featuring Kacey Musgraves taking the No. 1 spot, marking the first appearance of a country duet in the Hot 100 in over 40 years. The rest of the 16-track album also debuted within the top 50.
Wallen’s recent album entitled “One Thing At A Time” is an impressive body of work that features 36 songs, ten of which have amassed over 100 million streams on Spotify alone. The project spent over a month in the No. 1 spot on Billboard.
Luke Combs, who has over a dozen songs certified multi-platinum or higher, released “Gettin’ Old” this past Spring as a companion album to his 2022 release “Growin’ Up”. The album peaked at No. 2, second only to Wallen’s album which had been released three weeks prior. Notably, his most popular song off of the album was actually a cover of alternative/indie artist Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”, the popularity of which points to a significant reason that country music is seeing so much success right now: sonic diversity.
While genres like pop and rap seem to be hitting a period of stagnancy or lack of creativity in some regards, country is expanding its boundaries as well as going back to some of its traditional roots and re-exploring these themes. Country music became somewhat lifeless for a significant portion of the 2010s, with a lot of songs sounding exactly the same and reiterating the same surface-level messages about beer and trucks. While these types of songs can satisfy some of the needs of the average country fan, it became predictable in a way that doesn’t generate interest.
However, the current state of country music contains such a diverse range of options that it seems hard to classify all of it under one umbrella. Artists like Morgan Wallen infuse pop into their music in a way that draws large mainstream audiences, which isn’t a new tactic but is now being done authentically in a way that still maintains the interest of longtime country listeners. Wallen has completely revitalized the pop-country subgenre which is reflected in the growing numbers of country fans that initially became interested through his music specifically.
Luke Combs integrates the sounds of 2000’s country with hints of R&B and pop that expands his appeal to even more types of listeners. These kinds of artists have captured the attention of many consumers that are new to the country scene and even some that would have never listened to country before the emergence of artists like Combs.
Along with a growing appeal towards new audiences, old country audiences are being drawn back into listening as some artists work to revive corners of country music that have been lost in recent years. Bluegrass, narrative-style songwriting, outlaw country and many other elements that disappeared from the genre for several years are being brought back by artists like Eric Church, Colter Wall, Tyler Childers, and Chris Stapleton. Many people became disinterested in the genre when it began to all run together, or in some cases transform into pop entirely and discard virtually any sense of traditional country. The ability to draw these audiences back in and reignite their interest has been crucial to the genre’s resurgence and dominance.
The diversity in sound that has been brought back to country music, and in some aspects brought to it for the first time, has carried over into diversity of thought and increased representation. Tyler Childers recently showed a strong signal of support and celebration towards the LGBTQ+ community in a music video and gives representation to the Appalachian region throughout his discography. Flatland Cavalry embraces raw emotion, romance, and sensitivity throughout their lyrics. The genre is overflowing with messages, themes, and even political beliefs that it kept a clear distance from in recent years.
There is a significant amount of creative freedom present in the genre right now which has allowed many different groups to collectively appreciate the genre, whether it be for the first time or circling back to an old interest. There truly is something for everyone in country music right now and the expansion of the genre in both sound and thought has allowed it to lead pop culture in an entirely new direction – a Good Direction, as Billy Currington would put it.
