save a horse, ride a cowboy (but only if he sings)
a meditation on country music being cool again
There’s something happening in the music industry right now, and I’ll give you a hint about what it is. Think: Texas, the sound of a twangy guitar, classic trucks, dirt roads, and cowboy hats.
You may have guessed it (i’d certainly hope the title of this helped)– country music is cool again.
If you need some kind of proof, just ponder some of the most popular rising artists right now, and the crowds of pretty girls in white ruffled dresses and Frye boots showing up to their concerts like they’ve been doing it since birth. (Disclaimer: This is not a knock on pretty girls in white ruffled dresses and Frye boots at country concerts because I, too, fall under this category at least by my own standards).
But just think about them all: Noah Kahan (more folk-leaning, for sure, but country-ish all the same), Morgan Wallen (sorry if you have the ick for him- I do too, but he warrants a mention), Zach Bryan (who semi-recently took to the stage with Bruce Springsteen and Maggie Rogers), Luke Combs (sang Fast Car with Tracy Chapman at this past Grammy’s), and the ever-present, ever-talented Kacey Musgraves (who needs no identifying information for most).
It’s not just these artists who proudly rep the genre tapping into this part of the zeitgeist, too. Over the past year, we’ve seen Beyoncé flex her incredible artistry prowess with Cowboy Carter; Post Malone has made it clear he’s returning to the roots of his Texas home with the promise of his forthcoming F-1 Trillion; and Lana Del Rey’s release of country-trap single Tough with Quavo heralds a new era for the alternative singer, Lasso or not. (for those not well versed with the LDR cinematic universe- Lasso was Del Rey’s alleged forthcoming tenth album, the first to be a full country project, but recent interviews regarding it have alluded to it no longer being a 2024 release, as well as no longer being entirely country. it’s all very Lana, and for that we cannot fault her– we simply must take what we are given.)
To get back on track, the influence of country music and the western vibes that go with it aren’t even just happening in the US, where these things have always permeated culture to a degree. K-Pop groups like ATEEZ and P-1Harmony have integrated cowboy fashion into their stage wardrobes, for the buzzy single Work and North American UTOPIA tour, respectively.
This is all well & good– but part of me feels… como se dice… shorted. Slighted, even. If you know anything about me and my childhood (especially because i never shut up about it), you’ll know that much of it was soundtracked by my dad’s taste in music. This of course, includes the early 2000s boom in country pop music, much of which remains not only nostalgic, but also formative in shaping my music taste, which I consider to be widely eclectic. My toddler through tween years are littered with CDs of greatest hits from Kenny Chesney, Shania Twain, George Strait, Tim McGraw, Darius Rucker, Keith Urban, The Chicks, The Highwaymen, the list goes on and on…
Of course this carried over into my teen years! How could it not? It’s important to note, though, that this is where it felt middle-school-isolating to be a country music lover: not in any particularly detrimental way, but enough to make you feel like a weirdo in only the way other middle schoolers who are cooler can. I secretly feasted on Florida Georgia Line and Miranda Lambert in the car with my family, and tried to convert some of my softball teammates to lowkey listeners.
Let’s walk down the timeline a little further: post-tenth grade i became a fully fledged feminist (ty to my english teacher ms. carino for radicalizing me). This was the full departure from my country roots, which was coincidentally around the time of Taylor Swift releasing reputation- an electropop album that made it clear she was not returning to her country roots anytime soon either. It felt wrong to listen to a genre that so clearly invested their time, money, and energy into artists that sang almost exclusively about women in a way that at best used them merely as brainless muses and at worst, objectified them to unsettling degrees. I steered clear of everyone except Kacey Musgraves, who at the time felt like the only exception.
My listening habits found new places to explore, including a specific hyper fixation with hip hop and rap that was fueled by a boy I had a crush on who didn’t care about me at all, which is just about as far from feminism as you can get. This on its own opens up another whole conversation about if it’s morally redeemable for feminist women to listen to misogynistic music as a little treat sometimes: I don’t know the right answer to that question, and I don’t even know if there is a right answer to it.
What I do know is this: my personal boycott of country music went on for a while, but was marked by me missing it. Every once in a while, I’d unintentionally hear a song on the radio or on social media that bled bluegrass or sounded like southern rock I knew; it would make my heart pang with something like nostalgia. The instance that really brought me back to being a regular listener? Lana’s cover of John Denver’s Take Me Home Country Roads.
The song alone is enough to want to go back to listening to country music, but it was the feeling evoked that stayed with me. It reminded me of everything that feels like country to me.
Leaning your head out an open window in the summertime and breathing in the air. Running barefoot in the grass. Sloping back in your seat at an evening baseball game. Feeling at home in the small town where you grew up. Seeing the sunset over fields of corn and soybeans and whatever else grows in Pennsylvania. Jumping off a dock into a clear, glassy lake. None of these things have anything to do with the usual suspects of country music- trucks, beer, objectified women- but have everything to do with how I feel about home. The place I was raised, surrounded by pretty farmland, sunlit back roads, and horses in fields, running free.
Can you tell I have a superiority complex about Tough? You should have seen my reaction to the first snippet, with similar cowboy-like adages- “Tough like the scuff on a pair of old leather boots/Like the blue-collar, red-dirt attitude/Like a .38 made out of brass/Tough like the stuff in your grandpa’s glass.” Sometimes you just get it, what can I say?
It feels nice to have some claim to that, some overarching knowledge that this is the good stuff before everyone else realized it. Is this essay entirely me, telling you how much of a hipster I am? Hmm… maybe. To quote a recent Tik Tok I saw– “i liked everything you like 12,000 years ago.”
Maybe what I’m really trying to say is that it’s very cool to see country music once again enter the mainstream, especially among fellow members of gen z. And that, well– I’ve been waiting for the rest of y’all to catch up.
(pictured above: my humble cowboy beginnings)
ps if you’re a music snob who refuses country music on principle… hey girl… i’ve been there as i’ve just stated. just give it a try, maybe. here’s a playlist of some bangers you might like if you haven’t like anything else yet.
the opposite of cowboy blues playlist <33333333