If I had a nickel for every time I heard, “THAT’S NOT COUNTRY,” in my programming career, I could probably buy Radio Ink! With DSPs now as big players in the music discovery mix, the lines are even more blurred as to what is defined as Country music and what isn’t.
Then, of course, several weeks back lots of Nashville heads turned when Beyonce won the Grammy for Country Album of the Year. As CRS 2025 happens this week, it’s worth discussing.
Amazingly, “THAT’S NOT COUNTRY,” has been bandied about as early as the 1950s! When Elvis emerged as a star and, with rock and roll’s entry into music, Country expanded from the guitar and the fiddle to string sections and backup vocalists along with more pop production. With that, Patsy Cline and Eddy Arnold, among others, gave us some big genre-bending hits and the country music world turned upside down.
In the ’60s, Johnny Cash was widely criticized for infusing ’50s rock and roll into his form of country. In the ’70s, the genre received another jolt when pop artists John Denver and Olivia Newton-John walked away with CMA artist awards. In addition, Waylon Jennings was accused of not being Country, sounding terrible, and looking even worse!!!
In the ‘80s, Kenny Rogers became a global superstar because of his constant presence at the top of both the Pop and Country charts. (Sidebar: I happened to be the music director at Top 40 WERC in Birmingham in 1977 when I got a tip from one of our record stores about a song called “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers that was starting to sell to Pop buyers. I played it for my PD and he went crazy. We were one of the first pop stations to play it!) Some of his music? Not considered “Country” at that time.
The late ’90s/early 2000s female vocalist surge gave us two huge acts to crossover to Pop – Shania Twain and Faith Hill. I remember the criticism they both endured for changing their appearance to less Country and more Pop. Then there was the Bro-Country explosion in the early 2010s pioneered by Florida Georgia Line. And now Beyonce, Post Malone, Shaboozey, and more.
Let’s pump the brakes and look at the ACTUAL dictionary definition of Country music.
(From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Country music – noun.
Music derived from or imitating the folk style of the Southern U.S. or of the Western cowboy
especially: popular vocal music characterized by simple harmonies, accompaniment by stringed instruments (such as guitar, fiddle, banjo, and pedal steel), repeated choruses, and often narrative lyrics.
Find me a song on the Country chart that DOES NOT meet that definition. I’ll wait…
Bottom line, is it really up to us in Country radio, to, arbitrarily, decide what’s Country and what’s not?
How did “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” from Shaboozey become such a big hit? What was behind the huge success of Post Malone? In both cases – and countless others – the consumer, a/k/a the LISTENER, told us what is Country to them. THEY are at the head of the music table. We just have a seat there. THEY determine what’s a HIT and what’s not. Always have and always will! It’s NEVER been up to us.
Sooner or later, my hope is that we, as an industry, put the phrase “That’s Not Country” to bed for good and just PLAY THE HITS!!!!!
