Inside country music's new golden era

LOS ANGELES

It was an unexpected musical success story last year, one that has only continued to snowball: Country music, with its loyal listenership on the margins of pop's mainstream, had a crossover moment.

Some of the biggest albums and songs of the year are credited to country musicians like Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan and Luke Combs, whose hits went beyond country radio stations and onto pop rotations.

But when the 2024 Grammy nominations were announced in November, something seemed amiss. Country was not represented in the main categories except for Jelly Roll and The War and Treaty, who are up for best new artist. It seemed like a notable absence for a genre that topped the charts all year. The lack of nominations surprised Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason jr.

“We need to do more work with our country voters and continue to invite more country voters to the process,” he told The Associated Press at the time.

That hasn't always been the case: In 2019, Kacey Musgraves won album of the year at the Grammys for her “Golden Hour," a release celebrated for its innovative take on the country genre that combined elements of pop and disco. It's the kind of innovation often celebrated by the Recording Academy.

Still, country music has broken new ground. In July, country acts held the top three spots on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in the chart's 65-year history: Controversy hoisted Jason Aldean’s “Try That In a Small Town” to No. 1 for a short week, followed by Wallen’s “Last Night” and Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” The latter also won song of the year at the 2023 Country Music Awards, despite the fact that the original was written in 1988.

Oliver Anthony’s viral hit “Rich Men North of Richmond” also made it to No. 1, making him the first artist without any prior chart history.

Wallen is in a league of his own. His latest album, with its inventive exploration of trap beats over heartbreaking country, titled “One Thing at a Time,” spent 16 weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 in 2023, which meant he held the top spot for 30 percent of the year and his record was released in March. It also means that Wallen’s album spent the more time at No. 1 than any other album since Adele’s “21” dominated over a decade ago. Unsurprisingly, “One Thing at a Time” was the most-consumed album in the U.S. last year.

Across iHeartRadio stations, Wallen accounted for 2.1 billion total audience spins.

Beyond Wallen and those other chart-toppers, newer country talent has begun experiencing some crossover success, like the hip-hop head Jelly Roll (with ‘Need a Favor’), Lainey Wilson’s Deana Carter-referencing “Watermelon Moonshine," and Bailey Zimmerman’s hard rock rasp on “Rock and A Hard Place."

If pop has begun embracing a “genreless” approach to music, it seems like that unconventionality is opening doors for country as well and it is accounting for the music's popularity. At least, that's what Dan Smyers of the three-time Grammy award winning duo Dan + Shay believes. “There’s so many different sounds in country happening right now,” he says, which has inspired “crossover” moments over the last few years like his group's song “10,000 Hours," which featured Justin Bieber and got Top 40 radio play.

According to Luminate, country music experienced its biggest streaming week ever in 2023, a whopping 2.26 billion, the data and analytics platform’s Midyear Music Report found. In the first 26 weeks of 2023, the data and analytics platform found that country music consumption in the United States was up 20.3 percent year-over-year, a number Wallen is particularly responsible for: He accounted for 40 percent of the growth in country consumption last year.

The genre has historically been enjoyed by English-speaking Americans, but Luminate's reporting also shows growth in the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Brazil, Mexico, Germany and Vietnam.

Veterans of the genre, too, have taken note of country's big year. Reba McEntire, who joined “The Voice” as a coach for the first time in 2023, taking over from Blake Shelton, views her role there as an opportunity to champion this era of country music performers. “I just kind of stay in my lane and do the best I can with supporting country music,” she told AP.

Next month, Dan + Shay will join her, John Legend and Chance the Rapper as season 25's coaches, marking the first-time half of the four spots will have been occupied by country musicians.