[ Maren Morris, a progressive chart-topping country and pop singer
known for hits like “The Middle” and “The Bones,” has
announced she’s distancing herself from the genre of country music.
“After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display.”]
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MAREN MORRIS DISTANCING HERSELF FROM COUNTRY MUSIC UNDERSCORES ITS
EXISTENTIAL CRISIS  
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Li Zhou
September 19, 2023
Vox
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_ Maren Morris, a progressive chart-topping country and pop singer
known for hits like “The Middle” and “The Bones,” has
announced she’s distancing herself from the genre of country music.
“After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display.” _


Maren Morris, (Photo by dave_hensley is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND
2.0.)

 

Maren Morris,
[[link removed]] a
progressive chart-topping country and pop singer known for hits like
“The Middle” and “The Bones,” has announced that she’s
distancing herself from the genre of country music. Morris, an artist
who’s been outspoken about her support of trans rights and abortion
rights, said that her decision was driven by the fact that country
music has refused to reckon with the sexism and racism that’s
rampant among some artists and songs in the genre.

“After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full
display,” she told the Los Angeles Times in an interview
[[link removed]].
“It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to
be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic.”

Morris’s announcement comes as a number of country singers have
recently released hits with clear far-right and racist
messages. Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town,”
[[link removed]] for
example, was criticized for a music video and lyrics
[[link removed]] featuring
racist dog whistling that slammed protests of police violence, and
obliquely alluded to lynchings of Black people.

__

The song briefly topped the Billboard Hot 100, a feat matched by
Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond,” which contained
QAnon references, derision for the poor, and also seemed to
perpetuate racial stereotypes
[[link removed]].
Ahead of each song’s debut, Morgan Wallen
[[link removed]],
one of country’s biggest stars, enjoyed 16 weeks in the top
Billboard spot thanks to “Last Night,” a single from his third
album and the first to chart since he was caught on video casually
using the n-word.

Aldean’s and Anthony’s songs in particular were celebrated by the
right, with the latter even becoming the first topic discussed at the
first GOP presidential debate
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Both songs contain conservative themes and make implicit endorsements
of right-wing policy, from the anti-Black Lives Matter, MAGA-esque
messaging of Aldean’s song, to the limited government, fiscal
conservatism of Oliver’s. Increasingly, country artists’ sympathy
with far-right politics has been evident outside of lyrics as well:
Morris previously got into a Twitter feud with Aldean and his wife,
Brittany Aldean,
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Brittany posted transphobic statements.

Morris is one of a handful of high-profile female country artists
who’ve taken very public political stances that aim to counter some
of the racist, sexist, and homophobic biases that are increasingly
associated with the genre. Others, including singers Kacey Musgraves
and Kelsea Ballerini, have also spoken out in favor of issues like
LGBTQ rights through their music as well as in performances. Mickey
Guyton, the only Black woman to ever be nominated for a country Grammy
as a solo act, has been vocal, too, about her experiences with racism
growing up
[[link removed]].

Morris’s decision highlights the existential questions that country
music continues to face: In the past, there’s been significant
scrutiny regarding how the genre treats women artists and artists of
color, including when it comes to how much radio play and
institutional support they get. Such disparities — combined with the
misogynistic and racially coded messages in certain country songs —
have raised the question of whether the genre is actually willing to
grapple with its problems and make room for everyone. Now, the success
of Wallen, Aldean, and Oliver has made that question even more
pointed.

Country music is at a crossroads

Even prior to the recent culture wars, country music has long been
criticized for the genre’s unwillingness to fully confront its flaws
on race and gender.

Enduring points of tension include the lack of radio play that women
and Black artists receive from country music radio stations,
misogynist and racist lyrics, and a dearth of institutional support
minority and women artists have received from awards shows
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record labels.

The imbalance in radio play has persisted for years and reduces the
amount of exposure that women artists and people of color have, as
well as their ability to have chart-topping hits. As The 19th
reported
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women artists made up just 11 percent of airplay in 2022 on the 156
country stations that report their data to Mediabase, according to a
study from musicologist Jada Watson. That same study also found that
Black women comprised just 0.03 percent of country airplay 
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year.

A number of country artists have spoken out about this disparity
before, as well as about problematic lyrics that are openly
misogynistic or racist. In 2014, the country duo Maddie & Tae released
“Girl in a Country Song,” a huge hit that confronted a number of
these tropes including the idea that women were best suited to simply
wear short skirts while riding along in pickup trucks.

The genre’s problems with racism are also deep-seated. Early
recorded country music saw
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played by white people and Black people segregated by the color of the
artist, despite being the same genre. And country music as a genre is
founded on the appropriation of Black artists’ contributions by
white artists.

These issues have more recently manifested themselves in the treatment
of Lil Nas X’s blockbuster hit, “Old Town Road,
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which was removed from Billboard’s country chart for not being
country enough, and which fueled outrage among some country fans who
saw it as too much of a departure from the genre to be a part of it.
Guyton, who openly spoke about racism in her single “Black Like
Me,” has also been the target of abuse and harassment — including
from people who say she doesn’t belong in 
[[link removed]]country.

Although country music has made some strides in dealing with these
problems, and has seen a new generation of outspoken artists emerge
like Musgraves and Guyton, these issues have also burst into full view
with no clear path forward. And while recent hits have directed
attention to systemic issues, much of the action taken in response to
the songs’ dominance has been focused on the songs themselves,
rather than a broader reflection on the genre itself. In response to
the outcry that followed its rise in popularity, Aldean’s “Try
That in a Small Town” music video was pulled by Country Music
Television, for instance.

For her part, Morris has been vocal about the need for country, as a
genre, to firmly confront its promotion of bigotry and complacency to
it. A new EP she released this past weekend alludes to these concerns:
“[I’m] done filling a cup with a hole in the bottom,” she sings.

“Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed —
the _actual_ oppressed,” Morris said in her LA Times interview.
“And now it’s being used as this really toxic weapon in culture
wars.”

_[LI ZHOU is a politics reporter at Vox, where she covers Congress and
elections. Previously, she was a tech policy reporter at Politico and
an editorial fellow at the Atlantic.]_

* country music
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* Donald Trump
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* Music
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* misogyny
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* Racism
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* homophobia
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* transphobia
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* Culture
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* pop culture
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* mass culture
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* MAGA
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* Maren Morris
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* existential crisis
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