After watching Chappell Roan perform her new unreleased song The Giver on Saturday Night Live this weekend, it is clearer that the country genre has infiltrated pop music.
While some rejoice, others clutch their pearls. Either way, this new era of pop/country music is not that backroad outlaw country or that trap country of the late 2010s.
No—this is something else entirely.
Let’s break down this pop culture rodeo, who ushered it in, and what we can expect from some of our favorite pop artists.
Pop Goes Country
In 2023, country music artists like Morgan Wallen, Jason Aldean, and Luke Combs dominated the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 charts for nearly half the year.
Artists noted that the music business was going country. Industry data firm Luminate notes that the genre was one of the fastest-growing streaming genres in the US, with audio streams reaching over 20 billion in 2023.
While pop stars like Lady Gaga and Lil Nas X released country-inspired pop music with various degrees of success, Beyonce’s history-making Cowboy Carter and Lana Del Rey’s long-awaited Lasso were markers that pop has gone country.
And now seems like the perfect time.
Black audiences have found an entry point into the genre that was largely gatekept by white artists thanks to Beyoncé, who became the first black woman to chart at No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart.
Artists like Orville Peck, Chappell Roan, and Ryan Cassata are also opening up the genre to the queer community for seemingly the first time, with large support from country staples like Dolly Parton and Willy Nelson in the form of features or online support.
Opening up the genre which has largely excluded minority communities both in the storytelling and behind the microphone is giving it the chance to expand its reliability to a larger listening audience.
The Art of Modern Pop Music Is Perfect for Country
After the social distancing of the early 2020s, the rise in vulnerable pop has made a notable impression on artists and their audiences. People want to hear a story and decipher the truth behind it.
That’s part of why artists like Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and Olivia Rodrigo have dominated the charts with their ultra-personal projects that fans can connect back to their personal lives (or at least, try to in the form of fan theories).
If this sounds a lot like an intense para-social relationship, that’s because it is one manifestation of it. This is the age of social media after all: Everyone’s an online sleuth these days, wanting to know everything about every aspect of every thing thing (eh em…we) like.
While vulnerability pop can is a bit complex to land properly (see: Halsey’s latest project The Great Impersonator), country is a genre that has vulnerability intertwined in its DNA.
Whether the song is a light hearted jam about pickups and BBQs or a heart wrenching ballad about losing the love of your life, there is a layer of realness in the lyrics that makes the artist believe the singer. It’s a genre that is synonymous with bearing your soul. At the moment, pop culture seems to be thirsty for that kind of authenticity.
And let’s not forget that our current reigning pop queen found her stride in country. In fact, Taylor Swift made Billboard’s Top 10 Country Album in 2021, 2022, and 2023, when she re-released Red (Taylor’s Version), Fearless (Taylor’s Version, and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), respectively.
Red (Taylor’s Version) actually debuted in the number one slot and made the list in both 2021 and 2022.
Will Everyone Go Pop?
The short answer is no. Lana Del Rey famously pushed back the release of her country project, stating that she didn’t want to turn a half-baked project that cashes in on current trends.
Meanwhile, Roan’s recent country bop is likely to be surrounded by other songs like Subway that are reminiscent of the wide-ranging pop on The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess on her upcoming untitled album.
Billie Eilish, Charlie XCX, and Addison Rae will probably stay away from the genre because it doesn’t really suit their experimental pop personas. But never say never.
Country music and pop are on a collision course, and only time will tell how far this pony will ride. The sunset of 2024 will be the litmus test for the amount of Americana vibes and cowboy aesthetics people want to celebrate.
So keep an ear out—you might just find your favorite pop star crooning with a bit more twang in the near-term horizon.
This article is for informational purposes only. Trendy Matters has no affiliation with any of the brands or individuals mentioned, and the views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
