Cowboy Carter Beyoncé’s “The Best of” became the first album by a black woman to reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart. The single Texas Hold ‘Em It was also the first by a black woman to reach the top spot on Billboard’s Country Songs chart, as well as the all-genre Hot 100. Despite this, the 7,300 people who are members of the Country Music Association after three rounds of voting put Morgan Wallen at the top of their list, with seven nominations.
The country wave
It wasn’t just Beyoncé, because This year we have witnessed an invasion of the country genre in the musical choices of artists who do not exactly come from that world. For example Post Malone, Sabrina Carpenter, Jelly Roll (very popular in the USA, he is a rapper from Tennessee who began to fall in love with the sound of pedal steel guitar).
Above all, after the great success of Beyoncé, there is Shaboozeywho literally broke through with his A Bar Song (Tipsy). We are talking about an African-American singer who professes The War on Drugs and Colter Wall as his idols. The “country style” sound trend will certainly not end here. It seems that Lana Del Rey’s next album will be oriented towards these sounds, while Dua Lipa has admitted to having discovered this genre.
The social side of country
All very interesting, but why have the upper echelons of the Country Music Association not yet fully assimilated the lesson that even artists outside the classic stylistic lines of the ideal country music artist can be rewarded?
The motivations come from afar. Without necessarily placing all the blame on the still present residues of a WASP mentality, we are witnessing a very strong reticence towards African-American or gay artists and the censorship of “unedifying” attitudes.
Years ago, all of this had a boomerang effect on North American society. Nadine Hubbs, in her 2014 essay Rednecks, Queer e Country Musicargued that classism had led to the rejection of country music as a sort of “provincial hillbilly (derogatory term to define those who live in rural areas, ndt) unsophisticated”.
Hubbs wrote: “Even just a few notes on a banjo or violin can be enough to convey a kind of values that are edifying to them, such as rusticity but also stupidity or lack of refinement and violent bigotry, particularly racism and homophobia.”
When the middle and elite classes use the refrain anything but country to describe their musical interests, they signal not only their personal taste but also their economic background and political affinities. Classifying country music as the antithesis of sophistication increases the belief that it cannot be appreciated by anyone who is not white-skinned and blue-collar.
Beyoncé and country
Yet today with the acceptance of country music in the pop and even hip hop scene (remember the case of Lil Nas X?) The Country Music Association does not seem to be taking advantage of this to give encouraging signs of openness.
We’ve recently seen a lack of promotion on country radio of songs by artists like Shaboozey and Beyoncé. In February, a country radio station in the United States made headlines after initially refusing to play Beyoncé’s request for a listener, but added her songs to rotation after a huge online backlash.
The ridiculous thing is that all this happened despite Beyoncé herself denying that Cowboy Carter be a country album: “This is a Beyoncé album”, he declared on social media, but we all know very well that this latest effort of his is in all respects a vindication and a tribute to a neglected legacy of African Americans in country music and culture.
The precedents
These are just signs of the present. Going back in time, we remember the ridiculous case of censorship of the most unscrupulous images of Luke Bryan with tight pants singing Knockin’ Boots (in slang from the 80s it is a sexual metaphor, ndr).
In 2013 a country radio station censored Kacey Musgraves for alluding to kissing girls in Follow Your ArrowThe song failed to peak at #43 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, despite being named Song of the Year at the 2014 Country Music Association Awards.
Then we have to talk about what an openly gay artist like Orville Peckwho has built a career in the mainstream but has been ignored by the community that matters in the country scene. Peck talks about being gay through an often very country sound not to spark a revolution but to find a role for people like him in a genre that has not historically been inclusive. Talking to him, you discover that musically he is a traditionalist: he has Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard in his heart.
It would be desirable that in the Nashville area we begin to suffer a party switch, a new way of entertainment. And let the CMA also start tapping its foot for songs like Old Town Road o A Bar Song (Tipsy)in addition to flying cowboy hats for 9 to 5.