This week, pop icon Chappell Roan debuted her new song “The Giver” on SNL, a sexually suggestive, queer ballad in the unexpected country music genre. SNL’s audience being a fairly liberal and open-minded sphere, the reception was overwhelmingly positive; yet the significance and radicality of a lesbian country anthem cannot be overstated.
Perhaps disproportionately to other music genres, country music remains dominated by white male artists. But when you think about it, this seems ridiculous; some of the genre’s finest moments came from female trailblazers. Although women have always historically felt pressure to conform to the male gaze in male-dominated spheres, the origins of country music are far from exclusionary. Acts like The Chicks, Kacey Musgraves and even Beyonce in her recent works produce excellent country songs, yet have faced backlash and discrimination within the genre – critically, socially and commercially. How can such imbalance still exist within such a popular and expansive genre?
In order to understand this question, let’s look back to the origins of country music. A key aspect of the genre is its difficulty to be defined and traced back to a singular creator. It first emerged in the southern regions of the United States, but has stylistic origins from Creole, Hawaiian, and even Irish cultures. Its love of the “minor pentatonic scale,” more commonly known as the “blues scale,” is derived from blues music, a genre pioneered by African-Americans in the Deep South around the US abolishment of slavery. According to Huber, country music began “not as a white agrarian tradition, but a fluid phenomenon passed back and forth between the races.” It’s this historical fluidity that shows how ridiculous its new rigidity in representation is. The beauty of such a flexible music genre is that there is no traditional majority – how could anybody not belong?
Even so, due to country music’s rising popularity, it began to be rebranded and commercialised. Big record labels found it more profitable to sell a socially acceptable, white form of country music.
Country began to be shaped by those who marketed, made, and consumed it. Since then, country music has been dominated by white — specifically white male — artists, and the genre’s association with the southern Confederate states began to represent less of the oppressed (from where it originated), and became to represent more the music of the oppressor.
This is not to say minority country musicians didn’t gain any recognition. Linda Martell revolutionised the genre by blending it with pop and R+B, and is immortalised as a consequence. However, it is cases like Gus Cannon teaching Johnny Cash the majority of his craft, yet receiving hardly any of the credit, that perhaps epitomise the inequality in the industry.
In more recent years, huge strides have been made for representation in music genres — particularly in pop and indie music. Last year, female artists spent a record-breaking 31 weeks at No.1 on the Official UK Charts, and the Eras Tour is officially the highest-grossing tour in history.
Another example of female excellence in music is Beyonce: with a career spanning over three decades and eight No.1 albums, she was dubbed by the Rolling Stones as the “world’s greatest living entertainer.” She has also won 32 Grammys, more than any other artist in history, proving not just her commercial appeal, but her critical appeal as well.
That’s why it was so confusing for award show audiences when her country album “Cowboy Carter” received zero nominations last month at the 2024 CMA Awards, despite debuting at No.1 on the Country Albums chart.
In a surely unlinked turn of events, the leading nominee was Morgan Wallen, a man previously suspended from his record label for multiple uses of racial slurs. This snub comes years after Beyoncé’s performance of another country song, “Daddy Lessons” at the CMAs with The Chicks. Although an incredible performance combining two music giants, it became surprisingly controversial, with Natalie Maines (the lead singer of The Chicks) describing the way Beyonce was treated after the show by the board as “disgusting.” Several sources reported instances of walkouts by traditionalist musicians, with the reaction on twitter vitriolic and scathing.
Part of the controversy may have come from The Chicks, an all-female country ensemble who received immense backlash for voicing their anti-Bush opinions on the Iraq War, back in 2003. The hate was distinctly gendered, with criticism like “the Dixie Sluts” revealing the bigotry of some country music fans. Whatever form the discrimination against these minority artists in country music takes, it is clear that country music culture is uncomfortable with sharing its name with women that do not fit within their expected boundaries. Anti-black reactions to Beyonce in country music, then and now, are particularly ironic given the genre’s African-American roots.Â
Much of the sentiment that anyone who’s not a white man doesn’t belong in country music partly stems from the disproportionate radio airplay they receive.
Another distinction country music has from other genres in the streaming age is that it still relies heavily on radio stations, possibly due to its older audience. Chief executive of Sony Nashville Gary Overton put it bluntly, saying “If you’re not on country radio, you don’t exist.”
Immediately following this was “Tomato-gate,” when radio consultant Keith Hill told a news outlet that if they wanted to make ratings, they should “take females out.” This misogynistic remark did not attract anywhere near as much backlash as it should have, as such inequality in airplay has been the norm. A 2023 Billboard study showed that 88.5% of the artists to top the Country Airplay Chart were male, with only 5.75% solo female acts. An unfair feedback loop can be created, where disproportionate representation leads to the general public believing that men just make more (or better) country music.Â
In every genre or society with strong cultural origins, there is always fear and uncertainty around modernisation. A lot of the gatekeeping of country music from industry giants might also be due to a fear of Hollywood assimilation and an urge to cling to its independent, soulful roots.
But music and culture is always changing, and I believe there are myriad ways to honour these origins, while also expanding them for the better. Wherever your personal music preferences lie, music is meant to bring joy and build community; and exclusion goes against its very form. So listen to some Kacey Musgraves, put on a Brittney Spencer music video – your upliftment of female country artists goes further than you realise.