12 songs that show just how good modern country music can be

Earlier this year, a book by Mississippi State history professor Joseph M. Thompson shed new light on country music’s complex place in American culture. “Cold War Country: How Nashville’s Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism” traces the deliberate effort on the part of leadership in both music and the military to equate country music with a particular part of the American experience.

It was never etched in stone that what we have come to know as country music had to be white, Christian, or conservative. There have been liberal and socialist impulses running throughout the history of the genre. There has always been an overlooked contribution from Americans of all stripes – African, Native, Latin, etc…. I am not aware of any strong impulse in country music that grew out of a religion apart from Christianity, but I do know of significant country artists who never considered any religion to be vital to their music.

In parts one and two of this series, we have traced the fundamental split that was always part of country music. When Nashville ran the show in the post-war years, that split leaned heavily toward the type of music Thompson describes in “Cold War Country.”

12 modern country songs that will blow your mind

By 2024, that split, like the country at large, is much more evenly divided. You can see it very clearly in what is formally recognized by the “industry.” I suspect that come February, the Grammy for Album of the Year is going to be awarded to Beyonce for her country crossover, Cowboy Carter. The most prestigious award focused entirely on country music – the Country Music Awards (CMAs) did not even see fit to nominate Beyonce’s work.

The CMAs did nominate a lot of artists associated with more progressive country music – Jelly Roll, Kacey Musgraves, Luke Combs, and the biggest star out there today, Chris Stapleton. The award was ultimately won by Cody Johnson, who may be the most traditional of those five performers. But he is still a far cry from the music that Nashville has been promoting for more than a decade.

Bro-country took the genre – and much of the nation – by storm beginning about fifteen years ago. Bro-country married Nashville’s infatuation with crossover country-pop with decidedly masculine subject matter. It was often the most sophomoric brand of masculinity devoted almost exclusively to pretty girls and cheap beer. Cars, fighting, and a general distrust of anyone who seemed opposed to cars and fighting gradually seeped into Bro’s bloodstream.

Against that, you had artists from all over, pushing back with more incisive lyrics and outside musical influences. Many were rooted in tradition, but it was a tradition that allowed for glances outside the orthodoxy. In the same way that Johnny Cash once shook up country music by including mariachi horns in “Ring of Fire,” many country artists began looking for new ways to tell old stories. Others, particularly those writing and singing about sexuality and gender issues, began telling new stories altogether.

As in the rest of the country, these divides grew larger and larger and birthed angry words and worse. The Dixie Chicks dropped the “Dixie” from their name in 2020. Maren Morris, who won three major CMA awards in 2020, including Single of the Year, announced she was abandoning country music. Recently, she has been working with producer Jack Antonoff, who helped another one-time country singer depart the genre for the greener pasture of pop music. You may know her name. If you don’t, ask a Swiftie.

So country music finds itself at a major crossroads in 2024, but it’s not exactly like it hasn’t been here before. Today, in part three of our series on country songs you are guaranteed to love, we’ll look at this recent era, going back about 20 years, with special attention paid to the 2020s. We won’t include any Taylor Swift because we tend to do that a lot. But if you want to listen to Taylor as a country artist, give “Teardrops on My Guitar” a spin.