The Pop Corporation

Post 9/11, country music has gone into something of a freefall, which is why people love The Chick so fucking much. Of course, it’s not a completely dead scene, but there’s something incredibly ugly about the flag-shagging, say it to my face, MAGA-courting stuff that Nashville has been churning out.

Some of the bigger names who have saved us from this brazen American exceptionalism are Kacey Musgraves, Chris Stapleton, Faith Hill, and until now, Maren Morris.

You see, Morris is quitting the scene, and while it’s a huge shame, who can blame her? She said: “It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic,” the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter told the Los Angeles Times. “All these things were being celebrated, and it was weirdly dovetailing with this hyper-masculine branch of country music. I call it butt rock.”

Maren has been a vocal champion for all manner of progressive causes, and while she isn’t turning her back on those things, she’s chosen instead to walk away from country music as an industry, thanks to its complete failure to tackle its often chequered history with misogyny, bigotry and racism.

“I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over,” she said, continuing; “But it’s burning itself down without my help.”

“Country music is a business, but it gets sold, particularly to young writers and artists who come up within it, as almost a god. It kind of feels like indoctrination,” she added. “If you truly love this type of music and you start to see problems arise, it needs to be criticised. Anything this popular should be scrutinised if we want to see progress.”

She described Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That In A Small Town’ as “a last bastion”.

“People are streaming these songs out of spite. It’s not out of true joy or love of the music. It’s to own the libs. And that’s so not what music is intended for,” she said. “Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed — the actual oppressed. And now it’s being used as this really toxic weapon in culture wars.”

She’ll be missed, but we suspect she won’t be gone forever. Country music may not be to blame solely, as it’s a reflection of society’s ills and of course, focused heavily on the mess that is the United States currently. Well done her, for have the spine to speak out.

For now, country music has lost one of it’s brightest stars.