Country music has always been a copycat business. When one thing is working, many others rush to mimic it. That can be bad when it comes to trends like Bro-Country and trap beats in country. It can be a good thing when actual country music catches back on, and folks are finally allowed once again to make country music that sounds country.
Saving Country Music’s reigning Artist of the Year Zach Top has opened that opportunity back up once again with his surprising success. Building off the work of mainstream predecessors like Jon Pardi and his early records, slowly but surely the decision makers on Music Row could see a path opening up for preservationists of the country sound as opposed to the folks undermining it. This has given opportunities to all kinds of up-and-coming artists who are helping to create a new neotraditionalist wave in country.
But it’s also opening up new opportunities for older artists, many of whom were put out to pasture during the Bro-Country era, or forced to capitulate to the current sound. There might not be a better example of this than Joe Nichols. With an excellent country voice brought to a traditional country sound, he had some iconic hits in the 00’s before having to resort to more pop-oriented, and then more Bro-oriented material to keep his label happy.
Recently while on Dillon Weldon’s Driftin Cowboy Podcast, Joe Nichols talked about this very thing.
You know, I always get people who say, ‘I used to love his older stuff. I wish Joe would go back and do “Brokenheartsville,” and “What’s a Guy Gotta Do,” “Tequila.” You know, over the years, I agree. I want to do that stuff too. But as the format changes, as everybody changes, leadership at record labels changes, you know, personnel and radios always made the world go round.
Made it really hard to walk that tightrope of ‘I want to be the guy I feel like being,’ which is traditional country. But man, you’ve got to find that place that you can fit an old school sound like that into fresh, today’s radio.
But as Joe Nichols goes on to explain,
I think the younger guys have helped me. For me to break through with something traditional country would not be nearly as easy as it is for like a Zach Top who is doing some traditional country stuff. In a weird way, it’s opened doors back up for me.
When they tell me, ‘You’re too country for radio, you’ve got to compromise, you’ve got to sing the “Sunny and 75,”‘ which I love that song by the way. But I can’t have a catalog full of those because I don’t feel like it represents me. So when I put out songs like “Billy Graham’s Bible,” and some of the real country stuff that I’ve done, that’s the resistance right there, immediately it’s just ‘too country.’
It’s just not a format that has traditional country anymore, and Zach Top’s kind of kicked that door down for us, and it’s kind of let this old guy back in.
And letting the old guy back in is exactly what’s happening. It’s not like Joe’s latest albums didn’t have some country songs on them too. But you could also tell there was still the attempt there to court country radio. With his new song “Goodbyes Are Hard To Listen To” released on October 10th, it’s pure country. And Joe Nichols also says there’s more where this came from. His upcoming album will be more like his first few, and he more excited to be making music than any other time in the last 15 years.
This development immediately makes you think of some of the other traditionalists and 00’s stars that got shuffled to the side during the Bro-Country scourge, guys like Gary Allan, Josh Turner, or even someone like Jamey Johnson, let alone all the men and women from the ’90s who are still around and seeing renewed interest in their music. All of a sudden there’s a new avenue opening up for older sounds, and ironically, it’s being opened up by younger guys like Zach Top.
None of this can be taken for granted though. Faux Outlaws like Gavin Adcock are also being seeded by the industry to try and co-opt some of that sound and attention to performers who don’t embody the true values of actual country music. It already feels like the whole neotraditional thing is cooling off slightly. But if we continues to support true country artists, it will actuate a reality where actual country artists—both young and old—will be able to do their thing with the support of the industry, as opposed to its opposition.
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