When the country music industry comes together for the 59th annual Country Music Association (CMA) Awards on Nov. 19, the event could be considered a convention of the unconventional.
The ballot is stacked with artists and projects that are quirky and/or test the genre’s boundaries. New artist of the year nominee Shaboozey shifted over the last year from an R&B-flavored outlier to a major country artist. New artist contender Stephen Wilson Jr. packs a rough-cut blues-rock sound. Americana import The War and Treaty is a vocal duo finalist. Post Malone‘s F-1 Trillion is an album of the year option by a pop artist. Jelly Roll‘s musical event entry with Brandon Lake, “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” relies on a dramatic gospel performance. Vocal group finalists The Red Clay Strays paint an alternative country shade on the format. And six-time nominee Ella Langley, who was signed in New York and employs out-of-the-country-box marketing, broke out with “you look like you love me,” a Riley Green-assisted recitation that casts the female protagonist as sexually aggressive, which is uncharacteristic for country.
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“For Ella to come out and say, ‘Hey, it’s been a while,’ and take it from there, [she] just puts it out there,” Big Machine Label Group president/CEO Scott Borchetta says. “It’s amazing.”
Even some of country’s primary artists are using final-five videos to bring unconventionality to the format. Lainey Wilson‘s”Somewhere Over Laredo” employs computer imaging to drop the singer out of an airplane without a parachute and land her in the middle of a desert where the scenery rolls and folds beneath her. And Chris Stapleton‘s “Think I’m in Love With You” clip finds an eccentric character — comparable, perhaps, to Seinfeld’s Cosmo Kramer — dancing weirdly through his neighborhood unnoticed in a plot with deeper lessons about the afterlife.
All of these artists and nominated projects challenge country’s norms in different ways, each of them operating as a satellite hovering around the genre’s core. Since each of them tugs against the center from a different point in its orbit, country is operating — for the moment, at least — with an enviable sonic balance.
“Country has always been one of those formats where there’s a sound, there’s a look,” says Johnny Chiang, SiriusXM/Pandora vp of music programming, country. “But yet, over the past three or four years, and still today, I can’t think of a radio format that’s more diverse in sound than country.”
Historically, the genre has adhered closely to a central identity, guided to a degree by the traditionally minded segment of its customer base. A strong preservationist wing tended to guard against country losing its basic identity, and that part of the audience had some representation among the format’s creative class.
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But country has increasingly appealed to a younger demographic — particularly since the streaming business has matured — and that faction of its consumers grew up with a wider range of music. That’s reflected in the breadth of the country music those listeners are willing to engage. The variety of acts and projects on the awards ballot shows that diversity.
“It’s not necessarily that the CMA, as an organization, is rewarding them,” suggests BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville executive vp of recorded music JoJamie Hahr. “The consumers are telling us who the superstars are, and everybody who votes for the CMAs are listening.”
Those listeners don’t generally see country music in the same way that previous generations might have viewed it. Cheating, heartache and drinking were once perceived as the genre’s primary topics. Breakups are still key and so is drinking, though it’s as much a symbol of partying as a means of drowning sorrow. Those changes have made it easier to connect with audience segments that likely would have ignored country in the past.
“It’s rebellious, a little bit edgy,” Borchetta says of current country. “There’s not a lot of super-successful young rock bands right now, and I think country’s benefiting from that because these guys are out touring like rock bands did back in the day.”
The current wave of country artists is also better equipped to interact with the industry’s infrastructure. Its creators are increasingly educated through music business programs at Nashville’s Belmont University or Murfreesboro’s Middle Tennessee State University, where they’re trained to think more strategically about their careers. And since they’ve usually released an EP or two and built a following on social media before they sign with a major label, they also have a handle on what makes them unique.
The executives have likewise attended the music-business programs in large numbers, and they’re more prone to appreciate inventive marketing and branding strategies. There’s still pressure to conform to existing career templates, but artists and their teams are generally more focused on forging unique paths than in some previous eras.
Megan Moroney, whose voice benefits from an identifiable catch and smoky tone, rode her uniqueness to a female vocalist nomination. And while she met with pressure to smooth out her sound, producer Kristian Bush, who came to prominence as one-half of Sugarland, helped her resist.
“They were trying to get me to make Megan’s vocal cleaner,” he recalls. “And I was like, ‘No, man, this is what’s cool. This is her fingerprint.’ I’m an artist. I can tell you exactly what this is, right? This is what makes you [unique]. So don’t take it away from them. Turn it up. That’s kind of the way I treat my production stuff, which is, ‘Let’s find out what’s cool about you, and let’s just make that really loud.’ “
While the unconventional efforts might widen the country universe, the genre’s core is still significant. Nominees such as Green, Lainey Wilson, Cody Johnson and Zach Top become even more important in establishing a home base that holds all the satellite sounds together.
“I texted [Leo 33 label head] Katie Dean on my way home [on Nov. 12] because I heard a new Zach Top on [SiriusXM’s] The Highway,” Hahr notes. “I’m so thankful that a Zach Top exists, because the song was so cool. What he has done paving the way in the format, to bring back that ’90s country sound, I think it just makes our format maybe the most unique because we’re welcoming all sorts of sounds and, really, a combination of formats.”
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That provides some perspective, perhaps, regarding fans’ fervor surrounding Morgan Wallen. He moves freely between country’s center and its more expansive sounds, essentially representing the format’s elasticity.
“Morgan Wallen is country’s representative in today’s music and how today’s consumer, especially younger consumers, are blurring the genre lines,” Chiang suggests. “They love Morgan. One song sounds country, the next one is hip-hop, and he has collabs and so on. They love that, too, and they don’t punish him. They don’t say, ‘Well, you’re not supposed to sound like this.’ We have a whole generation of consumers that don’t think that way.”
Thus, the range of the CMA ballot adheres to a belief in risk and unconventionality that has long been heralded in country’s C-suites, though not always observed. Borchetta, for one, is following this batch of norm-busting nominees with other singular acts, such as bluesy Preston Cooper and the shape-shifting Jack Wharff Band.
“This format always does best,” Borchetta says, “when the net is the widest.”
