The Current State of Country Radio / Sexism in Country Music

[trebor]

Songbat @ 92.9 The Bull Saskatoon [Official slogan: "We've got your COUNTRY right here!"]
vv  {Self explaining]   

[hosssulpizio]

I think we'll start to see more traditional country artists getting signed, such as Cody Jinks, Cody Johnson, and Kelsey Waldon. Another personal favorite of mine is Shelley Skidmore. Also is it too much to ask for a Chris Stapleton/Cody Jinks duet? That would be one pretty cool duet. Also maybe we will start to see some of the Bro acts getting dropped if they don't get their act together, meaning they'd better find a song or record a new album that has more substance because we are staring to see some of the bro acts failing on iTunes. Florida Georgia Line's last couple new tracks on iTunes have not sold well at all. Slowly my friends we are taking the country back.

[travelrocks24]

If you look at Billboard this week, not counting duets, there is one single female artist in the top 20 Country Airplay chart (Kelsea Ballerini), which is ridiculous. I really wonder how much of a bias game Nashville is playing, or if the talent (which I think is there) simply isn't getting respect.

[bboat11]

Aug 16, 2016 4:35:18 GMT -5 travelrocks24 said:

If you look at Billboard this week, not counting duets, there is one single female artist in the top 20 Country Airplay chart (Kelsea Ballerini), which is ridiculous. I really wonder how much of a bias game Nashville is playing, or if the talent (which I think is there) simply isn't getting respect.

That does partly come down to timing. I am pretty sure that before Kelsea leaves the top 20, Maren, Miranda, and Carrie will all join her! However, your point is definitely still true. The blatant sexism is just completely unacceptable, and still rampant.

[Deleted]

I am still surprised that amazing songs like Reckless or Just Like Them Horses, never saw the light of day. I usually prefer male voices, but things are completely against women and it's not even thinly veiled, it's blatant.

[travelrocks24]

Just look at All Access, pick a station, look at their sample playlist. You will see more evidence of the bias that is going around in country music. If radio was smart, they would go multiple hours playing solo female artists only at least one day a week, just to get them the airplay they deserve.

[robenglund]

Sorry for bringing up an old thread but I thought this was a very interesting article by Billy Dukes/TOC.

tasteofcountry.com/thomas-rhett-brett-young-bro-country-replacement-nice-guy-revolution/

Taste of Country obviously covers very mainstream country music aka what you hear on the radio, so I thought this would be a good place to post it.

[seak05]

So basically more like Blake less like FGL/Luke? (I mean mot of the mainstream stuff is generic so it's what flavor of generic)

Bobby Bones got into an interesting discussion on twitter with whiskeyriff the other day about country radio. Essentially though he was saying radio caters to a demographic and the people that they sell adds to are targeting that demographic, so then it continues to be the demographic that radio courts (and you can see the circle), and therefore anything that tests poorly is also not going to get played (well duh). So radio is going to continue to be full of songs that men, primarily young men, like. Of course radio is also struggling.

[bboat11]

That is a very interesting article! I had never thought of Thomas Rhett as leading a "nice guy" movement, but I guess it totally makes sense. I would just love it if the nice guy movement came with an uptick in quality, but so far it's not there yet (maybe because Thomas Rhett is one of the ones leading it...) However, "In Case You Didn't Know" is a major step in the right direction, so if that is any indication of what kind of artist Brett Young will be, we are in for an increase in quality!

Edit: Dan + Shay are also doing a great job of releasing quality material with nice-guy themes.

[jenglisbe]

Sheryl Crow did an interview with Rolling Stone where she says some interesting things she learned when she did her country album:

"It was still a great experience and I learned a lot," says Crow. "But I gotta say that the country market is commerce at its most fully realized. Right now, I want to have an experience that feels detached from anything in commerce."

"It's not a rejection at all," she says. "It's just that a fair portion of my songs where inspired by the Rolling Stones during their Let It Bleed and Exile periods when they were doing their version of country, and the Flying Burrito Brothers and people that rocked. That doesn't get played at country radio, so I don't know why I would ever get played at country radio. I'm not shunning country music. I'm just not part of that format."

Even if she were part of the format, the country-radio promotion game isn't something she enjoyed. "It was more political than I expected," she says. "You do lots of free playing for radio stations in trade for getting played between three and four in the morning. And that's just not how other formats work, and that goes against my grain. I'm too old to allow that for myself and to spend any night away from my kid for that is not justified."

www.rollingstone.com/music/features/sheryl-crow-talks-return-to-nineties-roots-on-upcoming-lp-w459014

[bboat11]

One of my friends shared this video with me the other day, and I knew I absolutely had to share it with you guys. The guy in this video tackles the common complaint that all modern country music sounds the same, and explains why people might feel that way.

Turns out, many of the popular songs right now have the exact same drum beat... And he puts them up next to each other to prove it.

The songs he uses to prove it are:

Michael Ray - "Think A Little Less"
Jason Aldean - "Any Ol' Barstool"
Luke Bryan - "Fast"
Dustin Lynch - "Small Town Boy"
Brett Young - "In Case You Didn't Know"
Luke Combs - "Hurricane"
Josh Turner - "Hometown Girl"
Blake Shelton - "A Guy With A Girl"
Kelsea Ballerini - "Yeah Boy"

Seriously, the same beat. I was pretty much  when I first heard this!



Now I am like hard-core analyzing every single song I hear on the radio to see if it has this beat

[Deleted]

I'm curious because I've seen it brought up a few times this past month on Pulse.

Do you guys believe that bro-country is on the upswing and that there is a lot of it on the charts? I really have a hard time seeing many bro like songs on the charts.

I guess it's just me but I feel like there is very little right now that is bro country. I feel like people equate bro-country to bad music which seems narrow minded.

[dm2081]

Sept 20, 2017 11:55:44 GMT -5 raylatch98 said:

I'm curious because I've seen it brought up a few times this past month on Pulse.

Do you guys believe that bro-country is on the upswing and that there is a lot of it on the charts? I really have a hard time seeing many bro like songs on the charts.

I guess it's just me but I feel like there is very little right now that is bro country. I feel like people equate bro-country to bad music which seems narrow minded.

The only bro-country song I currently see in the top 50 on Mediabase is "Smooth".  Maybe one could consider "Light It Up" to be bro, but that's definitely pushing the definition in my opinion.  

The term definitely gets way overused on these forums, although I find most who still use the term are Pop posters who don't pay a lot of attention to the current state of country music.

[Deleted]

Sept 20, 2017 12:00:46 GMT -5 dm2081 said:

Sept 20, 2017 11:55:44 GMT -5 raylatch98 said:

I'm curious because I've seen it brought up a few times this past month on Pulse.

Do you guys believe that bro-country is on the upswing and that there is a lot of it on the charts? I really have a hard time seeing many bro like songs on the charts.

I guess it's just me but I feel like there is very little right now that is bro country. I feel like people equate bro-country to bad music which seems narrow minded.

The only bro-country song I currently see in the top 50 on Mediabase is "Smooth".  Maybe one could consider "Light It Up" to be bro, but that's definitely pushing the definition in my opinion.  

The term definitely gets way overused on these forums, although I find most who still use the term are Pop posters who don't pay a lot of attention to the current state of country music.

I think there's a case to be made for "Small Town Boy" but that's pushing it. I can't recall the poster who says that right now there is an onslaught of bro country on the chart.

[dm2081]

Sept 20, 2017 12:03:04 GMT -5 raylatch98 said:

Sept 20, 2017 12:00:46 GMT -5 dm2081 said:

The only bro-country song I currently see in the top 50 on Mediabase is "Smooth".  Maybe one could consider "Light It Up" to be bro, but that's definitely pushing the definition in my opinion.  

The term definitely gets way overused on these forums, although I find most who still use the term are Pop posters who don't pay a lot of attention to the current state of country music.

I think there's a case to be made for "Small Town Boy" but that's pushing it. I can't recall the poster who says that right now there is an onslaught of bro country on the chart.

There have been plenty of songs through the years with the same theme and message of "Small Town Boy".  There's nothing bro about it except maybe the heavy production and electronic influence, but lyrically its pretty authentic.

[robenglund]

Sorry for bringing back an old thread, but this is definitely the appropriate place to post it. I was listening to Bobby Bones on my way into work this morning, and he openly spoke out against the revolving door at #1 problem on country radio that’s been repeatedly talked about on Pulse. I didn’t expect him to get so controversial on his show, especially since he’s syndicated across all of iHeartMedia. He specifically mentioned how “Marry Me” would probably be a 10 week #1 smash on pop, but because of the revolving door problem on country it’ll probably just get a week at #1. He also went into how some of these singles won’t get remembered in the long run since country radio cycles through them so quickly. I definitely see where he’s coming from and agree with all of his points, especially the one regarding pop radio since I follow the CHR chart somewhat closely. He also talked about the current #1 songs on pop, urban, and alternative radio which I thought was cool since much like him, I like to follow, listen to, and be well-versed in other formats.

[Deleted]

I wonder with 2018 and how prevalent stuff like Me Too and Times Up is, stuff going around about female equality and all that. I wonder if country radio is going to start having more female artists have a consistent hit prescence or at least more female hits.

As we speak right now on the chart there are 12 artists with a female voice that's labelled country (Lindsay Ell, Lady Antebellum, Lauren Alaina, Ashley McBryde, Runaway June, Carly Pearce, Sugarland, Cam, Kelsea Ballerini, Danielle Bradbery, Maren Morris, and Jillian Jacqueline) climbing the chart. I'd be really hard press to find one of these songs that will be going anytime real soon in the future, except maybe Lauren Alaina (but even then who knows).

Could we see in 2018 country radio really usher in some new female artists? Lindsay Ell and Carly Pearce are both doing really well with their songs as are Ashley McBryd, also radio has shown really strong early support for the latest from Danielle Bradbery, Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris.

Maybe I'm speaking crazy but maybe we will see quite a few female hits in 2018. One could hope as I feel like this year could be a year of change in a way for country radio.

[recordyear]

I'm anticipating the numbers for Ashley McBryde's album. It is doing well on pre-orders. Over 10k first week sales is a win.

[mellongraig]

I hope so too myself, I really would like to see them get back to the way it was when there were more female artists that dominated the charts like it was in the early 80s and again around the late 90s/early 2000s.

[travelrocks24]

www.savingcountrymusic.com/twitter-trolling-is-hurting-not-helping-the-cause-for-women-at-country-festivals/

“Just book more women! Why is this so hard?”

This is the question many women artists and their fans ask when the lineups of certain festivals in country music and beyond are released, and there is a clear imbalance between the amount of male and female performers, or in certain circumstances, no women performers at all, or none presented as headliners.

This was also the question Saving Country Music posted in an extensive, 50-paragraph article posted on the subject entitled The Complex Issue of Achieving Gender Parity in Live Music on March 3rd. Complied from many conversations with promoters, artists, individuals in the music industry looking to achieve more equality for women performers, and information taken from industry panel discussions on the subject, the article presented many solutions and ideas for how to bridge the gap between men and women at music festivals, including the importance of reaching out to festivals with gender imbalance with suggestions of performers who could easily fit in their lineups, festival grading platforms that can encourage and reward improvements on gender imbalance, and pledge systems that can create accountability from festival promoters.

[g8erboi]

[travelrocks24]

Kalie has said this before, but I thought this video was interesting (or you can read the transcript):
www.pbs.org/newshour/show/shunned-by-country-radio-female-artists-in-nashville-are-looking-to-break-through


www.wbur.org/onpoint/2019/03/21/country-music-radio-women-artists (this aired on 3/21 on NPR in Boston).  


www.foxnews.com/entertainment/reba-mcentire-slams-bro-trend-in-country-music-i-would-really-like-it-to-get-back-to-the-real-strong-country (Reba calling out "bro country" on 3/27)

[.indulgecountry]

Sara Evans just shared this on her IG about the ratio of males to females at country radio:

http://instagram.com/p/Bv8-jFLjU5_

Also if you look at the comments you can see Joe Diffie being a douchebag and laughing.

[carriekins]

Dierks, Brandi Carlile, and Carrie Underwood speak on the gender imbalance:

Watch

[raylatch98]

Apr 7, 2019 10:04:53 GMT -5 carriekins said:

Dierks, Brandi Carlile, and Carrie Underwood speak on the gender imbalance:

Watch

Too bad the comment section looks like something out of Fox news.

[recordyear]

And water is wet. And Twitter decided to rage at Old Town Road controversy rather than this LOL. And even Kacey Musgraves winning Album of the Year in Grammys still not helped the situation in the slightest. And the "females making worse music than males" from some groups still sucks...

[raylatch98]

Apr 7, 2019 10:41:46 GMT -5 recordyear said:

And water is wet. And Twitter decided to rage at Old Town Road controversy rather than this LOL. And even Kacey Musgraves winning Album of the Year in Grammys still not helped the situation in the slightest. And the "females making worse music than males" from some groups still sucks...

I am raging at both. The Old Town Road stuff is garbage. That song shouldn't be labelled country it isn't country no matter what way you look at it.

Honestly 2019 in country music has been kind of a mess. Between radio being such a scattershot of sounds, Kacey Musgraves winning album of the year, and Old Town Road. This year has already been kind of messy.

[jimmy's carhartt]

Apr 7, 2019 10:56:36 GMT -5 raylatch98 said:

Apr 7, 2019 10:41:46 GMT -5 recordyear said:

And water is wet. And Twitter decided to rage at Old Town Road controversy rather than this LOL. And even Kacey Musgraves winning Album of the Year in Grammys still not helped the situation in the slightest. And the "females making worse music than males" from some groups still sucks...

I am raging at both. The Old Town Road stuff is garbage. That song shouldn't be labelled country it isn't country no matter what way you look at it.

Honestly 2019 in country music has been kind of a mess. Between radio being such a scattershot of sounds, Kacey Musgraves winning album of the year, and Old Town Road. This year has already been kind of messy.

We're witnessing the balkanization of country music into intensely opinionated groups and factions, as cultural forces hostile to the genre for political reasons stir up controversies. 2019 is the year the culture war hits country music. It's good for the progressive who want to rage at anything white or male. It's good for the uber conservatives who want to feel like someone is out to get them. It's great for the media who need controversy to sell clicks. The loser? Anyone with an interest in the long term health of the genre.

[14887fan]

www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/women-country-radio-airplay-study-827675/amp/

[bigfan101]

Apr 26, 2019 20:37:29 GMT -5 14887fan said:

www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/women-country-radio-airplay-study-827675/amp/

That was a great read and so true.