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[title]Last year, I spent my birthday trying (and failing) to retain my modesty while riding a mechanical bull at a central London cocktail bar. Three pals were lassoed into Buck N’ Bull Saloon, a country-themed pop-up that hosts line-dancing and live music events across the UK. Despite my enthusiasm, the rest of my friends made their excuses and stayed away.
In 2024, things are looking quite different. The cultural zeitgeist has fully embraced all things country. Cowboy boots are the latest must-have accessory and American country stars like Luke Combs and Jordan Davis have sold-out the UK-leg of their respective tours. There’s a new Johnny Cash album, featuring 11 previously unreleased recordings from 1993, set to be released in June. Even the A-listers want a slice of the country pie, with Beyoncé recently becoming the first Black woman to top the country charts with her latest single ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ and Lana Del Rey announcing that her next album, ‘Lasso’, will be a country record.
The data whistles the same tune. Between March 2023 and March 2024 there’s been a seven percent year-on-year increase in Google searches for ‘country music’ in the UK. In 2023, UK video views for country content grew by 67 percent on TikTok. At the time of writing, there are no less than three country songs sitting pretty in the UK top 10. And that’s just the warm-up. Later this year, Shania Twain will take the legends slot at Glasto, Chris Stapleton will bring his tour to the UK for five nights, and Morgan Wallen is set to headline BST Hyde Park. Clearly, this country has gone coo coo for country – but why now?
The TikTok effect
Like Le Creuset pans and cheese pulls before that, country’s rise on this side of the pond seems to owe a lot to TikTok. Take North Carolina’s country-pop artist Priscilla Block, whose raw-meets-rock heartbreak record ‘Just About Over You’ went viral on the app in 2020 and led her to sign with record label Mercury Nashville. Then there’s new kid on the block, Dasha, a Cali girl who fell in love with country while studying at Belmont University in Nashville. Her foot-tapping breakup anthem ‘Austin’ took over the For You Page globally last month, with country converts and celebrities performing the track’s line-dancing choreography online.
Rock-inspired US artists like Bailey Zimmerman and the bluegrass-meets-folk sound of Zach Bryan are also hitting the British mainstream. Louise Connor, a Manchester-based country artist, says: ‘Six months ago, if I’d said the word ‘bluegrass’, people would have been like, ‘‘what did she say?’’’ Now, it’s better understood as the banjo-heavy side of the country church. Western swing veteran and Asleep at the Wheel frontman, Ray Benson, agrees. ‘The different “styles” of country music have finally caught the ear of a wider group of people who maybe wouldn’t have been country music fans 40-50 years ago,’ he says.
TikTok is also bringing the classics back. ‘Josh Turner’s ‘‘Your Man’’ was trending for a while,’ says Baylen Leonard, host of Absolute Radio Country and founder of Leicestershire-based country festival The Long Road. Luke Combs became a household name in the UK when he covered Tracy Chapman’s 80s ballad ‘Fast Car’, while Beyoncé dragged the Bey Hive west when she released a cover of Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’ on her new album, ‘Cowboy Carter’ – which led to a 97 percent increase in TikTok videos featuring the original track.
Country has been quietly lurking in the UK Top 20 for as long as Texans have been singing about strawberry wine
Still, the crossover of country with the masses is nothing new: it’s been quietly lurking in the UK Top 20 for as long as Texans have been singing about strawberry wine. In 2018, Maren Morris released ‘The Middle’ featuring Zed; Dan and Shay teamed up with Justin Beiber on ‘10,000 hours’ in 2019. That same year, Lil Nas X made it to number one when he joined forces with Billy Ray Cyrus for ‘Old Town Road.’ They all helped pave the way for 2024, which Clive Rozario, Global Music Programs Manager at TikTok, is calling ‘country’s renaissance year.’
Underground sound
Lest we forget about Taylor Swift, whose Eras Tour is currently the highest-grossing music tour of all time. Her country-pop single ‘Love Story’ made its way to number two in the UK Singles Chart all the way back in 2009. Thirteen albums and all the genres later, Swift is still a major magnet for country: becoming the youngest artist at the time to receive the Album of the Year Grammy for her country album ‘Fearless’ in 2010 and breaking Shania Twain’s record for the most weeks at the top of the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart following the release of her album ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ in 2021.
‘Just because the musicality of it, the production of it, or the perception of it isn’t country, she’s still a country songwriter,’ Leonard says. ‘She’s still telling truths and talking about things that a lot of people experience that maybe they have trouble putting into words that she can put into words for them.’
People would whisper that they liked country music to me – it was like a guilty pleasure
Then there are all of the grassroots country events that have been quietly toe-tapping away across the UK for years. Red Rooster festival in Suffolk has been flying the country flag since 2014; London hosted Nashville Meets London in Canary Wharf from 2015 to 2022. These days, the only difference is that country fans are more visible. People pilgrimage to larger arenas like the O2 for Country to Country (C2C), Europe’s largest country music festival, wearing pigtails and tassels as proudly as ABBA Voyage guests dress up in flares and feather boas.
Gill Tee, who founded Kent-based Americana festival Black Deer in 2017, has bagged Sheryl Crow as this year’s headliner and says ticket sales are currently better than they’ve ever been. But that’s the gravy on the biscuit. ‘People used to whisper that they liked country music to me,’ she says. ‘It was like a guilty pleasure. They’re braver in coming up and saying it now.’
Western wear
It’s not all about the music, though: the catwalk is also helping to fuel country’s cool. Lemaire exhibited embroidered shirt collars and bolo ties last Paris Fashion Week, while Stella McCartney, Isabel Marant and Chloé incorporated fringes into their runway looks. That’s not to mention Pharrell Williams’ AW24 collection for Louis Vuitton, featuring embellished denim chaps, cacti motifs and stock saddles.
UK fans know every song on your album, the deep cuts, everything
Inevitably, it’s trickling down to London’s streets. ‘If you go to Shoreditch, there are cowboys everywhere,’ Connor says. According to The Standard, Brick Lane vintage goods company Hey Cowboy! and Jessie Western, a Portobello Road store selling Native American crafts, have seen strong trade this year, and even the big retailers are struggling to keep up with the recent demand. John Lewis reported a 62 percent rise in searches for cowboy boots since news of ‘Cowboy Carter’ broke, while instant payment service, Clearpay, saw cowboy hat sales increase 326 percent year-on-year.
It’s ironic when you think that country’s biggest artists often opt for sneakers and trucker hats. ‘I’m not a cowboy hat guy, but I love looking out and seeing people wearing that stuff over here,’ says Jordan Davis. ‘The fans are supporting country music in the most traditional form.’
A special relationship
Artists like Davis echo what many have said before: there’s something special about UK audiences. Is it that we sing with funny accents? Or that ‘Wagon Wheel’ comes second only to ‘Come on Eileen’ as the country’s collective go-to karaoke song?
‘American fans grow up with the music,’ says Tee. ‘It’s part of their DNA. Over here, we’re on a voyage of discovery so there’s a real appetite to learn more about it.’ Jenny Whiteway, who works at Lime Tree Music, a PR agency specialising in country and Americana, says playing hard-to-get makes a difference too. ‘In the past, UK fans had to wait years for their favourite US artists to perform here, so they don’t take anything for granted.’
Country music is coming home
We also dig our boots right in. ‘UK fans know every song on your album, the deep cuts, everything,’ says Kane Brown, who headlined this year’s C2C. ‘When we come over here, I feel like we have to experiment with songs that we don’t play in the States.' Our enthusiasm is something that stands out to Davis too. 'I wrote a song about my hometown in Louisiana and thought it was too in-house. Then I come over here, play ‘Leaving New Orleans’ and the crowd love it,’ he says.
For me, country’s 2024 renaissance is fiddle-laced nostalgia: a trend-led glitch that soundtracks a childhood of singing along to Crystal Gayle and Lynn Anderson from the backseat of my grandparents’ car. But when you boil it all down, country music’s popularity on this side of the Atlantic makes perfect sense.
Many people trace the genre back to the 1700s, when Scottish folk music made its way to Tennessee. It mixed, merged and evolved in the melting pot of the US, being influenced by African American gospel and blues, the rock ‘n roll era and the rhinestone tornado more commonly known as Dolly Parton. Even as the genre has swapped hats, in a way, it’s always been ours. That country road John Denver sang about led back here to us. As Leonard puts it: ‘Country music is just coming home.’