As Morgan Wallen, HARDY, ERNEST, Post Malone, Dasha and Shaboozey usher in a new generation of Country music fans alongside platforms like TikTok and the growing influence it has over tastes and listening habits it might seem, to some, like there's a seismic shift going on in Country music right now.
There's a whole generation of artists that have been making music in Country music for the last 20 years that appear to have been moved to the side in terms of radio, awards and cultural zeitgeist as millennials and Gen Z-ers begin to make their presence felt within the genre. We're talking about artists like Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton, the Florida Georgia Line guys and Dierks Bentley. It seems like their impact and importance in Country music has been marginalised somewhat in the past couple of years as they transition from being the ‘hot' new things on the block to elder statesmen and grandees.
However, it's been clear this year that this generation of musicians isn't going down without a fight. Some, like Shelton and Underwood seems content with touring right now and playing to their loyal and already established fan bases whilst artists like Dierks Bentley, who has just wrapped up his ‘Gravel & Gold' tour, continue to make music that matters to them irrespective of whether that comes with wider acclaim or radio air time. Whatever the angle, however, 2024 has seen a lot of this generation of artists releasing great new music or beginning to shine a spotlight back on their careers in a way that places them in important positions within Country music even if it comes without the commercial or critical acclaim that they had 10, 15, 20 years ago.
Blake Shelton
Shelton has announced his ‘Friends and Heroes' tour for 2025 but more importantly has signed a new record deal with BBR / BMG, perhaps hinting that he's ready to release more new music in a way that he hasn't done in the past few years. This is an intriguing development for an artist that seemed to have fallen out of love with the genre a little and was more interested in the bright lights of TV and L.A.
Sugarland
Krisitian and Jennifer are out on tour with Little Big Town this Autumn after releasing their first new music in six years with their ‘Welcome to the Neighborhood' EP. It appears that the duo are putting the Sugarland vehicle back on the road and dusting off something we all thought might be destined for the scrap yard!
Brad Paisley
Paisley seems to have suffered more than most of the artists of his class or generation. Him and Carrie were removed as CMA awards show hosts and he hasn't released an album since 2017's ‘Love and War.' 2021's ‘City of Music' song was an absolute belter to these ears but seemed to just disappear into the ether alongside some of the other singles that Paisley has released. HOWEVER, there are signs of a resurgence with a ‘Son of the Mountains' project that has seen him release four songs and this week's brand new single ‘Truck Still Works,' although it's confusing as to whether that's part of the ‘Son of the Mountains' project or not.
What can be said, though, is that Paisley still has tons to offer to Country music and we hope to hear a lot more from him in 2025.
Miranda Lambert
Miranda has always been a leading part of this class of 00's and 10's artists and has always done things her own way, seemingly not bothered by the attention that hits or media coverage brings. She's just released her terrific new album, ‘Postcards from Texas', the first for Republic Records in conjunction with Big Loud, with whom she is curating a Texas imprint to highlight artists from the Lone Star state.
It's clear that these new projects mean a lot to Lambert and she still has the creative fire and urge to produce new music, she's just doing it the way she wants to now and seems to be her own boss in everything she does.
Keith Urban
Bucking the trend for the class of '00 artists to have been moved aside or sidelined by the media, Urban continues to appear at shows like the CMA Fest and the various award ceremonies for the Country music industry. He's just released his best album in nearly 20 years with ‘High,' so it's clear that his creative juices show no sign of slowing down or ebbing away even if his star doesn't carry the same power or weight with the millenial or Gen Z generations as it did with Gen X.
Canaan Smith
The architect of the fabulous ‘Bronco' album back in 2015, Smith also wrote songs like ‘Black Tears' for FGL and latterly Jason Aldean and would go on to be signed to FGL's Round Here record label for a time too. His ‘High Country Sound' album from 2021 saw him re-positioning himself more in the mould of songwriter and 2023's ‘Diamond on the Dresser' was a tour de force of meaning and melody and convinced us his creative powers are only getting better with age.
Smith has been teasing new songs on his social media for an October release and he is definitely in that class of 00's and 10's artists that still have something to say and to add to the Country music genre beyond TikTok!
Chase Rice
Similarly to Canaan Smith, Rice came up through the industry in the 10's riding on the coat tails of his success as being one of the co-writers on Florida Georgia Line's genre-altering hit ‘Cruise.' His career stalled a little around the advent of the COVID pandemic as a combination of age, wisdom and the shifting of the zeitgeist onto younger artists and TikTok influencers left Rice a little exposed. His ‘I Hate Cowboys and All Dogs Go To Hell' album from 2023 was a huge return to form and new album, ‘Go Down Singin' finds Rice freshly independent and full of fire and urge to prove himself as a writer of some repute in this next phase of his career.
Kip Moore
Moore's seminal debut album, ‘Up All Night' was released in 2012 so he definitely belongs to the class of '10s artists. Over the last decade he has released some heartfelt and quality music without really ever getting the critical acclaim or award nominations that he deserved. His career seemed to stall a little around his last release, ‘Damn Love' but he's back with a new label partner and a fiery new song, ‘Live Here to Work,' which shows that he isn't quite ready to head off into the sunset with his guitar strapped on his back just quite yet.
Joe Nichols
With his debut album, ‘Man with a Memory' being released in 2002, Nichols is a contemporary of 00s artists like Sugarland and Keith Urban. His seminal hit ‘Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off,' arrived in 2005 and Nichols has continued to release music every five years or so ever since. Hardly the most prolific of artists, Nichols has a new album out on October 25th called ‘Honky Tonks and Country Songs,' and the tracks released from it so far are excellent, showing that he's lost none of his creative desire despite not having had a hit since ‘Sunny and '75' from 2013's ‘Crickets' album.
These artists are just the tip of the iceberg. Carrie Underwood still has something to prove even if she has been flirting with rock music for most of this year. She's just released her most Country sounding song in a while on the duet with Cody Johnson which came out last week. Fellow peer Dierks Bentley's ‘Gravel and Gold' album from 2023 was a superb collection of honest and meaningful songs which showed that Dierks still has the star power he's always had, even if award ceremonies and radio are looking elsewhere these days. Little Big Town are just as good as they ever have been right now even if they can't seem to land a hit. It was good to see them nominated in the ‘Vocal Group' category for this year's CMA Awards although a more cynical person than me might well cast aspirations on the other choices and lack of viable alternatives that there are in that category!
This year's CMA award nominations are fascinating in that in the Entertainer of the Year category not a single artist nominated has a back catalogue of releases dating back to before 2015. In the ‘Album of the Year' category, Kacey Musgraves is the artist with the longest recording career nominated and you would have a good case to say that ‘Deeper Well,' the album nominataed, isn't really a Country album anyway! Musgraves and Kelsea Ballerini are the female artists with the longest recording career in the category of ‘Female Artist' because singers like Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert failed to be nominated this year whilst if you took Chris Stapleton out of the ‘Male Artist' you'd just be left with a raft of artists who have only done a few albums between them!
Radio, TV, CMAFest and the awards shows seem to have marginalised the artists in the class of '00 and '10 but it's clear from the quality of the music still being made by that group of musicians that they still have a lot to add to the genre and none of them appear to be giving up and fading away quietly into the night. If anything, there is a creative freedom coursing through their veins now that they have been unshackled from the confines of needing to play by Music Row rules. Don't write off this class of artists just yet, they still have a lot to bring to the genre, especially after some of the TikTok influencers and ‘fly-by-night' artists have been and gone, consigned to the history books as ‘one hit wonders.'
