Woke country music singer Maren Morris, back in September of 2023, said that she had enough of country music, and she will be leaving the genre with her next album. Morris has been outspoken in her support of transgender activists and has frequently apologized on behalf of country music for the industry not being woke enough for her liking.
Morris spoke about this decision while promoting her upcoming album “The Bridge” in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. Morris’ feud with Jason Aldean seemed to be the tipping point in her decision to distance herself from country music.
Morris began her interview by talking about the ways that she has felt slighted as an artist due to being a woman on country radio. She said, “Obviously, being one of the few women that had any success on country radio, everything you do is looked at under a microscope. You’re scrutinized more than your male peers, even when you’re doing well.”
Of course, such a discussion cannot go any further without a mention of Donald Trump’s presidency and how it made the world a far worse place to Morris. Or, at the very least, it revealed that the world is even in her eyes. She spoke about Trump’s years in office, saying, “After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display.”
She continued saying, during the interview with Los Angeles Times, “It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic. All these things were being celebrated, and it was weirdly dovetailing with this hyper-masculine branch of country music. I call it butt rock.”
This “butt-rock,” as Morris called it, is popular across the country. So popular in fact, that Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen put together a record-breaking performance on the Billboard music charts together earlier this year, holding both the number one and two slots for songs across all categories.
Jason Aldean’s hit song “Try That In A Small Town” was a hot topic just a month ago, and Morris decided to rehash that discussion by not only hating on the song and artist, but also making a judgement about the character of the fans who enjoyed it.
She claimed, “People are streaming these songs out of spite. It’s not out of true joy or love of the music. It’s to own the libs. And that’s so not what music is intended for. Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed — the actual oppressed. And now it’s being used as this really toxic weapon in culture wars.”
Now, it is time to wait and see how this move turns out for Morris. It is safe to say that country fans will not be lining up to see her concerts anymore, so she is at the mercy of a new fan base that she’ll have to quickly win over or risk her career spiraling brutally.
