Country pop has taken over the charts – good god, why?

Country music is having a moment. It has, inexplicably and seemingly overnight, become the most popular music genre in the Western world. Who saw that coming?

For many years, country music was something of a punchline. It was roundly mocked as generic, simple and repetitive, dipping into the same cliches ad nauseam – trucks, booze, dirt roads, heartbreak. A vaguely soulful drawl over some bouncy guitar and twanging banjo. Rinse and repeat.

Country music wasn’t played on mainstream radio and rarely crossed into the pop charts. Sure, there are exceptions to every rule. A Shania Twain here, a Carrie Underwood there. Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson are global icons whose personalities eclipsed their musical impact. And now and again a song managed to become a proper crossover hit, such as Cruise by Florida Georgia Line or Need You Now by Lady A.

However, in the past 18 months, country music has experienced an enormous and unfathomable transformation in public perception. Its reputation has not simply been resuscitated, but vaulted to the very top of the music pyramid. It has swung dramatically from a genre typically maligned and sidelined to becoming globally beloved. Pop music has taken on a distinctly country flavour. But make no mistake – country music hasn’t got better. It just got popular.

Of course, it’s true that the single biggest pop star on the planet, Taylor Swift, began her career as a Nashville-based country starlet. Perhaps that’s where it began, a gateway drug of sorts. And now we’re addicted. Or, as has been suggested by industry insiders, perhaps country music simply took longer to adapt to the world of streaming than pop or hip-hop, and so has managed only over the past five years or so to find younger audiences online.

Last year there was a veritable invasion of the Billboard Hot 100 chart as Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen became the first home-spun country artists to genuinely dominate the all-genre mainstream chart (as opposed to the Billboard Country Chart) and established themselves as legitimate superstars. When Combs toured Australia, he sold out stadiums around the country. Remarkably, country tunes filled the No.1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for a full six-week stretch across August and September, as Jason Aldean, Wallen, Oliver Anthony and finally Zach Bryan topped the chart in succession.

The problem, however, is far more insidious (and harder to listen to) than country musicians finding mainstream success. It’s that pop stars are now putting out country music in droves, and it’s not good. Genuine musical superstars – exceptional voices, charismatic presences, excellent lyricists – have been dulled and flattened, their voices muted and their lyrics uninspired.

In February this year, none other than Beyoncé, queen of pop and R&B, released the single Texas Hold ’Em, followed by an entire country album, Cowboy Carter. She was praised in some circles for transcending pop and reclaiming country as a black genre, and that is an undoubtedly impressive achievement.