Tanner Adell – Buckle Bunny / Willie Jones – Something To Dance To
Country music is having a big moment in the spotlight right now. Depending on who you ask, that’s either a good thing or a bad thing. The top three songs as of this moment on the Billboard 100 are country songs, which might be the first time that’s ever happened, or the first time in many years that’s it’s happened. Regardless of who the artists are, or the quality of the songs, it’s a big deal, regardless. With that said, though, I wanted to avoid one of these songs. Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town” debuted at number two last week, but it shot up to number one. I could sit here and talk about how the song is full of racist dog whistles that allude to “sundown towns,” or how the song paints small town living as this Andy Griffith-style utopia, where everybody gets along and there no problems whatsoever, even though the reality is a lot more nuanced, but I don’t want to do that. A lot of other people already have, and there’s a great podcast episode from The New York Times’ pop culture podcast Popcast that does a great job going into detail about the song and how this type of song is nothing new in country music, and how Aldean is fully embracing his conservative beliefs by putting that into his music.
I don’t have anything else to add to the conversation, but the reason I bring it up is because I was hoping the song would crash and burn within its second week on the Billboard 100. It might take a couple of weeks for that to happen, as the only reason the song has any pull is through the push from Aldean’s conservative base, and with the way conservative discourse usually runs, they’ll find something new to champion or try to boycott within the next week. Maybe the song will start to drop next week, but right now, it’s part of the zeitgeist and so is country music. The other two artists in the top three are Morgan Wallen, who faced a similar controversy within the last couple of years, and Luke Combs, whose cover of “Fast Car” has been doing quite well, and that’s why I wanted to bring that up. Country music has only been getting more popular as time has gone on. Despite how reviled “bro-country” was in the early 2010s, it did numbers. Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan, and all these guys sell records, despite how bad most people think they are, but it shows they have their fans.
On the flip side, however, you have artists like Tyler Childers, Colter Wall, Jason Isbell, and a lot of artists that are more “progressive” within the country genre, whether it’s politically and/or musically. A lot of them started out in the independent circuit, but a guy like Tyler Childers has blown up considerably, especially with his new song that has the same conservatives that love “Try That In A Small Town” in a tizzy, but there is still a bit of an issue with the artists I mentioned – they’re all straight white guys. Country music has always been a genre for straight, white, and conservative white men. The same goes for most styles of music, such as rock and metal, but country has always been very much a man’s game, considering the “bro-country” moniker, named for songs about girls, beer, and trucks, that was popular in the early 2010s. You don’t see a lot of women or people of color in the genre, at least in the upper echelon of the genre. Sure, you have Lainey Wilson, Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, and other artists like that, but they’re not often taken as seriously, because they’re women. People of color are rarely found in the genre, minus Charley Pride and Darius Rucker, but that’s starting to change.
Looking back at bro-country in retrospect, maybe it was necessary for what’s happening in country now, since there’s a subset of country music that’s blurring the lines between genres, including elements of pop, hip-hop, and R&B, but in a more genuine and interesting way that doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a straight white guy that is performing a song written by other people. I think it started with Lil Nas X back in 2019 when he released “Old Town Road,” but since then, a few other artists have emerged that do something very similar, including Breland, Willie Jones, and Tanner Adell. I’ll be talking about the latter two artists today, because they dropped new records this year. Tanner Adell’s new album just came out, but that inspired me to go back and listen to Willie Jones’ new one from a few months ago. The reason I wanted to talk about them both at the same time is because I feel very similarly about both albums, but there’s a larger point to be made about inclusivity within country music, and how exciting it is that more voices are being able to be heard, whether it’s a Black woman or a Black man. Both Adell and Jones are very fascinating because they take country music and ultimately throw in a myriad of other influences, such as pop, R&B, and hip-hop.
I’ve been a fan of Willie Jones for a minute now, as I found his debut record, 2021’s Right Now, and it was a rather fun, catchy, and interesting combination of sounds that felt very genuine and exciting. The lyrical content was quite solid, too, not saying anything too different from your average country songs, such as about romance, drinking, heartbreak, and things of that nature, but there was a song on that record that brought a unique perspective to the genre by speaking openly about Jones being a Black man within country music. His newest LP, Something To Dance To, doesn’t have anything that deep, or even anything remotely sad or depressing, but the album is surprisingly very positive. While Right Now had a few songs that were about heartbreak, Something To Dance To is a very happy-go-lucky record with song titles like “Let’s Be A Love Song,” “I Can’t Complain,” or “Lil Vibe.” A lot of this record is about celebrating what you have and who you have it with, or just making the most of the moment. Some songs stray from these ideas, such as “Down By The Riverside,” or “No Tellin’,” which is a song that tells a story of Jones and another woman cheating on their partners with each other, and songs like “Slow Cookin’” and “Soul Food” use a lot of southern food metaphors to describe love. Hell, the title track is almost a spiritual successor to “Country Soul” from Right Now, because both songs are about the same thing – how Jones either listens to and/or performs different genres of music. The title track to this record, however, is more so about how it doesn’t matter what you listen to, but if you put on “something to dance to.” That’s where I’d say this album shines, not necessarily the subject matter of the lyrics, but how seamless Jones is able to combine certain styles of music, usually country with something else, such as R&B, soul, hip-hop, or pop music. He’s very blatant about being influenced by other kinds of music, but country music is always the backbone, whether it’s in the subject matter or his very smooth southern drawl that sounds unique.
Tanner Adell is a bit different, both in terms of the way she combines pop, R&B, and country, but mainly for her subject matter. She originally got popular on Tik Tok through releasing snippets of the title track of her debut, Buckle Bunny, and it was an R&B-meets-country song, but the whole record is rather diverse. A few songs on here have a more pop-country tone, such as “Throw It Back,” “FU-150,” or “See You In Church,” but songs like “Buckle Bunny,” “Bake It,” and “Trailer Park Barbie” have a prominent R&B tone to them. “Strawberry Crush” and “I Hate Texas” are more pop-centric songs, and the latter track doesn’t feature any country instrumentation in it, but more so in its vocal and lyrical tone. Adell is a wonderful singer, and a lot of these hooks are utterly fantastic. Granted, nothing sounds incredibly unique, especially the pop-country stuff, like on “Throw It Back” or “See You In Church,” but it’s where she goes for unorthodox sounds that really work, such as “Bake It,” or the title track. The lyrical content on this record, aside from her voice, is honestly what sells it. “Strawberry Crush,” for example, is about Adell fantasizing about hooking up with a woman that she randomly sees in a grocery store while shopping with her boyfriend. I’ve never heard a bisexual country song before, but it’s rather unique subject matter, especially for country music. “Throw It Back” is a clever and fun song that says to treat a man like a fish and “throw it back” if he treats you badly, and “I Hate Texas” is a song that talks about how Adell hates Texas for getting heartbroken as a teenager and realizing that she wouldn’t get her “storybook ending,” ultimately only hating it for the memories she has of this person.
Both of these records ultimately make me feel the same way, and it’s that I enjoy them very much, and I’m very excited for where certain parts of country music are going. It looks like the genre is getting more inclusive and artists that have never gotten the chance to get a voice are doing just that. These are both wonderful records that are also very short. Jones’ new album is only 34 minutes, whereas Adell’s debut is only 24, and because of how much I enjoy them, I’ve been listening to them a few times a day. I wanted to highlight both of these records, not just because they’re new and I had something to say about them, but because with the discourse surrounding “Try That In A Small Town,” I wanted to highlight a couple of artists that are making country music exciting. People who aren’t into country, or already have a negative connotation with it, might look at that song, or any number of popular songs right now, and write off the whole genre. Country music isn’t my favorite kind of music, but I’ve found there’s a lot in it that’s worth enjoying. There are also a lot of artists that are doing unique or interesting things, such as Willie Jones and Tanner Adell. These are most likely going to be a couple of my favorite albums of this year, whether it’s for how catchy they are, how unique they are, and how much fun I have listening to them.
