Is country pop becoming the new ‘It Girl’?
The general consensus on music in 2025 is that it’s dominated by grating sugar pop and TikTok soundbites. While that’s true to a certain extent—as artists use social media in a completely different way to promote and create music than they would a decade ago—it doesn’t tell the full story. Just look out on the Western horizon, where you’ll see a whole new force riding into town because this is the time for country pop to have its rodeo.
Don’t misunderstand this—I am not so short-sighted in all my Gen Z naivety to claim that country music is some new-fangled genre hitting the airwaves and suddenly taking the world by storm. Of course, country has existed as a force for well over a century, acting as a powerful sonic tool in spinning the yarns of the working-class communities in the American South and giving them a musical voice. But naturally, over time, the roots of the genre have expanded to take on a certain global appeal.
Artists like Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash are among the many classic examples of this, taking their songs depicting small-town stories and putting them on the world stage to be lapped up in the charts in even the most polar opposite corners of the planet. In this sense, you could argue that country has never not been popular—and you would be right—but in recent years, it has also faced a certain feminine resurgence.
Combining the typical facets of the country canon with the slickness of pop is certainly an intoxicating pairing. Moreover, it’s one that is currently being massively capitalised upon among the industry high-fliers, embodying less blue-collar authenticity and more world rapture. This is a particularly true phenomenon for female acts who are propelling the heights of the country pop canon to stratospheric levels, with their mainstream fanbases turning more and more towards the urban cowboy sphere.
In some ways, this has been in the pipeline for the best part of two decades, with Taylor Swift being undeniably the most prominent example of an artist who has leapt between the country and pop worlds with blasting force. Although admittedly, her late-2000s country yarns on Fearless are complete universes away from her slick pop ballads on her most recent global smash effort, The Tortured Poets Department. The sonic journey Swift has been on over that time has more than gained her a few fans, turning a few artistic heads who now look to follow in her footsteps.
Is country pop becoming a trend?
At the other end of the conversion, artists like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter have been on the rise in recent years as bubble gum pop powerhouses. But now, possibly having witnessed Swift’s global rapture, are giving the country canon a go in the hopes of scooping up more of that crossover demographic. With Roan’s most recent single, ‘The Giver’ and Carpenter’s collaboration with Parton back in February on a special version of ‘Please Please Please’, it proves ultimately that this formula works.
Within this, there are also artists looking to root themselves more firmly in the country sphere for the long term, such as American singer Kacey Musgraves and Irish artist CMAT, who have been forthright in explaining that the genre is less of a fad to them and is integral to their overall commercial appeal.
Particularly with the latter, who recently announced her sophomore album Euro-Country, the genre is set to conquer increasingly non-American horizons as she uses the archetypes of classic country sounds to explore issues of politics, money, and identity in modern Ireland.
However, this is also not to ignore the changing influence that the American country canon is currently undergoing, the full charge of which is being led by Beyoncé and her storming album, Cowboy Carter. Making history as the first Black female artist to win both ‘Best Country Album’ and ‘Album of the Year’ at the 2025 Grammys, that record symbolised something very different to other recent country exports—it is not just a trend, and Black folks have just as much of a tangible presence in the sphere as any other.
Like, frankly, most musical genres, the height of country music is, of course, still dominated by men. However, as has been evidenced, an interesting turn of the tide is taking place in which women from the pop canon are joining forces to challenge that ideal and finding massive chart success in doing so. Whether it truly lasts as a stronghold in altering the industry is another matter. But, for now, one thing is certain: country pop is music’s new ‘It Girl’.
