CMAT details the deeply important impact of Dolly Parton: “So underrated and so underestimated”
In music, we love granting a chart-dominant musician the entire year; for example, 2024 was undoubtedly the year of Charli XCX and her inescapable ‘brat summer’, with every inch of the digital space clad in her luminous green album artwork, but 2025 was slightly more contentious.
Many would argue that Geese seized the throne, washing the indie landscape with their brand of rock that felt part nostalgic and part futuristic. While they would be a worthy candidate for year ownership, we recently uncovered the brutal reality of their indie-rock popularity, coming in at a rather meagre three million monthly listeners.
So who is left then? Well, while she clocked in half the monthly listeners of Geese, it’s hard to escape the influence of CMAT, particularly on European shores. The songwriter bid her time, lurking in the shadows of the alternative scene and writing songs for other artists, before finally enjoying her moment in the sun come 2025.
Her Mercury-nominated album Euro-Country thrust her into the commercial limelight, and her poignant yet humorous lyrics about modern-day living tapped into the social consciousness of fans. Country croons, The Beatles melodies and the vignettes of the Ireland in which she grew up are splattered all over her music, making her a modern incarnation of a myriad of influences, but one that sounds out stronger than the rest is Dolly Parton. CMAT clearly takes heed from Parton’s ability to pen melodies and stories that turn personal pain and trauma into deeply timeless songs.
But while her star is beginning to rise in the modern landscape, and the rating at which her music sits feels somewhat fair and appropriate, she believes that Parton, the artist who inspired her to greatness, is still criminally overlooked.
She explained, “I love Dolly Parton. I think there’s something so interesting about the fact that even now, she is so underrated and so underestimated. People don’t talk about her in the same way that they talk about Leonard Cohen or Lou Reed or even Elton John, even though she kind of did exactly the same thing and had more of a profound impact on the kind of shape of her genre of music.”
CMAT continued, highlighting how the oversight of Parton and her career is laced in a societal prejudice that refuses to take seriously the work of an artist, when said work is wrapped up in femininity, explaining, “People still underrate her just because she’s funny and feminine and fun and likes wearing girly little clothes”, adding, “That’s very relatable. I think that’s relatable for a lot of women who make music.”
There’s an undeniable truth to CMAT’s point and, more crucially, a parallel to what she notices in Parton’s career and what she tries to champion on her own. Her rise to the height of music this past year has been due to the music, yes, but the delivery of it has also played a huge role.
There is an overwhelming sense of self to CMAT’s performance style, that showcases her sense of humour, femininity and esoterica, but rightfully, not at the cost of how her music is viewed as an artist, so maybe, after all, we are slowly on our way to some sense of progress.
