ISSUE #22: It's the "summer of the woman," everywhere but country radio

Three chords and the relentless grab for white male power

A few quick reminders: we are so thrilled to share that JOSHUA RAY WALKER will be joining the Don’t Rock The Inbox Live official Zoom room on September 14th at 7 p.m. CT — become a paying subscriber today so you don’t miss it!

Also, we are officially launching the Don’t Rock The Inbox Book Club!! Our first book will be Why Tammy Wynette Matters by Steacy Easton — we’re telling you this now so that you have time to read it before we get Steacy on Zoom to discuss it on Monday, September 18th with us and our paying subscribers. If you don’t have it yet, we have our first discount code (!! I’m so excited about this!) for Don’t Rock The Inbox readers only (!): enter UTXTAMMY for 25% off + free shipping if you purchase the book directly from UT Press.

Also — follow our very new Instagram!! We’ll be posting up a storm from our various country adventures.

Now, on to this week’s post…

Photo: Alex Berger

By Marissa

It’s the summer of the woman, or so they say: women’s buying power at least (no longer having full jurisdiction over my own uterus, I suppose it’s hard to feel too powerful lately). “Women Own This Summer. The Economy Proves It,” wrote the Wall Street Journal, recounting how the historic demand around Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Barbie have proved that – imagine! how cool! insert slightly nauseated emoji! – women like to consume art where they are represented. Putting aside the fact that it’s somewhat sad this is something that had to be proved, it is wildly great to show that when given the chance to fork over our dollars to see people like us singing songs or making films rooted in our stories and points of view, we do it. A lot. Thousands of dollars per person in concert tickets and silver tour attire and movie stubs and merch. People who are not cis men spend money on art! Oh, what a world, don’t want to leave…

It's the summer of the woman…except on country radio. I stumbled on a post last month from The Women of Country that recounted the stats from this year: in 2023, zero solo women have made it to number one on Billboard’s Country Airplay – zero, and the only woman to appear there is on a duet (Katelyn Brown, Kane Brown’s wife). In that time, Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs and Jelly Roll have all head multiple number ones. But not a single solo woman. Not even Lainey Wilson, the genre’s current reigning female superstar. Not one. And lest we remember even when a women does have a number one in country, it’s an aberration, a magical little anomaly - yet proof of concept when it happens to a man. As if there aren’t people behind these very specific decisions (and playlists, and payola, and back room deals and stilted promo budgets).

This is because, as “gatekeepers” in country music will tell you, “women don’t want to hear women.” Women prefer listening to men, they say: the lettuce in the salad, you know you’ve heard this before. So how can this be? Are women who like country music somehow genetically different than women who listen to Taylor Swift and go see the Barbie movie? Are their ears somehow adjusted to a certain pitch, a certain kind of sound?

Of course not. And if they are, they’ve been conditioned this way. If you only hear men on the radio, it’s what you expect to hear. In radio testing, sometimes the women don’t respond well to women, but that’s not because of their DNA: it’s because you want to hear what you know on a passive form like radio. And, right now, women are only used to hearing men.

So many people have asked me, especially since my book came out last year, a simple question:  is country music misogynistic in nature, or is it something else, that explains why women aren’t reigning on radio despite making some of the best and most interesting music around? It’s a difficult question, because both are true. For the former, I always point to how country radio refused to play Kacey Musgraves much after her Grammy win, in part because she didn’t kiss their asses enough. She was the most popular artist in that moment, a hugely bankable star, and you don’t want to play her? You want to turn away money because of a sexist grudge? Well, yes. Of course they did (hilarious now to watch a song that country radio probably won’t play from her and Zach Bryan hit number one on the Hot 100). They also didn’t want to invest in women because if they played her - or Mickey Guyton or Kelsea Ballerini or Maren Morris or any number of stars - then the data would change. The data would show that women want to hear women, and men want to hear women, and then what? What changes when an industry built on white men holding power makes a monumental shift? I’d be willing to bet there are actually very few people (including some white women) who actually want to know this answer.

For this genre to be sustainable in the long term, playing women – and not just white women – on the radio is not only morally good, it’s good business. But it’s not just about money here in Music City. It’s who holds it.

Thing is, almost every year since I’ve lived in Nashville has been a possible “year of the woman” (do we only get a year, anyway? a summer? why can’t we just…be?). We have an unbelievable slew of radio-ready artists in country music right now: Lainey Wilson (and not just as part of a duet - solo!). Kelsea Ballerini. Mickey Guyton. Maren Morris. Brittney Spencer. Roberta Lea. Ashley McBryde. Miranda Lambert. Rissi Palmer. Lindsay Ell. I could go on and on for days. Hell, the fact that Taylor Swift and Kacey Musgraves aren’t taking up the bulk of the throwback slots on radio playlists is criminal enough. You can even read Natalie on the Texas legacy of women in the genre here. It’s one of the things that feels stupid to list, futile. There are so many if you know where to look.

The gatekeepers don’t want to change a thing, though, because success for women means a transfer of power. And there’s no amount of money that looks good enough to Nashville to buy that away.