For many, country music can be broken down into a few key topics: boots, hats, drinking, and backroads. To these listeners, every country song falls headfirst into one or more of these stereotypes. But, like all stereotypes, this one about the genre fails to recognize its variety. Many country songs eschew these ideas and opt for something without conventions. Check out three country songs below that have redefined what the genre could be.
Videos by American Songwriter
“The Joke” (Brandi Carlile)
Brandi Carlile‘s entire career, more or less, has been about redefining country. Her sound borrows heavily from rock and folk, blurring the line between them until she’s created something singular. Not to mention her unique point of view being a part of the LGBTQ+ in country, which is not something accepted in every corner of the genre’s listenership. Given this, there are many of her songs that we could choose for a list of country songs that defy expectations, but we’ve chosen one of her name-making hits, “The Joke.”
This song is a melodramatic vista that is hard to shake from your brain once you’ve heard it. Carlile speaks for the voiceless and paints a new road forward in the face of injustice. She does all of this without leaning on any conventions of country, and this song certainly doesn’t need them.
[RELATED: Brandi Carlile Redefines Her Voice With ‘Returning To Myself’]
“Vice” (Miranda Lambert)
While one could make a case for Miranda Lambert’s “Vice” being in the distinctly country tradition of low-down heartbreak songs, this track stands out from that crowd. Many of her peers have written songs about drowning their sorrows in a barroom somewhere, but Lambert makes no excuses for her behavior. There’s something distinct about this Lambert confessional that is hard to find anywhere in country.
Standing at the sink, not looking in the mirror / Don’t know where I am or how I got here / Well, the only thing that I know how to find / Is another vice, she sings in this hit. Not only is it the words she chooses, but the melody in “Vice” reads like someone who’s spent. It’s a perfect example of form fitting the function.
“Merry Go ’Round” (Kacey Musgraves)
While small-town living is a convention of country music, Kacey Musgraves breaks country’s mythologizing of these quaint places in “Merry Go ‘Round,” making it a perfect inclusion for this list of country songs that broke convention.
Where it stops, nobody knows / And it ain’t slowin’ down / This merry go ’round, Musgraves sings, pulling back the curtain on the ideals of living in a slow, sleepy town. While most country songs see these as advantages, Musgraves gets real for a second and dares to see the other side. Musgraves risked alienating a huge portion of country’s listenership with this song, but her candor and expert songwriting didn’t let that happen.
(Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
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