QUEENS of COUNTRY
Expert highlights great songs by women that we should all know
When you look back on the past few decades of country music charts or the headlines of popular country music festivals, you won't find a lot of women.
In 2019, just 10 per cent of radio airplay and chart positions were women, according to an analysis by musicologist Jada E. Watson and CMT'S Equal Play project.
Women of colour are “nearly absent” from radio play, Watson wrote in another analysis, making up just 0.06 per cent of airplay in the past decade.
But there's another story not told by these mainstream statistics, says veteran music journalist Marissa R. Moss.
It's revealed when Kacey Musgraves sells out arenas or Mickey Guyton becomes the first Black woman to be nominated for best country solo performance at the Grammys or when Maren Morris achieves massive crossover success.
“There's bro country and then there's her country,” Moss says.
Moss explores that contrast in a new book, Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be.
We asked Moss to make us a playlist that charts this recent history.
The result is an (extremely) condensed starter kit of some of the best country songs of the new millennium, for fans and skeptics alike.
1 Truth No. 2 by The Chicks
There's a line in this song that hummed in the back of my brain while I wrote this book, and that was: “You don't like the sound of the truth coming from my mouth.” That to me is what this book is, and it says everything about who The Chicks are.
2 Country Girl by Rissi Palmer
Palmer came to Nashville around the same time as The Chicks as a terrific singer, a great songwriter, the whole package of someone who should have succeeded in mainstream country music at the time. But it says a lot about country music that Palmer wasn't more successful in that moment and that the next time we talked about a Black woman in country music on a mainstream scale wasn't until Guyton, over a decade later.
3 Merry Go 'Round by Kacey Musgraves
It's almost impossible to pick one Musgraves song, but I chose this one because it was her first single at such an important moment. It came out in 2013 at a time where country music was very saccharine, very focused on partying, red Solo cups and trucks.
4 Hold My Hand by Brandy Clark
One thing Musgraves became known for right away was her support of the queer community, but one thing that made those choices more deeply impactful was that she was writing with queer songwriters like Clark. Clark's album 12 Stories came out the same year as Musgraves's first album, Same Trailer Different Park.
5 Weed Instead of Roses by Ashley Monroe
Ashley Monroe is known to most people as part of the Pistol Annies with Miranda Lambert and Angaleena Presley, but she's also put out solo albums, including this one, Like a Rose, in 2013, that was just exquisite.
6 Tin Man by Miranda Lambert
Lambert is such an important part of the story. She will get her own biography or memoir or something some day and tell her own story, because she's such a crucial not just woman in country music, but as an artist in this genre.
7 Girl by Maren Morris
As the song that introduced Morris's sophomore album of the same title, this song marks a seminal point for the singer. A lot of people have success on their first album and then play it a little safe on that next one — success tastes nice, you know?
8 Hands of Time by Margo Price
For the book, I focused on people who operated within the structures of mainstream country music and music row. But Price decided that wasn't for her at all and never really made a go at it. She's made her own career outside that mainstream where she does, says and makes the kind of music she wants, while still selling out three nights at the Ryman Auditorium here in Nashville.
9 Crowded Table by the Highwomen
I love what the Highwomen represent, which is just women in country music. They're a supergroup composed of Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Morris and Amanda Shires, who came together to push this conversation about inclusion in country music.
10 You're Not Alone by Our Native Daughters
While we're talking about the Highwomen, it's always important to talk about the work of Our Native Daughters, another supergroup composed of Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla Mccalla and Allison Russell. Around this time, Our Native Daughters was driving a conversation about the Black foundation of country music, the roots of its instruments like the banjo, and the discrimination and tokenization that Black women in country music face.