Are we sure about this?
I’m a huge advocate of not yucking other people’s yum, but this has to be a joke…. right? RIGHT!?
Lauren Watkins is closing out the year, not giving a rip about what she posts online, which I love for her. However, her not giving a rip led to her sharing a very hot, if not the hottest, take of the country music year.
Lauren Watkins wants bro country to come back… Yes. The light and airy voice behind the stellar songs like “Anybody But You” and Marlboro Man” misses… Florida Georgia Line.
In a recent social media post, Watkin shares her thoughts, begging for bro country to have a resurgence.
“If nobody else is going to say it, then I will. I miss bro country. Sorry! Like, I miss bro country. Whatever happened to it? Why is everybody too good for bro country these days?
There was something so electric about Florida Georgia Line singing about like long tan legs and big pick up trucks. Like UGH! Where is that? Why are we like turning our nose up at bro country? Who’s going to turn this s*** around?”
Miss Lauren Watkins, I think that no one is saying this because… no one actually wants this.
The Bro Country Era
If you’re not familiar with bro country (I envy you), let’s give a little bit of backstory on this period of country music. It’s a period of country music that a lot of artists are ashamed of… but also brought plenty of acts a lot of money, and let’s be honest… a lot of fun. It’s generally believed to have been created in the early 2010s and really hit its stride in 2013 with the release of Florida Georgia Line’s megahit, “Cruise.”
If they weren’t the ones that birthed the style, they sure did make a lot of money off of it.
They weren’t the only artists who took advantage of the explosion of more radio-friendly, good time-focused, rather shallow country music. Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Chase Rice, Sam Hunt, Brantley Gilbert and Jake Owen–among others–also made sure to strike while the iron was hot. In fact, Jake Owen has even said in the past that he believes he’s the one who started bro country with his 2011 song “Barefoot Blue Jean Night.”
In his defense, it does predate Florida Georgia Line’s earworm. And it does line up when you look at who produced Jake Owen’s 2011 album by the same name as his aforementioned, potentially bro country-kindling hit song. Joey Moi, a Canadian producer and audio engineer who famously worked alongside Canadian rock band Nickelback, produced Barefoot Blue Jean Night for Jake Owen. Moi also went on to produce Florida Georgia Line, Chris Lane, Morgan Wallen, and Hardy, among others.
You could even make the argument that Trace Adkins’ 2005 hit, “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” written by Randy Houser, Jamey Johnson, and Dallas Davidson, was the first real bro country song. And some might even think that bro country predates that with Toby Keith’s 2001 hit “I Wanna Talk About Me.”
The Death Of Bro Country
While the birth date of bro country can be argued at length, everybody can agree that the era officially started to decline in 2015 following the emergence of Chris Stapleton.
Hardy recently argued that Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake’s CMA Awards performance changed the course of country music. And he’s 100% correct:
“Bro country was like a professional wrestler era, and every song was their – every single was their theme song walking out to the…you know what I mean? And everybody was fit and good-looking, and like, that was your thing. And then the moment to me that it changed was when Chris Stapleton sang on stage with Justin Timberlake.”
Of course, the genre has a long history of following suit with whatever works. When FGL blew up, every label in Nashville rushed to sign a bunch of pretty boys singing about trucks and beer. And when Chris exploded in 2015, they found burly, bearded dudes with big voices… like Luke Combs. While HARDY also credits Luke Combs with changing the direction of country, he believes it was Chris Stapleton who really set about a course correction for the genre:
“I love Luke Combs. Everybody says it’s Luke, but I swear to God, I think it was Stapleton before Luke because he was the first dude that was popping off and had a completely different sound. It pivoted for the first time in, whatever, five, six, seven years.”
I mean, that says a lot that Hardy, who got his start in Music City penning a lot of bro country songs, knew that bro country was not going to last forever.
@tenyeartown @HARDY talks the evolution of bro-country in the 2010s #tenyeartown #nashville #countrymusic #songwriter #hardy #troycartwright #brocountry #stapleton #songwritingchallenge #musiccity ♬ original sound – Ten Year Town Podcast
After the bro country era cooled, we saw the Boyfriend Country era briefly hold some ground, with pop-friendly acts like Dan + Shay, Brett Young, Brett Eldredge finding a ton of radio success. You know, that onslaught of sappy love songs that sounded more like praise and worship music… to their girlfriends? I’d argue it was worse than bro country… but that’s another conversation.
Bro Country Today
There are certain still some remnants of bro country on country radio today, but I think we can all agree that the significant decline in the dominance of bro country songs over the last decade has been the biggest gift to country music. Not only has the genre’s sound turned back the clock to its roots, but it’s also made the radio game an open playing field, and you don’t have to play into that one particular sound to score a hit. There’s more variety on country radio, more artists having success in different lanes… southern rock and soul acts like Red Clay Strays, bluegrass acts like Billy Strings, the folk rock stylings of Zach Bryan, and even Morgan Wallen’s hip-hop infused style
Bro country was an era of country music that was huge, that’s no lie. And shallow, good-time, country songs with little substance certainly have a time and a place, but the dominance of bro country is not a ghost I’m trying to conjure, and I feel like a vast majority of country music fans would agree.
While I admire Watkins’ bravery for sharing this take, please let’s agree to disagree and leave bro country in the past. But if you want to literally roll your windows down and “Cruise” to some FGL, who am I to stop you?
But you know who’s actually a lot better than bro country? Lauren Watkins… check her out:
