Backtracking… again.
Maren Morris famously “left country music” during a 2023 conversation with the Los Angeles Times, citing the genre’s alleged toxic, sexist and racist culture that she couldn’t participate in anymore, but then she quickly walked it back saying that was just a headline that got misconstrued. But… she later said that her success in country music came at a “moral cost” as if a genre of music could be inherently evil. But once again, kinda walked that back too and said she was talking about the Nashville country music industry in particular, not the entire genre. She has compared it to an “abusive relationship,” she said she was betrayed by the genre, and has said she didn’t want to attend the CMA Awards because “she didn’t feel comfortable” there. She even went as far as to say that she didn’t blame anyone for staying in the genre, but then implied that it was all about money. The list goes on… all of her anti-country music comments have been well-documented
But in that interview with the LA Times in 2023, she said:
“I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over. But it’s burning itself down without my help.”
Doesn’t sound like someone who is a big fan of the genre…
Following that story, she spent a lot of time trying to clarify what she meant and walk those statements back, and in a TikTok video she recently posted, Maren says she still feels like her words were taken out of context. She called it “exhausting” to deal with the fallout, and she also said she loves country music “full stop,” and it’s her “home”:
“As an artist, and as a Texan, I feel like I have pretty thick skin. You kind of have to if you’re in this line of work. But for years I’ve seen comments on my videos, or articles posted about me that say, ‘She said she hates country music.’ And it’s exhausting because I can’t reply to all of them and be like, ‘Cite your source.’ A couple years ago I did an interview, and this was the headline.
As you can imagine, quite an inflammatory headline, and I was not a fan of it. Probably the editor of the publication slapped that on there because they were like, this is going to get a lot of clicks. But nowhere in the article do I say that, ‘I’m getting the hell out of country music.’ And I remember I was having to clarify on ‘The Tonight Show,’ and for years in interviews since what I actually said. Because in the article, I’m talking about the music industry part, not country music as a genre.
I love country music, full stop, it’s my home. I grew up loving it in Texas, being so proud that so many of my country heroes are from that state. It made me want to be a songwriter, my dad bought me an acoustic guitar, I taught myself how to play and write songs in my bedroom as a kind. And then I moved to Nashville and made my dreams come true.”
She went on to talk about being prepared for criticism in her line of work and how people continue to leave comments about how she doesn’t make country music, which is honestly true in many ways because she certainly has leaned into the pop aspects of her music. She has worked with a lot of pop artists, and some of her biggest songs, like her Zedd collab, “The Middle,” are pop songs.
She explained that she thinks a lot of people fall for “click bait” headlines about her, and so the perception is that she still hates the genre and that’s all a lot of people know about her. Maren continued to clarify that her comments were strictly about the music business machine as a whole, though she admits she hasn’t received the same kind of radio play she used to since then, and has been largely shut out of the big award shows too.
Maren says she wanted to make the video to “clarify” her feelings and intentions with that interview:
“I do love country music because it’s about storytelling, and my heroes were truth tellers even when it was unpopular. Because country music should be for everybody. But the two sides of the coin with country music particularly is like, this is not just music, it is a way of life. Which is a beautiful thing about it, but it is also, if you criticize any part of it, people will take offense… you’re not just criticizing music, you’re criticizing me.
I just want to clarify here, I was never talking about country music, I was talking really about the machine of the music industry, which any artist will tell you, is more business than music at times.”
But… she went on to release a pop EP, The Bridge, another pop EP, Intermission, and a full pop album, Dreamsicle. So if the headline wasn’t accurate, it certainly appears like you wanted to leave country music, right? Of course Dreamsicle was her first album to miss the Billboard Top 200 entirely, the lowest performing major label album of her career. Just for perspective, her 3 previous studio albums charted 5th, 4th and 21st, respectively, on the Billboard 200, and 1st, 1st and 2nd on the Country Albums chart. To not even land on either with Dreamsicle… a total flop.
Maren explained that still lives in Nashville and makes music, and she doesn’t want to leave country, and admitted that the article “really pissed” her off and still does to this day. But she said a lot of negative things about country, which is her prerogative, but that’ll put a target on your back with the community and fans. She’s been in the business long enough to know that her controversial statements about country music were going to become a headline. Maren got pretty outspoken about her personal politics in recent years, which is fine, say whatever you want, but that’s obviously going to come with some backlash so you have to be prepared to take it. Choose your words wisely.
She concludes:
“But yeah, the headline of that article really pissed me off at the time, and kind of still does. Because it really did have a swell after it on the internet.”
Well, I guess the lesson is to be careful what you say in big-time interviews because those words can haunt you for a very long time… it sounds to me like she might regret how she said some of the things she did in that article.
The problem now is… where do you go? The numbers don’t lie… the pop crowd didn’t receive your last record very well, and the country music folks certainly have a bad taste in their mouth from all the negative comments. She’s been relatively out of the limelight recently, and these days, seemingly spends more time ranting about politics on TikTok than she does making music so who knows… good luck with… everything, I guess.
@marenmorrissaturday yap♬ original sound – marenmorris
