CHECK OUT COUNTRY MUSIC ON VINYL IN THE GOLDMINE SHOP!
By Marcus K. Dowling
Ella Langley’s mega-hits “Choosin’ Texas” and “Be Her” have extended country’s top-tier pop success. Their impact goes beyond Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help,” and Wallen’s 2023 smash “Last Night.”
In summary, Nashville’s music industry has now surpassed all other American music industry standards, reaching its highest level of influence in the last decade.
Among those who can best explain why simple, honest country music continues to connect with fans everywhere, Tyler Braden stands out as both an obvious and unexpected choice.
Tyler Braden, originally from Alabama, is a former firefighter who is now a Nashville-based singer-songwriter. Sporting a scruffy red beard and a train conductor-style baseball cap, he shields himself from the hot midday Las Vegas sun outside the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.
He is speaking ahead of a concert celebrating the eighth year of the Grand Ole Opry’s Nextstage program, of which he is a part of the class of 2026. Each year, around a dozen up-and-coming artists receive talent development through events, interviews, and targeted marketing support.
Artists who have advanced through Nextstage include recognized award winners such as Langley, Riley Green, Parker McCollum and Lainey Wilson.
“People like raw, relatable music,” Braden says.
Now that country music regularly appears alongside EDM, folk, American, Korean, and Latin pop, rap, R&B, and rock at the top of the charts, it may be that country succeeds by learning from these other genres. By focusing on raw emotion and relatability, country creates a sound that is both widely and deeply appealing.
‘Accessible’ story songs keying country’s sustainability
If names like Zach Bryan, Luke Combs, Ella Langley, Shaboozey, Morgan Wallen and Bailey Zimmerman aren’t on your radar, you may be missing the current pulse of pop-influenced country music.
For those wondering about the reasons behind this surge, it helps to examine Nashville’s evolving impact on pop music:
To illustrate, the Nashville industry’s influence on pop music can be traced in recent data: In 2026, 30 percent of pop’s Top 10 songs feature Nashville input. In 2024 and 2025, two out of every five top 20 songs were similarly influenced. In 2023, three of the top 20 showed this trend. In 2022, one in four year-end songs ranked 20-40 showed Nashville’s influence, and in 2020 and 2021, about one in four of the year-end songs ranked 40-100 did as well.
Ashley Cooke, Nextstage celebration co-host and 2024 Opry Nextstage class member, observes, “Beyond what segments of fans, or country radio, would like to hear, more country artists are now (feeling emboldened) to just tell the most accessible stories reflecting the honesty in their lives.”
This perspective has resonated: In 2024, her single “Your Place,” a country breakup anthem about drawing firm boundaries and reclaiming your independence after discovering an ex cheated, reached the top of country charts.
Reflecting two years later, she notes that unexpected humility from reaching that pinnacle helped her avoid chasing inauthentic songs. For Cooke, the ability to manage the pressure of pursuing another No. 1 hit may be the greatest gift from her success.
“I’m a Type A creative person who doesn’t feel fulfilled unless I feel active and competitive,” Cooke says.
Pop’s tricks, country’s traditions, blend well in the modern era
“It pulls you in,” says Georgia native Willow Avalon about why country endures in pop. “But the premium that the country industry places on storytelling also resonates with how pop uses specific methods to create catchy, fun earworms.”
At 27, Avalon is a veteran with deep family roots in country, previously downplayed during her time in New York and Los Angeles.
“Things I learned everywhere else only drew me back to wanting to take those things home, even more,” said Avalon.
The metaphor is an ideal allusion to the pop adjacency of “Hypothetically Speaking.” This new, traditional-style “murder ballad” is her latest release with another former Nextstage alum, Oklahoma-born Kaitlin Butts.
“I was in a songwriting session with my boyfriend, and when I heard the riff, I just started singing, ‘hypothetically speaking, if you were burying a body, you’d cut him up in little pieces, and feed him to the gators…”
To Avalon, her duet partner was obvious: Kaitlin Butts, perhaps best known for her 2025 TikTok viral release “You Ain’t Gotta Die (To Be Dead To Me).”
“Now, let me tell you ’bout my best friend / Well, her name is Leanne / And she’s married to a dumb, dumb man named Carl / Or… she was, that is…”
The song moves quickly from an intro into a humorously harrowing tale. It tells of a husband murdered on a white-tile kitchen floor by a wife with a cast-iron skillet. Her friend is, indeed, the kind of friend who would help her bury a body.
She says her boyfriend’s response to the song was one of “fear and amazement.”
Country’s rising stars prepared to be the ‘total package’ as relatable, potential mega hit-makers
Top 40 radio-friendly songs about over-indulging in beer, whiskey, and ill-advised dating choices are fueling the country industry’s revival. Modern takes on traditions that date back a century also drive the genre’s pop moment.
Yes, in 2025, that looked like former Nextstage class members Riley Green and Ella Langley. They mirrored George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, and Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers with their lovestuck duets, “Don’t Mind If I Do” and “You Look Like You Love Me.”
Beyond that, look at East Tennessee-born crocheting enthusiast and self-described “Yeehaw Meemaw” Emily Ann Roberts, who wore a midriff-baring yellow gingham two-piece dress. If you didn’t know, she’s a Blake Shelton-cosigned finalist from season 9 of “The Voice,” you might think you’d been transported back to 1956 — just as Green and Langley’s throwback hits evoke the past even though we’re still 70 years ahead in the present day.
“I’m the type of artist who wants my fans to feel like they know me well. They don’t just see me dolled up onstage singing catchy songs. On social media, they also see me cook, crochet, and garden. So, yes, I’m an artist where you can either come up to me and tell me how much you like one of my songs or my headlining show, or you can ask me about what I served my family for dinner the night before.”
Roberts notes she has yet to have a career-defining hit on radio or streaming. She doesn’t sound discouraged or denied.
“Being the total package and successful as an artist doesn’t have to look like how it used to,” she says.
Mason, Westbrook, raise the bar on emotional authenticity as country evolves deeper into pop
Vincent Mason and Hudson Westbrook, 2026 Nextstage class members, aspire to achieve success that both mirrors and surpasses that of performers like Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen and Bailey Zimmerman.
Georgia native Mason and Texan Westbrook are among a crew of young men who, propelled by the country industry’s streaming boom and touring success, went from playing for dozens to headlining for thousands in just 18 months.
Over the past year, Mason has opened for Gavin Adcock at 5,000-seat venues and for Wallen in front of crowds of over 50,000.
He jokes that the crowds have been so loud, he hasn’t truly heard himself live in over a year.
When asked why fans want songs like his 2024 breakout “Hell Is a Dancefloor” more than before, he quickly cites clear creative influences.
“The words sound like me but also show how much I admire artists like Eric Church, John Mayer and Parker McCollum, especially for their consistent quality and authenticity,” says Mason.
Similarly, 21-year-old Westbrook has turned Texas and Western stylings into hits, earning him the respect of artists like Miranda Lambert. His single “House Again” recently hit No. 1 on country radio, making him the youngest solo male artist to top the country radio charts with a debut single.
“People are latching onto Texas country sounds under emotional pop lyrics because that style hasn’t been explored in a while,” says the performer about his deeply personal ballad about the emotional fallout of his parents’ divorce.
Graham Barham aims to ‘…build a bridge between all of these worlds’
If you want to know just how far country can dominate the charts, talk to 27-year-old Louisianan Graham Barham.
Like other aspiring country-to-crossover male stars, it’s easy to believe he can transition smoothly from writing country lyrics to improvising in a hip-hop freestyle. He also appears comfortable shifting between rapping over a steel guitar and singing soulfully over an 808 beat.
His three most recent hits display his genre-crossing ability: a country radio cover of British pop vocalist Jay Sean’s platinum hit “Down”; the much-discussed ‘club country’ track “Oil Money,” with lyrics like ‘She’s everything you need, and she’s got everything she wants / Showing off ’til the lights come on / I’m a rich man with my hands on that body like oil money’; and “Whiskey Rain,” a duet with Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line, cementing his country credentials.
“At my concerts, I walk onstage to Waka Flocka Flame’s ‘No Hands,’” Barham says.
He’s not smiling or laughing.
Play Waka Flocka Flame’s iconic song, and any crowd goes wild. It happens across racial and social lines — just like when a country band drops ‘Fishin’ In the Dark’ or ‘Devil Went Down To Georgia.’
For Barham and his fans, these cross-cultural moments aren’t just expected — they’re natural. Some listeners become country fans; others are simply waiting for someone like him to make country’s pop-ready sound hit home.
“I’m using (Nashville) country and (Midwestern) red dirt lyrics on top of twenty years of song production styles that everyone has been inspired by and has turned up loud in their cars to build a bridge between all of these worlds.”
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