Country music star Maren Morris has announced that she is quitting country music, blaming former President Donald Trump for her decision. In a recent interview, Morris said that she feels like country music has become too “toxic” and “misogynistic” since Trump took office.
The article in the L.A. Times said:
“It’s not that Morris, 33, has tired of twanging guitars or neatly cornered rhymes, both of which define the tunes that came out Friday, a decade after she moved to Nashville from her native Texas, first to write songs for established country acts such as Tim McGraw and later to sign a major-label record deal of her own. Rather, she says she’s leaving because of what she views as the country music industry’s unwillingness to honestly reckon with its history of racism and misogyny and to open its gates to more women and queer people and people of color.
What changed?
After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display. It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic. All these things were being celebrated, and it was weirdly dovetailing with this hyper-masculine branch of country music. I call it butt rock.”
Morris complained that there were people who allegedly bought Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” song and made it a huge hit not because they genuinely loved country music but to “own the libs.”
The article said:
“Try That in a Small Town” clearly resonated with many listeners.
But I think it’s a last bastion. People are streaming these songs out of spite. It’s not out of true joy or love of the music. It’s to own the libs. And that’s so not what music is intended for. Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed — the actual oppressed. And now it’s being used as this really toxic weapon in culture wars.
Country music star John Rich, who in the past has spoken out strongly both in words and music over wokeness posted this response to Morris:
Poor Karen
https://t.co/5Rg8g1bySM
— John Rich
(@johnrich) September 17, 2023