In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner observed the tides of progress and opportunity rapidly shifting west. The establishment had taken the dry, lawless mountains and plains of some strange wilderness and transformed it into a paradise for corporate expansion, individual wealth, and familial settlement. From the ashes of skirmishes with the original habitants of the land, towns and cities rose, and Americans moved in hoards towards the promise of a rugged and fruitful new beginning. Everything the government dismissed as uncivilized now became polished with the smoke of steam engines and the dress of eastern socialites and capitalists. The darkness in the desert was illuminated by electric light, and large mountain ranges transformed into destinations, not obstacles. In awe of this metamorphosis of the new world, Turner wrote, “The frontier is gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.” So, we went elsewhere.

But I don’t think we needed to. In fact, I think Frederick Jackson Turner was wrong. The American frontier isn’t closed.

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I couldn’t get it out of my head, my friends and family too. It was unlike anything we had ever heard, and from an artist most of us had never heard of. On every radio station, morning news show, commercial, and podcast, people obsessed over the absurd spectacle of it. We all listened, maybe shyly, maybe happily, to a young rapper in a cowboy hat, and his smash hit song, “Old Town Road”. Montero Hill, known professionally as Lil Nas X, released the original rendition of the song in December of 2018, but the real explosion occurred 5 months later when a feature was added. The addition: country legend, Billy Ray Cyrus. What we had before our ears was a rap song that was so firmly rooted in excess and grandeur, but praised the staples of country music like no hip-hop song had before. Lil Nas X and Cyrus had created a new sonic wave, stuck between the desert and the city, hard baselines and eerie guitars. And for 19 weeks, I lived in that space in between – so did everyone else, a record-setting streak at the top of the world.

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His dog lay in the corner of the video, the woods behind him silenced by his song. Oliver Anthony stood firmly on the outside looking in, but his struggle would become  clear in August of 2023. He titled his protest, “Rich Men North of Richmond”. Within 2 weeks, the song hit number 1 on the Billboard 100. In the coming month, his song played at a presidential debate. Anthony sang of the welfare state, “bullshit pay”, and miners, all directed toward people like him, and people like you. Emerging from those Virginia backroads was an unknown man with an unmarked guitar who decided he had had enough. Florida Governor Ron Desantis attributed Anthony’s woes to “Bidenomics”, while more progressive sources including The Hill TV called the tune a “populist anthem”. On the Joe Rogan Experience, the overnight sensation spoke for himself about the political ties of his song: “There’s been hundreds of hours of people’s time wasted [talking] about all these little things that don’t even exist.” Oliver Anthony made a song that people liked because he told his truth. Now, Anthony has been dragged out of his Virginia woods.

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It couldn’t have been much later that year when I heard a new voice on the morning commute to school. This time, it wasn’t from the radio. Rather, it came straight from my younger sister’s phone, a phone which for most of our morning car rides had played some combination of pop and electronic music too loud for the occasion. This time, the music was quiet and reflective. Something about a revival.

My friend and I took the soccer field later that day and as we walked, I heard him sing to himself. I wondered where he ever heard of rotgut whiskey.

Later that night as I swept the kitchen floor, our Alexa played songs similar to Darius Rucker’s, “Wagon Wheel”. It was him again, now singing in accordance with the timeless piano playing of Jeremiah Fraites and The Lumineers. I asked her who sang that song. She responded: “Zach Bryan.”

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Zach Bryan is from the plains of Oologah, Oklahoma (a town comedian Will Rogers once said “nobody but an Indian can pronounce”). Bryan, however, was born in Okinawa, Japan on account of his mother and father’s service in the US Navy. Following in their footsteps, Bryan joined the Navy at age 17, serving as an Aviation Ordnanceman Second Class, believing the armed forces to be his ultimate calling. It wasn’t until 2017 that Bryan found refuge from his tireless work in the strings of a guitar, posting videos of himself on YouTube, lamenting through song. His first ever post, entitled “God Speed”depicts Bryan in a bedroom, clad in a green hat and tight long sleeve, telling 2.8 million listeners that “Only God and [his] Momma knows what [he] needs.” His eyes are closed, as to string out every last ounce of emotion needed to tell the world of what his young soul needed: “to die an old man”. A year later, Bryan would sit out at night, sweating and drunk in the summer heat, playing the same exact guitar from his first story. There, he would reveal to his friends and a small group of devoted listeners two new hits; “Heading South” and “Condemned”. Aside from whatever down-trodden, rugged outlook each song has, it’s Bryan’s very position – A Navy Ordnanceman playing songs with a scratchy voice and tired eyes alone in the dead of night – that attracted 36 million people to his videos, “lookin’ for somebody who can save him”.

2019 saw the release of his debut album, DeAnn, named in honor of his mother who had passed away in the Summer of 2016. The album, which was recorded with friends in a small home in Florida, consisted of many of those ballads posted to YouTube. In 2020, he released his second album, Elisabeth, named in honor of his then-wife Rose Madden. A year later, the Navy realized his talents and potential lied away from service. To that point he had begun a string of small concerts at scenic venues around the country, and made notable appearances at Ryman and Grand Ole Opry. With such impressive marks, Bryan signed with Warner Records while still in active duty as his days of Florida Air B&Bs and campfire videos were coming to a close. Reluctantly, he was honorably discharged from the Navy in October of 2021 to pursue music, which gave way for his triple album, American Heartbreak. It was then where Bryan opened the gates of his heart and confessed his fragile humanity that the Navy weren’t the only ones who recognized his power in the country music industry. In his Billboard Top 10 hit, “Something in the Orange”, he writes: “The grass, trees, and dew, how I just hate you/Please, turn those headlights around.” Bryan is vulnerable and passionate for all the world to see, and listeners just couldn’t get enough.

It’s impossible to tell the story of Zach Bryan, however, without telling the stories of those who paved the muddy path on which his feet walk firmly. In Bryan’s “East Side of Sorrow”, he remarks, “I heard Turnpike’s back together, and they’re writing songs”. Hailing from Tahlequah, Oklahoma, The Turnpike Troubadours were, in truth, back together. But before their own comeback, they had released music for nearly 13 years, beginning with their 2010 opus and debut, Diamonds and Gasoline, featuring hits like “Every Girl” and “7 & 7”. Bryan’s sound borrows greatly from the Troubadours, as both indulge in vibrating electric guitars and soothing acoustic ones; a rugged tone reminiscent of old outlaw country, but also a narrative-style approach in displaying personal trials and tribulations. The Troubadours have even opened several times for Bryan on his most recent Quittin’ Time Tour.

Even Bryan’s more recent contemporaries including Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson, and the enduringly relevant Jason Isbell have made significant imprints in his music while leading esteemed careers themselves. Isbell, for instance, sparked critical acclaim with his 2013 LP, Southeastern, which redefined popular country music, broadening the genre to include emotional, raw, and reflective vignettes of love and loss in the wild. Today, Jason Isbell has rekindled his minimalist attitude with the 400 Unit, as their 2023 album, Weathervanes, shot all the way up to #12 on Billboard’s Hot 100 albums. Simpson and Childers alike, along with Bryan, repurposed Isbell’s celebration of a tough heart in their works. For Sturgill Simpson, this change was made clear in his 2014 work, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music. Never before had an artist so skillfully combined the baritone pleads of Waylon Jennings and the existential crisis of modern Indie music into one country album. 3 years later, Simpson would place his hands on the work of another of Bryan’s predecessor’s, one Tyler Childers. As co-producer of his debut album, Purgatory, Simpson helped infuse his modern country concoction into Childer’s work, but Purgatory continues to be discussed primarily because of Childers attractive optimism and fast-paced bluegrass roots that give the tracks, including fan-favorite “Feathered Indians”, their memorability.

It’s no question that artists like those have forged their own style of country music with unmistakable ties to the legends of Americana, but they certainly haven’t turned a blind eye to the music that has dominated Bryan’s ballads in the charts for years. Bryan himself exclaims at the end of his own sarcastic pop country hit, “If She Wants a Cowboy”, to “Throw her on the damn radio”, an homage to upbeat, party-anthem country that has dominated the mainstream scene. Bryan wasn’t wrong to make this assumption about people. On the streets of Nashville, we encounter names like Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs. Wallen began making his music in August of 2015 but found his fame ignited by 2018’s LP, If I Know Me. Since its release, Wallen has amassed over 39.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and has produced two number 1 hits among a group of 10 top ten hits among a larger group of 68 Billboard Top 100 songs. His popularity is driven by cathartic chorus lines, endearing descriptions of backroad life, and a reverb that could silence a whole crowd. Despite his formulaic approach, Wallen hasn’t been afraid to detest his own actions and issues: He confesses on “Lies Lies Lies”, “Habits and hard heartbreaks are hard to break”.

Luke Combs has made headlines throughout the past year for his rendition of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”, which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and culminated in a duet performance with Chapman at the 2024 Grammy awards. While undeniably versatile in this performance, Combs too has taken the road of pop country. His debut album This One’s for You Too, composed of pop country anthems like “Beautiful Crazy”, reached Number 4 on the Billboard 200 at its release. While recent singles like “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” reinforce the hard-nosed, tough masculinity stereotype placed on his music, Combs has proven with his newest LP, Fathers and Sons, that he isn’t reliant on catchy, stomp-and-holler choruses, but rather can deliver heartfelt stories with his impassioned voice and single guitar. While his messaging certainly bridges the gap between raw emotion and industry expectations, his fame has been undeniably impressive, standing as the 19th highest selling country artist of all time while only beginning his career 7 short years ago.

While radios commonly place heavy emphasis on the men of the country music industry, artists like Lainey Wilson and Megan Moroney have quietly produced two of 2024’s most complete and engaging country music albums. Wilson, who only began her professional music career in 2020, came out with Whirlwind, a 14-track expedition into how she became the Lainey Wilson people know today. Featuring hits like “4x4xU” and “Good Horses” (which features country legend Miranda Lambert), Whirlwind sees Wilson occupy a similarly confident voice to Dolly Parton, with a modern outlook on love, fame, and yes, even country music. Moroney on the other hand is a Georgia native with a clear tie to popular music as demonstrated by her 2024 LP, Am I Okay?. The 26-year-old jumps between the pop influences of Taylor Swift on the title track, to the Carrie Underwood swagger of “Indifferent”, all while crafting her own personality through ballads of love in her young, successful life. Winning female breakthrough artist of the year at the CMT awards, Moroney and her versatile guitar talent seem impossible to top.

These new renditions of typical country music then beg the question that if country artists have so successfully integrated other genres, what happens when other genres take a ride on the Silverado? Just ask Queen B. The multi-platinum superstar known professionally as Beyonce moved away from her illustrious R&B career in 2024 with her newest album, Cowboy Carter. On its cover, she rides a white stallion, clad in a pristine white cowboy hat, hoisting the American flag beside her. This wasn’t simply a country album. It was a lesson in defying genre, a feat only truly attainable by the prowess of Beyonce. She uses the nearly hour and a half album to pay tribute to her Dixieland roots as well as the black artists that are too often forgotten by the genre. Among the numerous features on the album are legends Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Miley Cyrus, further ingraining the album into the halls of country stardom. Her voice remained as polished as it had ever been, but she too saw life on the prairie and captured it one rugged memory and message at a time.

So, too, did Post Malone. After months of suggestive concert performances and interviews, the hip-hop icon turned his words into action by releasing F-1 Trillion in the summer of 2024. The finished product was a masterpiece in spurting out whatever the day called for. Like Cowboy Carter, the list of features was endless, ranging from Jelly Roll to Tim McGraw. From the relaxing eccentricity of “Pour Me a Drink” to the somber inspiration of “Nosedive”Malone pulled every string to ensure he left his mark on the world of pop country. In fact, his work is a representation of the outsider’s view of the genre as a whole. But it’s Malone’s very pursuit of a genre shift that is reassuring for the present and future of the country music boom. As more and more people listen to his music (about 185 million in one weekend to be exact) the culture shock of his country inclination may just drive many to explore elsewhere in the genre. People are curious, and more than this, ready to compromise.

So long as the song was cool, it would remain at the top of the world. In 2019, this phenomenon occurred with Lil Nas X’s, “Old Town Road”. Today, another artist has proven that the horses and the matte black hats weren’t a fluke at all. Shaboozey first came on the scene in 2018 with his debut LP, Lady Wrangler, and since has captivated audiences with his hip-hop infused country. His voice has been heard on high for nearly 23 weeks, 11 of those at the very top of the charts. Named after the song by J-Kwon it pays homage to, “Tipsy (A Bar Song)” has captivated radio stations and listeners alike since its release as his subtle but vibrant combination of rap and country evokes a sense of carefree community and celebration. His plea to “…bring another round, we need plenty more” ensures that people just keep on drinking, and therefore keep on listening. Whether it’s the fiddles of the chorus, the bass drop after the bridge, or the sentiment of releasing after the 9-5, Shaboozey has encouraged people to sing with him, and it’s very clear they have. 8 more celebratory weeks would place the song above its cowboy rap predecessor “Old Town Road” as the longest-lasting song ever at #1 on the charts. It appears rap and country aren’t as dissimilar as stereotypes would lead you to believe; In fact, the same thing could be said about most genres and country music.

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Frederick Jackson Turner died in March of 1932, before Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, and even before Woody Guthrie’s first album, Dust Bowl Ballads. If he’d of seen them perform sonnets of homes on the range, traversing highways, and Luckenbach, Texas, he might’ve reconsidered his thesis. I am confident though, that if he observed the rise of pop country beginning in the 1980’s and carrying through today, he would’ve picked up that eraser. Today, I believe Turner would once again find himself at his desk, reworking the tale he spun in 1893.

The question remains: why are people today drawn to the world of country, and why was Frederick Jackson Turner wrong? Zach Bryan sat outside, drunk and alone at midnight, and told us in “Heading South”: “Don’t stop headin’, headin’ south/’Cause they will understand the words that are pouring from your mouth”. Let the southbound train represent the country scene, and allow Bryan to be the conductor. So much of pop music has been the bliss of ignorance, while so much of Indie music has been the gift of romanticism. And while often our human tendency is to dance to forget, the majority of us find that especially hard. So when Bryan sings about missing his mother, Stapleton about his addiction, and even Wallen about his lost love, we are drawn to their struggles because they are also our own. The familiarity doesn’t just stop at the emotions; rather the environment in which we feel them. Bryan sings again in “Pink Skies”, “So clean the house, clear the drawers/Mop the floors, stand tall/Like no one’s ever been here before or at all”. The picture he paints of a clean house, poised to host the family is one many of us are fortunate enough to imagine vividly. The emotions of excitement, relief, and bittersweetness are inherent in his descriptions, which is why he and other country artists like him resonate so clearly. Atmosphere builders would be an appropriate title for this new generation of country artists, as much like our own perception of the world around us, songs on a single album can vary drastically with a combination of quick banjo interludes, solemn single strums, and relentless fiddles. The case that Bryan makes in “Heading South” is that we are emotionally incoherent, and that only music can attest to how we feel, just as the cowboy on the old western plains sang to the tune of the moonlight: the only thing he had to guide him.

But this doesn’t explain the continued popularity of pop country and rap country. If they lack that substance, where’s the attraction stemming from? In “Breakers Roar”, Sturgill Simpson fervently declares, “This life is but a dream/Shatter illusions that hold your spirit down”. In the end, even the powerful undertones of Simpson and his fellow artist’s work was delivered by a whole lot of optimism and a whole lot of alcohol. Escaping is a quintessential aspect of being an American frontiersmen. Many knew that they’d die or find destitution, but they went anyway because they had seen the promise of capitalism in the east and believed they’d create anew instead of staring at the same old views. Similar views were sought out by Post Malone, Shaboozey, Beyonce, Mt. Joy, and every member of another genre who’s taken a long look at the Llano Estacado. Fundamentally, their optimism is going to yield those upbeat, party anthems because it’s what got people through dysentery in Oregon, and it’s what gets people through monotony today. But while people rejoice in their excitement, many of these songs are trying to carry the same emotional weight as their more rugged contemporaries. In Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help”, within a vibrant, autotuned chorus, he reveals he’s “Been deep in every weekend if you couldn’t tell”, a suggestion of alcohol apparent throughout his new album. The pioneers might’ve held a thousand different, unimaginable problems, but I can bet when they saw Yellowstone, they forgot all about them. Whether that’s a bad thing is only up for them, and our futures to tell.

Then we forget all about going under the surface and listen when Lainey Wilson says “Everybody wanna be a cowboy/Drive a jon boat, whip a John Deere…/Country’s cool again”. It’s almost primal for us to be back in this spot. The desire for exploration, for a hard-day’s work, and a cold one at the end of the day is unmistakable in today’s America. Wilson is right. Country is cool again, and everybody is starting to realize it.

I wish Frederick Jackson Turner was alive to see the frontier he placed yellow-tape over. Behind every ragweed, a new cowboy or cowgirl emerges. Soon enough we’ll be seeing the names of Wyatt Flores, The War and Treaty, and Karley Scott Collins in the bright lights everywhere. But for now, they’re still finding their lush prairie. Though not every lost man or woman in this country can pick up a guitar, they sure can find a campfire somewhere in those western lands with someone ready to soothe their ailments. Just when Turner thought we were too comfortable, we all proved there’s dust left to settle on the old frontier.

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I was lucky enough to attend a Zach Bryan concert in early August in Philadelphia. By no means was I a diehard Zach Bryan fan going into that night. Truthfully, as I left Lincoln Financial Field, that had changed. He closed his performance as he always does with the song “Revival”. In it, he sings, “But I’ll find comfort in company/Lord, forgive us, my boys and me”. I didn’t know the guy next to me, or the girls in front, but it felt as though I did as we sang in unison to the strange, and in some way unusual, song about repentance. That humid, rainy August night, all 60,000 of us strangers became united by the world’s largest campfire.

Songs mentioned can be found here:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ysFgEIQtjl
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvKyBcCDOB4
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycuVOznZmVO
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9bmS1UkFBs
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=|A8F9slhGdg
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwAQb6-GdPg
8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFIbMPOot94
9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEdqdqERHyM
10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Isran_SIzc
11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hzNi1dHG-4
12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN7WCsC9nkl
13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr7oYjnt3bM
14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rItv9i6c7AY
15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6YlaeACE4E
16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1zFk58Dohw
17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcR9UCyRWuA
18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoeXmaSE7Lo
19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNfsOx7yV9s
20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7bQwwqW-Hc
21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs49xFmmHCo
22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg209CadVQM