How Gen Z women are conquering country music: ‘Fans speak louder than gatekeepers’ | nation

CNational radio still suffers from the problem of gender equality. This did not prevent Ella Langley and Megan Morrone from achieving historical success. Last week, Langley and Morrone became the first women in country music to top Billboard’s all-genre music chart 200 and Hot 100 simultaneously. Langley’s Choosin’ Texas dethroned Taylor Swift’s “Opalite” for its second non-consecutive week atop the singles chart, while Moroney’s “Cloud 9” It reached number one thanks to exclusive physical releases from Target and strong streaming numbers.

“These are not just fluke or one-time viral successes,” said Leslie Fram, co-founder and CEO of FEMco, a Nashville-based creative consulting firm. “Megan Morrone has built her base through relentless touring and social buzz. Ella Langley’s stunning song has real staying power and even appeal overseas.

“They’re doing this while country radio is still male-dominated,” Frahm adds, noting that there is only one female artist in the current top 15 country airplay list. “This contrast makes it all the more satisfying: audiences and streaming metrics speak louder than the gatekeepers.”

Langley and Morrone’s history-making coup comes amid a generational boom in country music. The past few years have seen pop stars, from Chappelle Rowan to Sabrina Carpenter, dabble in singing, and Nashville hitmakers, from Morgan Wallen to Luke Combs, packing stadiums and breaking live records. “Country is cool again,” as this year’s CMA Award-winning artist, Lainey Wilson, sang in early 2024, even before Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter ignited a nationwide Western wear craze, and Chapoose’s smash hit A Bar Song (Tipsy) spent an astonishing 19 weeks atop the Hot 100.

The country world and the pop world share a fragile border, and Morrone in particular has expertly toed that line. For example, I Just Miss You, one of the duets on Cloud 9, finds Morrone exchanging verses with the out-of-country Ed Sheeran. (Despite telling Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper last year that his “ultimate goal” is to “move to Nashville and go country,” the British singer is far from a Nashville insider.) Instead of Sheeran-style pop confection, I Only Miss You is instead one of the album’s more traditional songs, a steel-clad wail of the pub variety. Ditto for Bells and Whistles, Morrone’s minimalist duet with Kacey Musgraves, which combines witty lyrics with a fun delivery and recalls Musgraves’ beloved early work. Big-name collaborators point to crossover ambitions, but at least for now, Morrone is keeping things in place.

Meanwhile, Langley was endearing herself to her mothers back home. The Texas selection came out of a co-writing session with Texas icon Miranda Lambert, who sings backing vocals on the track. (Surprisingly, Langley said Lambert’s pet kangaroo helped inspire the song.) Lambert also co-produced Dandelion, Langley’s upcoming second studio album, and named Langley “our next legend” after they performed Lambert’s song Kerosene together at the Academy of Country Music Awards last year.

That sense of lineage was on display in November, when Langley invited ’90s country music phenomenon Jo Dee Messina — most famous for her hit song “Heads Carolina, Tails California” — to share the stage during her show at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. The two gave a spunky rendition of Messina’s 1998 hit “Lesson in Leavin’,” itself a cover of the Dottie West song from 1980.

“Ella reached out to Joe D via social media, and then they sang together, which is a very rustic thing,” said Cameo Carlsson, CEO of mtheory, a company that provides support to artists and their managers, including the Messina team. “It’s something very special about country music, this history and legacy and respect for this type of young artist.”

While both Moroney and Langley are learning rural traditions, they are also fluent in the language of social media virality. Morrone broke through in 2022 with “Tennessee Orange,” a Swift song about being so infatuated with a new lover that you might rock the colors of a rival football team. (Sacrilege, in the world of US college sports.) While promoting the song on Instagram, Morrone posted a photo of herself wearing a Tennessee Volunteers jersey owned by none other than Morgan Wallen, the country’s scandal-plagued streaming king. Amid a social media frenzy over whether the two were dating, the song went viral, charting at No. 30 on the Hot 100 before Morrone was signed to a label. Like Swift, who famously left messages to her rabid fans in the liner notes to her early albums, Morrone has proven to be a master of the Easter egg.

Langley has a similar knack for fanning the flames of fan speculation. Despite periodic denials from both camps, fans are convinced that Langley is romantically involved with Riley Greene, her mega duet partner on 2024’s first US country broadcast of ‘You Look Like You Love Me’. The song’s steamy video — which takes place in a Wild West saloon and literally ends with the pair riding off into the sunset — did little to dispel the rumours. In June last year, a video circulated online of Langley conspicuously giving a wink to a fan who carried a message saying: “Wink if Riley is stupid.” Langley later dismissed the wink as a joke, but fans seized on the moment, which appeared to reward their detective work. Recently, spy fans noticed that the cover art for Choosin’ Texas looks eerily similar to a paparazzi photo taken of Green with Moroney. Yes, there are rumors of a love triangle.

“Country music is about storytelling, and in the age of social media, fans aren’t just hearing that story, they’re participating in it,” Carlson said. “There’s this young demographic of fans that is turning these songs into shared cultural moments, and both artists really understand that conversation and are having that conversation with their fans about the songs.”

Qatari radio was slower to respond. Choosin’ Texas topped Billboard’s Hot Country Songs overall airplay in just six weeks, but it took 16 weeks for it to reach No. 1 on the slow-moving Country Airplay chart. As for Morrone, although she outsells all but a few of her male peers in album and ticket sales, she has yet to achieve a No. 1 song on Country Airplay. Instead, she meets fans where they are, most recently on the cross-country “9 Cities 9 Days” tour in the lead-up to the release of Cloud 9.

“Megan came to us and said she wanted to do something crazy for her fans: nine cities, nine days, $9 tickets. It was her idea, and it was a great idea,” said Elissa Vazzana, Morrone’s touring agent at United Talent Agency, adding that anti-bot measures had been taken. “Tickets had to be purchased in person at the box office, two per person, and everyone had to be present. At $9, we weren’t going to let these tickets end up in second place.”

Fans lined up, made colorful homemade signs together and gathered for photos around 18-wheeler trucks decorated with Moroney’s neon pink album artwork. The artist herself seemed to value the group experience as much as she did: Morrone posted a video of a crowd of people singing along with the caption: “Group therapy is back.”