I'm very casual on country. No one listens to country in NYC. We don't even have a country station. I'm always surprised how huge it is countrywide, when it had no presence in my area.
I've dabbled in 80s-2000s country. But, especially with modern country trends and pop-country/bro-country, I'm confused. A lot just sound like pop or rock with a Southern accent. And a lot of the singers don't even talk with that accent. It "mysteriously" only occurs when they decide to sing.
What gives? Country lovers, help an ignorant city kid understand.
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Rural areas exist outside of the south.
Traditional country music without a southern accent is essentially just folk music.
With modern “bro” country, it’s pretty much just the accent and that the hip hop producer making the beats uses violin, banjo, and lap steep samples for texture.
There are Canadian Country singers, ya’know.
What you’re hearing is the Nashville sound. Very distinct. They’re taught to sing like that. I’m not a fan, but to be fair, it clearly sells.
Old country (sometimes called Texas country, Outlaw country, they all generally refer to the same style) doesn’t have the same sort of thick accent requirements. Singers like Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, George Strait, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Kris Kristofferson, etc sing in their normal accents, which range from generally country to Texan to Appalachian to Ozark and beyond.
No. Country music isn’t just from the south. In fact it’s also known as Country and Western music. What you’re hearing on the radio is very corporatized and sanitized music meant to fit a specific narrow mold somewhat based around the Nashville sound. Country music as a whole encompasses a wide variety of styles from many different places
Keith Urban is Australian and hes a huge country star
Keith Urban is from Australia and is fairly successful country singer.
I dont really listen to that style of music so Idk if hes considered good
Well NYC had a country station until like two years ago.
But IMO country music has really dramatically changed in the last 20-30 years to become what you described it. Back in the day it was refereed to as “country & western”, and alot of classic country songs are part of what is called “the Bakersfield sound” which was a more stripped down outlaw folk style from California. Alot of older country music they don’t have a strong accent, it’s definitely became a stronger thing in recent years and I think they intentionally play it up. Like all modern radio music, it’s very formulaic. For instance Jon Pardi (who I actually think is pretty decent) also comes from California and his accent is definitely ƒake.
Country music isn’t always a southern accent to begin with. Television has ruined everything.
Pretty sure at this point most singers with that “strong accent” aren’t even from the area and are faking it
Hell no. I don’t live too far from Nashville tennessee. There’s probably just as many people who are not from the south trying to make it in Nashville than people who were actually from the area.
If you want my honest opinion, over the years I’ve seen a trend and it shouldn’t, surprise most people.
If you’re really attractive male or female and you can also sing, you’re going to have it a whole lot easier than somebody that’s not attractive. Attraction sales unfortunately. We don’t get to choose how we look but those people will make it all day long over more talented people who are not good looking.
And for those wondering, you can develop a southern accent. You can even fake it. You ever heard Larry the Cable guy? Listen to his normal voice and listen to his stage presence. A lot of that is an act.
>And a lot of the singers don’t even *talk* with that accent. It “mysteriously” only occurs when they decide to sing.
Similar to British singers sounding American, losing their British accent when they sing.
There is country music in NYC 94.7
shania twain is Canadian
gonna check to see if she ever uses the word “about” in her songs.
If theyre talking about their truck or their man cheating: country music.
It sells. And a LOT of this music is about selling. Even the Canadians sing with a slight twang that’s sort of milder, but then even a few rural Canadian accents have something of a slightly different twang anyway.
Around the turn of the millennium, when the only country station in NYC changed formats at that time as I guess another came in since that’s now gone, there were a few artists (Shania Twain and Faith Hill, etc.) who had such crossover appeal that they did remixes of their singles without pedal steel and fiddle and maybe added in AutoTune, which was the hot thing back then masquerading as a “vocoder”.
Olivia Newton-John, who was British born and raised in Australia, started her singing career in the US as a country artist.
All that’s required are shabby catch phrases about boots, pickups, dogs, beer, jukeboxes, blue jeans.
Hell no. Just look at Shoji Tabuchi.
Since Keith Urban is from Australia and Shania Twain is from Canada, I don’t think it’s required.
Country music is also really popular in Ireland and they have their own style of it, too.
Trucks dogs and divorce
Ask Keith Urban.
Two of my favorite country artists right now are Canadian and Swedish. You definitely dont need a southern accent to make good country music.
Maybe not Country, but I’m sure NYC has folk music, or Americana, which are basically Country music without as much flash or twang. Country music to me just seems to really celebrate rural life (or the idea of it) more than other similar forms of music. Plus the age old themes of heartbreak and love are a lot of the appeal for many people.
NYC has country radio on 94.7 HD2.
I assure you plenty of people listen to country there.
Nowadays, particularly with pop country, if it’s made in Nashville, it’s country.
If it’s made somewhere else (including elsewhere in the south for instance – Atlanta churns out a whole lot of music but zero country) then it’s not country.
That’s how you tell.
I mean, Taylor Swift is marginally country; she certainly was early in her career.
“modern country trends and pop-country/bro-country”
Yeah that’s pop country radio. Lots of country fans aren’t really into that. Someone who kind of straddles that border is Zach Brian who sells out stadiums but a lot of stations don’t play him, same with Tyler Childers.
If you’re interested in sampling some modern country music that is more Indy and not really on the radio then Flatland Cavalry, Chloe Kines, Jason Isbell, Kristina Murray, 49 Winchester, Presley Haile are a few to Che k out.
Colter Wall is Canadian and Keith Urban is Australian. I wouldn’t say a southern accent is necessary nor being from the south. I highly recommend Colter Wall btw.
As someone from directly below the Mason Dixon, you have to actively look for actual Southern country artists these days. Having a Southern accent is pretty much integral to the genre because well… it’s a Southern genre at its roots. That’s not to say that you can’t be country as well and not from the South, it’s just that country music without a Southern accent or dialect jus kinda… sounds like pop or rock music.
No. You just have to sing about trucks, bonfires, hunting, fishing, and corn fields.
Keith Urban doesn’t have a country accent, and he’s HUGE in country music.
>No one listens to country in NYC
Just because you don’t know people in NYC who listen to country doesn’t mean nobody does. You’re in a cultural bubble, which is pretty on-brand for NYC to be honest. I’ve known a fair few New Yorkers who were into country over the years. You just don’t run in those circles, apparently. They do exist though.
Country is a descendant of various types of folk music. It’s a broad genre, like rock or hip-hop. It has stuff like that godawful bro-country that you mentioned but it has a lot of other, far better stuff.
What defines country? That’s as difficult asking what defines rock or R&B. It’s extremely broad, overlaps with other stuff and is largely “you know it when you hear it”. It’s largely defined by lyrical themes, instruments used and very nebulous “sound”. Like any other genre.
If you want some modern country that isn’t hick hop made for suburbanite cosplayers try singers like Sturgill Simpson, Tyler Childers, Orville Peck, Old Crow Medicine Show, Dylan Earl, or The Dead South.
I have a southern accent, but I can’t stand listening to some of the accents from country music, Lainey Wilson is an example. I feel she really over-exaggerates her accent, particularly when singing.
so i’m a huge country fan. i just think there’s a lot of genre crossover that kinda gets “pretended away” because people have very strong opinions about country music – so you end up with country rock and country pop that is really just artists and labels trying to appeal to an existing country fanbase, because country lovers love country and country haters don’t bother.
also another part of it to me is that popular rock music basically died? country music has retained a level of instrumentality that doesn’t really exist anywhere else in popular music. so it makes sense to me that you might hear rock sounds in country music, where else are you gonna go to hear it?
Considering that there are several AI artists hitting the top liistened to for the country music genre you really just need a computer nowadays apparently…
Man I know I’m old but I genuinely miss when I got excited to hear country on the radio.
You don’t need to natively speak with a Southern accent to sing country music but it helps to affect a Southern accent. For instance, listen to Taylor Swift’s early country material. She grew up near Philadelphia and has a standard American accent, but in “Sparks Fly” she pronounces half her vowels like “ah” so she sings “I see sparks fly” as “ah, see, sparks flah.”
It’s similar to how Green Day are from Berkeley, California but Billy Joe sings with an English accent because he is imitating The Clash.
The country accent in country music is fake. There’s an Australian man who’s a huge country singer.
Now adays country music is whatever is on country radio. There’s no rules to it.
It used to be that you needed a banjo, fiddle or steel guitar or something like that. And the focus had to be thematically on rural problems and struggles.
Now there’s no rules.
Plenty of country singers aren’t from the South. Hell, Keith Urban is Australian and there are plenty more who are from Canada for example (Shania Twain, Colter Wall, Lindsay Ell, just to name a few off the top of my head)
Plenty of other artists have code switched throughout the years (when you ramp up your accent to fit in) – Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift, (not a singer but another example) Larry the Cable Guy
Read (if you have or are willing to pay for the New York Times I guess) [this Shaboozey interview.](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/22/magazine/shaboozey-bar-song-country-music.html)
It touches on some of this – and touches on the overlap between pop and country not just musically but culturally.
What it doesn’t touch on as much that it maybe should is some of the geographic/demographic pieces.
He’s from northern Virginia – Woodbridge – outside DC.
Based on his age, when his parents first moved there PW County was ballpark 65-70% White. Now it’s 38% White (and the white folks don’t live near Woodbridge – they’re the other side of the county).
The DC area historically is actually pretty country musically; before go-go, DC area music was bluegrass (the DC public radio station was 100% bluegrass until maybe 10 years ago), and you can still see some influences around (including in go-go).
While most of them are gone now, when Shaboozey would’ve been growing up in Woodbridge some of the biggest nightlife destinations in NOVA were country (Nicks, for instance, which was always 18 and up).
He absolutely would’ve spent time at country bars in high school or at minimum exposed to that music (even growing up as the son of immigrants in a pretty diverse community).
I urge you to listen to George Jones or George Straight.
New country artist of the year Zach Top is from Washington state so it ain’t really just a southern thing to be country. Dude has an southern sounding accent but just a bit different from what you’d find in the south. Dude makes some great music that brings me back to the 90’s. He’s been on my constant rotation lately lol.
“Country” music is not “Southern” music. No, you do not need a Southern accent, but you probably will need a Rural American accent to be popular. I mean Shania Twain is Canadian. There’s a lot of singers from non southern Appalachia and the lower Midwest too. Also, shockingly, quite a few from New Zealand.
Majority are from the south tho
I wouldn’t expect country to be big in New York City. You know, “country” and “city”. Chicago has one station but there’s a substantial country audience because of how many white people (let’s set the bullshit aside, the country audience is mostly white) move in from less populated areas of the Midwest and the South.
There’s a very long history of tension in mainstream country between preserving what is perceived to be the musical roots of the genre and incorporating whatever modern pop conventions exist to make more money.
I grew up in the heartland listening to country music. My grandpa turned it off in the late 1960s because most country bands had added a drummer by then, and he couldn’t stand how it sounded. (The way he described it was racist so I won’t repeat it here. The point is, pull up examples of 50s country and in most cases it’s recorded without drums.)
No, but a lot of singers use this sort of generic “country” accent that I’ve heard in rural areas from New York to California and is basically Southern-coded.
I recommend checking out the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville if you ever get the chance. They do a really good job of talking about all of the roots and influences of modern country music.
I think when non-country fans think of country music they think it’s all the stuff on country radio, Jason Aldean-type music about trucks and bonfires and small towns. And when country music fans think of country music they think about a super wide variety of genres that don’t make it on the radio, modern artists like Zach Top and Orville Peck, and the other 95% of the genre that isn’t singing about pickup trucks.
Quite a few country singers are not from the USA. A lot are from Australia like Keith Urban, or even Canada like Shania Twain. There’s a whole ranker list on it.
Not if you’re listening to non-radio country.
Guys like Colter wall, Turnpike Troubadours, Charles Wesley Godwin, Sam Barber, and Wyatt Flores don’t have the “Nashville” sound you hear on the radio yet their selling out shows left and right
>No one listens to country in NYC. We don’t even have a country station.
Probably not as popular as it is in other areas, but plenty of people in NYC do listen. New York’s Country 94.7, WWWF 103.1 I’m not a country fan myself but when the TV show Nashville was on, I went to see the live tour at the Best Buy Theater and it was sold out within about an hour of going on sale.