Boyfriend Country Is The New Bro Country

[Tek]

Today's video is all about country music's latest trend, which people are calling "Boyfriend Country." For years, we've heard about "bro country," but now guys like Dan + Shay and Brett Young are guiding popular country into a more sensitive, romantic place. This is just my exploration of the topic.

Some quotes:

"Over the last six month's, it's become abundantly clear that the next "era" of popular country music is here, and it's not bro country, it's boyfriend country."

"Boyfriend country is an era defined by sensitive male country singers singing sweet love songs to the women in their lives."

"But these dudes lay it on thick--they, literally, are worshiping their women. And I use the word "worship" because there is a religiosity to a lot of these boyfriend country lyrics that makes you really start to feel like this is just pandering. You've got songs like "God Whispered Your Name" by Keith Urban, or "Heaven" by Kane Brown, where he literally says that heaven couldn't be better than being with this girl. Matt Stell says, "I prayed for you." Florida Georgia Line says, "You're holy because I'm high on loving you."

"It's more for people who want to get their country from a platform like The Bachelor, and actually those last three guys who I just mentioned have all performed on The Bachelor. Speaking of The Bachelor, you got artists like Chris Lane who's got his own boyfriend country song, "Big Plans," who's now married to a Bachelor contestant. You got Adam Doleac with his song "Famous," which features a Bachelor couple in its music video, and The Bachelor has basically said, "Look, if people want boyfriend country from us, we'll give you a whole franchise of it." [Shows footage from The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart, with the premise of the contestants all being musicians]

"Musically these songs are largely acoustic and often slow or mid-tempo and lyrically these songs put women on a pedestal, even to the point of worshiping them."

"And I think it's nice that guys are expressing some earnest emotions about love, but where I'm really disliking this trend is that these songs are starting to feel really unearnest. They're starting to feel really color-by-numbers, and really trend chasing, and really pandering to the point that it almost feels just as objectifying to women as bro country did, but now it's just dressed up in a more deceptive package. And this might go without saying, but it's getting boring."