The growing entertainment expectations on Music City’s next-generation male superstars may shift how country music defines success
Country music’s expectations of male stardom are at a dynamic crossroads.
Essentially, the moment has arrived where male stars merely vying for being country music’s “entertainer of the year” isn’t enough.
Male stars are not just filling arenas and singing platinum-selling songs, they’re also serving — as country’s female stars have for decades — as television hosts, brand promoters, and recognizable mainstream marketing faces, able to charm people and kiss babies with equal aptitude.
“Platinum album sale” revenues don’t equal what they used to, and fans’ pockets aren’t as deep as they once were.
In a space where Luke Bryan, Luke Combs, Garth Brooks, and Eric Church have represented excellence in male presentations at the pinnacle of entertainment in the country music marketplace, perhaps it’s worth expanding the genre’s expectations of superstardom.
“For not just me, but all of us, [Brooks] taught country music stars how to approach our careers with a rock star mentality,” Bryan said in a November 2022 interview with The Tennessean.
“Being rock ‘n’ roll-level enormous by selling out football stadiums on multiple nights — and reaching meteoric heights because of it — programmed us to dream of achieving that level of success.”
Bryan, Jimmie Allen, and Blake Shelton excel as TV hosts. Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley, Brooks, Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, Alan Jackson, John Rich, Shelton, and soon Church are multimillion-dollar bar-front name brands.
However, country music’s desire to retain commercial sustainability, coupled with the genre’s broadening social and cultural reach, means that something may exist beyond that level of acclaim.
To use a turn of phrase, maybe it’s time to take a “Gamble” and turn the clock back to 1983, the year that Kenny Rogers, after a 25-year career, led what a truly ubiquitous country music industry as leader in mainstream popular culture looked like.
Even so, the Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year in 1983 and 1984 was not Rogers. Instead, it was Alabama.
Rogers, nominated from 1997-1981, never won the award (he was an Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year in 1978).
“We’re country first and crossover second,” said Randy Owen, Alabama’s lead singer, in a 1980 interview. “If crossovers come, that’s great, but we’d rather have a No. 1 country song than be lost in the middle of both country and pop charts.”
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Rogers in 1983 was achieving an entirely different stratosphere of commercial acclaim and mainstream notoriety, broader than country’s traditional expectations. That included an interview in Playboy Magazine (topics covered included “music, wealth and the good things in life”).
Examining the component pieces of Rogers’ 1983 achievements offers a sense of what next level of superstardom could look like for country’s male stars.
Imagine selling over $750 million (adjusted for inflation) in records in five years, earning $60 million a year prior, owning $75 million worth of businesses and homes around the country, then switching labels from Liberty to RCA and signing a deal worth another $60 million. This on top of touring North America for over 100 dates for a series of concerts with Crystal Gayle and comedian Lonnie Shorr, a tour launched with a seductively branded Jovan cologne and perfume named for “Wrangler” and “Lady,” two of Roger’s biggest singles.
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Co-hosting “American Idol” or “The Voice” like Bryan or Shelton? Amazing. The televised singing programs are viewed by combined 13 million homes nationwide.
In comparison, Rogers had already been a guest host on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” in 1979, viewed by 40% of all people watching TV at that hour.
Moreover, Rogers’ fourth film, November 1983’s “The Gambler: The Adventure Continues,” was divided into two two-hour episodes on CBS. The fifth- and fourth-highest-rated shows of the 1983-84 season, they were viewed on four times as many homes as “American Idol” or “The Voice.”
Also, a March-recorded concert alongside Sheena Easton was aired as an HBO special “Kenny Rogers: Live in Concert” in September 1983. At that point, HBO had 13.4 million subscribers.
Yes, the TV marketplace was considerably smaller and less democratized 40 years ago, but the numbers still provide a powerful context concerning Rogers’ massive star power for that or any era.
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Musically, however, is where Rogers’ divergence from Nashville and mainstream country emerges.
If Zach Bryan or Morgan Wallen’s recent output of 70 total songs between two mega-massive releases is notable, consider that in 1983 alone Rogers released (or re-released) four albums and 40 songs — “We’ve Got Tonight,” “Eyes That See in the Dark,” and two “Greatest Hits” compendiums. Two duets, “We’ve Got Tonight” (with Easton) and “Islands in the Stream” (featuring Dolly Parton), were No. 1 Billboard country chart hits, and “Islands in the Stream” crossed over as a triple-platinum selling Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary smash.
Reviewer Robert Christgau refered to Rogers’ work with RCA Nashville in 1983 as the start of his “Hollywood” era. In fact, in 1981, he had purchased the ABC/Dunhill Records’ Los Angeles facility.
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This spurred him to work with producers like David Foster — known for his work with Chicago, Kenny Loggins and Toto — and Lionel Richie, following their mega success on “Lady,” the 1981 ballad the ex-Commodore had penned for Rogers.
Moreover, he worked with the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb, who excelled at making mid-tempo pop-style, Adult Contemporary chart-favored R&B for a broad swath of vocalists, including Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick.
Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield called “Eyes That See in the Dark” an “underrated gem.” However, other reviews allude to a “circumspect” relationship between the album and country music’s fanbase.
In the early 1970s, producers like Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley steered country music away from its more bluegrass and folk traditions to a “countrypolitan” sound featuring background vocals and string ensembles on melodic tracks driven by soulful performances.
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The idea that by 1983, “countrypolitan” could have much in common with R&B’s attempt to deny synthesized urges and adult contemporary wanting to deny less deeply emotive songs makes sense.
A 1980 review of a Rogers concert calls his presentation slick, business-first, non-suffering, sweat-free, un-depressed and “picture perfect” gimmickry. Blend those descriptors with music made with artists-turned producers whose widespread embrace of teased hair and bare-chested disco-mania eventually tired and backfired in America’s mainstream.
The result is a moment that divorces — while also hyper-emphasizing — Kenny Rogers’ importance to not just country music but pop music overall.
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This year represents a time when it’s necessary to reconsider pop and country’s importance to each other.
As an example, Kane Brown — though not 25 years into his mainstream career — has co-hosted CMT’s Music Awards for the past three years while expanding into TV appearances on other Viacom-branded shows on CBS, MTV and Nickelodeon. He also will co-headline this year’s Stagecoach Festival alongside Bryan and Chris Stapleton.
Brown has done this while touring for what will equal 92 scheduled arena, festival and stadium shows worldwide in 87 weeks between January 2022-September 2023.
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His third album, “Different Man” — also for the RCA Nashville, the label Rogers was once signed to — will achieve 126 combined first-week country radio rotation adds (his most to date) by Billboard and Country Aircheck/Mediabase stations for his No. 1 single “Like I Love Country Music.” He also collaboratied with EDM producers Blackbear and Andrew Goldstein for 2022’s “Memory” and 2023’s “Grand.”
Pairings with rappers and R&B performers H.E.R., Khalid, Nelly and Swae Lee also dot his resume.
Moreover, he’s regularly on social media with his Katelyn — his wife and dueting vocalist — and two daughters, plus also logging frequent-flyer miles making appearances at the Major League Baseball and NBA all-star games, the Super Bowl, a myriad of Boys and Girls Club events and more.
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Notably, Brown — though approaching a schedule and stardom similar to Rogers’ four decades prior — is also, like Rogers, without significant entertainer of the year recognition.
“Brown may well be the only performer on Earth who can earnestly namecheck Alan Jackson in one song and then immediately pivot to a moody trap-pop number about fame,” with a voice equally suited for classic country, electronic dance music, hip-hop and pop, Rolling Stone says.
Brown is likely the closest to having the desire and staying power to approach the “slickly sweat-free and picture perfect” approach to cross-platform relativity that Rogers used four decades prior.
In a 2022, Brown noted about the genre at present that “doors are getting knocked down for everyone, and country music is being welcoming. Now [is anyone’s] chance.”
Being keenly aware of an unprecedented opportunity and achieving it are two very different notions. However, both artists and genre willfully acknowledging the moment at hand creates the potential of country music’s most incredible pop moment ever.
“Right now, country music has never been more exciting,” Jelly Roll said recently. “Of course, there was the outlaw movement of the ’70s and ’90s rodeo music and the growth and development of acts like Garth Brooks. But as far as being at its most diversely entertaining and interesting? It’s right now.”