“I had to take a step back”
“I thought I would like to burn it down and start over,” Morris said of the genre. “But it will burn itself down without my help.”
Maren Morris has announced that she is leaving the world of country music.
In an interview with the Los Angeles TimesIn “The Song,” released on Friday, the 33-year-old singer explained why she decided to “take a step back” from the genre, pointing out that she felt “very, very distant” from it after have repeatedly spoken out against problematic issues within the country’s music industry.
Morris spoke to the publication about her new two-track EP. The bridgewhich contains the songs “The Tree” and “Get the Hell Out of Here” and is her first release after moving from Columbia Nashville to Columbia Records.
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“I thought I would like to burn it down and start over,” she said of the country music genre. “But it will burn itself down without my help.”
The publication brought up how controversial country songs – such as Jason Aldeans “Try That in a Small Town,” whose music video was shot at a lynching site, was successful.
Morris – who argued publicly with Aldean and his wife Brittany about transgender rights – told the LA Times: “The stories that are going on in country music right now, I’ve tried to avoid a lot of that at all costs. I feel very, very distant from it.” “
“I had to take a step back,” she continued, noting that women and men are treated differently in country music. “Being one of the few women to have success on country radio, of course everything you do is scrutinized. You will face more scrutiny than your male counterparts, even if you are doing well. I had that too.” This year I want to put all that out of my head and just write songs. With a lot of the drama within the community, I decided to get out there.”
The Grammy winner has been vocal about her efforts to bring about change in the country music industry, including her push for equal rights for Black artists. Morris is also a strong ally to the LGBTQIA+ community and continually voices her support.
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When asked if the “drama” in the community – including her feud with the Aldeans – influenced her decision to leave the genre, Morris said: “I’ve always been a questioner and a status quo challenger, just by that that I…Mrs. So it wasn’t really a choice. …But the further you get into the country music business, the more you see the cracks. And once you see them, you can’t unsee them. So you start doing what you can with what little strength you have to make things better.
“That doesn’t make you popular,” “The Bones” singer continued, adding, “If you really love this kind of music and you see problems coming up, it needs to be criticized. Anything that is so popular should be looked at by us.” We want to see progress.”
Ultimately, Morris said she had “kind of said everything I can say” at that point. “I always thought I would have to do middle fingers in the air when jumping out of a plane,” she told the LA Times. “But I’m trying to mature here and realize that I can just leave the parts of it that no longer make me happy behind me.”
The “The Middle” artist cited former President Donald Trump’s time in office as a cause for this change, saying that “people’s prejudices became clear.”
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“It just showed who people really were and that they prided themselves on being misogynistic, racist, homophobic and transphobic,” Morris said. “All of those things were celebrated and it fit in a strange way with this hyper-masculine branch of country music. I call it Butt Rock.”
When the LA Times again referenced the popularity of Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town,” she shared that in her opinion, “people are streaming these songs out of spite” and to “own the freedom” rather than “for real.” Joy or Love”. the music.”
“So that’s not what music is meant for. Music should be the voice of the oppressed – the actually suppressed,” Morris said. “And now it’s being used as a really toxic weapon in culture wars.”
Despite taking a step back, the “Make You Say” singer said she doesn’t want to have a “hostile relationship with country music” and still has a “weird desire to protect it.”
“But it’s not a family member,” Morris said. “That’s the crazy thing about it, I talk about it like it’s a person, but it’s not. So it’s a lot of deep deconstruction that I’m still unraveling.”