How Americana helped mainstream country find its soul
As we've been examining over the course of Country Week, country music has found a larger audience, in part by widening its sonic palette. For the final episode of this series, we take a look at a gen...
27 Jun 202535min
Country music is Mexican (Fuerza Regida and Grupo Frontera)
More often than not, country music is seen as an "American" genre – meaning that the music is seen as strictly from the United States. In some ways, that's true; but the genre's iconography, sound, an...
26 Jun 202532min
The Ballad of Lainey Wilson and Jessie Murph
There's often an unspoken (and deeply misogynistic) rule on country music radio: never play two female artists back to back. In this episode of Switched On Pop's country week, we aim to do just that. ...
25 Jun 202528min
The hick hop renaissance (BigXthaPlug and Bailey Zimmerman)
One of the biggest country hits of the year has been "All The Way," by Texas rapper BigXthaPlug and country rocker Bailey Zimmerman, which peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song is a perfectl...
24 Jun 202535min
Is Morgan Wallen the problem with country music?
Country music stands at a crossroads between tradition and evolution, and no artist embodies this tension better than Morgan Wallen. His song "I'm the Problem" opens with beautiful bluegrass guitar be...
23 Jun 202535min
"Manchild" and other songs about male incompetence
Looking for relationship advice? Skip the self-help books and turn to Sabrina Carpenter's latest single "Manchild" instead. This deep dive into the art of musical insults reveals how pop's newest sens...
17 Jun 202529min
Frankly, Sinatra still matters (with Seth MacFarlane)
What if the Chairman of the Board's biggest contribution to music wasn't his voice, but the blueprint he created for modern pop stardom? Frank Sinatra didn't just sing songs: he invented the concept a...
10 Jun 202548min
Is the future of pop...heavy metal?!
The UK outfit Sleep Token has done what we once thought impossible: Found commercial success playing heavy metal music in 2025 AD. Their fourth studio album, Even in Arcadia, went to number one on th...
3 Jun 202545min
