By Mark Gray
10:00pm PDT, Oct 7, 2023
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Maren Morris is leaving the country.
In September, the Grammy winner revealed that she's exiting the country music genre. And in October, she shared more about her decision.
On The New York Times' "Popcast" podcast episode that debuted on Oct. 4, the star — who's asked for her work not to be considered at country music award shows anymore — explained, "I love living in Nashville, I have my family. There's a reason why people come there from L.A. and New York to write with us. It's because we have amazing songwriters there. That's not gonna change."
However, she continued — as reported by Page Six — "I couldn't do this circus anymore — feeling like l have to absorb and explain people's bad behaviors and laugh it off. I just couldn't do that after 2020 particularly. I've changed. A lot of things changed about me that year."
Maren said she realized she was in a "toxic" environment after getting backlash over songs like "My Church" and "80 Mercedes" off her 2016 debut album.
"Ironically, it was like, 'She's not country. Look at the way she dresses. Get the hell out of here. You don't belong here. This is not, like, Dolly [Parton],'" she said, adding, "I don't want to say goodbye, but I really cannot participate in the really toxic arms of this institution anymore."
"Come with me if you please. Everyone's welcomed," she added.
Keep reading for her previous comment and to learn more about her big choice…
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On Sept. 15, Maren Morris dropped two new songs that she hopes will be the beginning of her new musical path that's taking her away from the country music genre.
On "Get the Hell Out of Here," she seems to refer to leaving the genre: "I do the best I can / But the more I hang around here, the less I give a damn / So to all the doubts and demons that I held so dear / Go on, get the hell out of here," she sings in the chorus.
Of country music, she told the Los Angeles Times in September, "I thought I'd like to burn it to the ground and start over. But it's burning itself down without my help."
The singer's exit from the genre comes after she scored multiple country music hits and earned wide critical acclaim. She also engaged in several public feuds with other notable names in country music — particularly over politics and LGBTQ+ rights.
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Country music is no longer limited to just country radio. In fact, you can often hear the likes of Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs on pop music channels these days. Maren Morris knows what that's like: Her hit "The Bones" crossed genres.
"I'd say, sure, congratulations on crossing over onto the big all-genre chart. But the stories going on within country music right now, I've tried to avoid a lot of it at all costs. I feel very, very distanced from it," she told the Los Angeles Times of country music's mainstream success.
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Maren Morris became a bit of an outlier in country music after she voiced her progressive political leanings.
"I just wrote songs about real life through a lens of deep respect for my country heroes. But the further you get into the country music business, that's when you start to see the cracks," she told the Los Angeles Times. "And once you see it, you can't un-see it. So you start doing everything you can with the little power you have to make things better. If you truly love this type of music and you start to see problems arise, it needs to be criticized. Anything this popular should be scrutinized if we want to see progress."
The country music world tends to lean conservative. Maren doesn't.
"After the Trump years, people's biases were on full display," she explains. "It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic. All these things were being celebrated, and it was weirdly dovetailing with this hyper-masculine branch of country music. I call it butt rock."
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In 2022, Maren Morris had a public feud with country music star Jason Aldean's wife, Brittany Kerr, after Brittany shared a transphobic Instagram post: "I'd really like to thank my parents for not changing my gender when I went through my tomboy phase. I love this girly life," Brittany captioned a video of herself getting glammed up.
"It's so easy to, like, not be a scumbag human? Sell your clip-ins and zip it, Insurrection Barbie," Maren tweeted in response to Brittany, who promptly fired back, "Karen Morris. Thanks for calling me Barbie."
Amid the back-and-forth, Maren also feuded with former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, who called her a "lunatic."
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Maren Morris said she finds it troubling that country music songs get popular due to controversy and not due to their merits. Jason Aldean's song "Try That in a Small Town," for example, shot up to No. 1 after it sparked controversy with its music video. Morgan Wallen, meanwhile, saw massive success following his racism scandal.
"People are streaming these songs out of spite. It's not out of true joy or love of the music," Maren claimed. "It's to 'own the libs.' And that's so not what music is intended for. Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed — the actual oppressed. And now it's being used as this really toxic weapon in culture wars."
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As part of her new sound, Maren Morris is working with producer Jack Antonoff, who's produced many of Taylor Swift's biggest hits.
Maren says of the album she's currently writing, "There's a lot of things going on musically in it — quirky jam-band moments to, like, prog rock. It's so fun, and I feel like my old self back in this space of writing songs I love with people I love."
