Beyoncé to Sabrina Carpenter: Tanner Adell’s Country Music Guide

This piece appears in the columns section of frieze 247, ‘Lay of the Land’

During summers growing up, I’d visit my cousins in Wyoming, where we’d do a lot of labouring outside or in the workshop. Country music was always on the radio. That lifestyle has always rung true for me, and country music – written by people, for people – caters to the blue-collar way of life.

There are some who are interested in and want to pursue country music who didn’t really grow up ‘country’, but I would say 95 percent of people who sing about getting their hands dirty really did. Farming, ranching and raising animals is hard work. It’s difficult to fake it. You can hear quickly when someone isn’t authentic to the sound that they’re trying to create.

Country music is a part of who I am. I’ve been writing it my whole life. In the past, I tried to write more pop, because I thought I needed to. At other moments, I’d try to write more traditional country. It wasn’t until I just let myself be myself that I made my authentic music. Crossing genres, making hybrid music, is effortless for me. It’s who I am. I’ve been a hybrid my whole life. I don’t have to try.

My lyrics have always been cheeky, but also narrative. That’s what country music is: storytelling. It took a year before I found people that didn’t just laugh at the idea of my song ‘Buckle Bunny’ (2023). A woman is called a buckle bunny if someone sees her get gussied up to go to the rodeo and they think she is only doing so to sleep with the winning cowboy, because they get the biggest buckle.

If being called a buckle bunny means I look hot, then call me one! I wanted to reclaim the phrase. Like the words of the lyrics: I drive my own truck, I have my own money and I live for myself, but I’ll also get pretty for you, and you can take me to Cheesecake Factory. When I told my current producers the idea for the song, they loved it. And, since the song’s release, buckle bunny has become a whole aesthetic.

I’ve been called the gateway drug to country music, which I take a lot of pride in. I have a large, loving – albeit sometimes wild – fanbase. ‘Buckle Bunny’ gave many people an identity in country music which they never had access to before. That’s what I want my songs to do. And it’s what I’ll try to do for the rest of my life.

The country music scene is so different now – even just compared to a year ago. There are always people who, for whatever reason, want country music to stay pure, as if it were a cult. There are others who just enjoy the music and want it to be accessible to those in other countries who have no idea what it is to be an American country-and-western person.

This new wave really started in 2015 with Morgan Wallen, who opened a massive door to other artists by pairing hip hop and pop beats with East Tennessee singing, which sounds great. He is a big reason why country music is where it is now. He must have listened to rap and pop growing up. You can’t force a song like ‘Wasted on You’ (2021). If you’re wracking your brain about how to write a hybrid R&B country song, it’s going to sound bad. Someone who doesn’t understand the different genres well cannot come up with such a beautiful sound.

In 2024, country music is taking over the world. Massive popstars like Beyoncé (Cowboy Carter, 2024) and Sabrina Carpenter (‘Slim Pickins’, 2024) are dipping their toes into country, acknowledging that they can make their music sound how- ever they want to. That’s how music should be: you should be able to fluidly pull inspiration from whatever inspires you.

Traditional country music, when you get locked into that mindset, is a very specific and limited vocabulary. You could make up a country song in two seconds and say, ‘I’m going down to the lake in my truck with my cold beer.’ But it’s getting to the point where people want new ideas and energy; they want country music to go somewhere – and I think it is.

As told to Marko Gluhaich

This article first appeared in frieze issue 247 with the headline ‘Buckle Up’

^{Main image: Behind the scenes of Buckle Bunny (detail), 2023. Courtesy: Tanner Adell; photograph: Daniel Chaney}