2024 CMT Next Women of Country class arrives in era 'unlike any' in the genre's history
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Tuesday morning's CMT Next Women of Country reveal event at downtown Nashville's City Winery ushered in the next decade of the genre-redefining and advocacy-driven rising star sorority with not just 14 female acts performing songs in writing rounds. More profoundly, when considering the tenor of the issue of broader success for women in country music's mainstream, it offered a simple answer regarding a uniquely bright yet difficult road ahead.
CMT's 2024 Next Women of Country class members are as follows:
Anne Wilson
Denitia
Karley Scott Collins
Kylie Frey
Lauren Watkins
Madeline Merlo
Mae Estes
The Castellows
Twinnie
2023 presents country at a crossroads
Yes, 2024 arrives with Lainey Wilson as the Country Music Association's reigning Entertainer of the Year. That success hearkens back to Taylor Swift's victory in 2009 and 2011, which were the last times women reigned supreme in the genre.
However, the age, gender, and racial diversity in the genre's most popular stars ushered in by the post-COVID-19 quarantine era isn't spread as broadly through the genre as perceptions once seemed.
2023 saw the number of country radio chart-toppers halved from three years prior and country's industry, perhaps more than ever, servicing a male-driven and aspirational youth movement defined by artists like Morgan Wallen and Bailey Zimmerman.
However, in the Next Women of Country program's history, including Wilson (a 2019 class alumnus), over 100 of country music's next aspiring female stars have achieved two dozen Billboard singles on country radio, Academy of Country Music Awards, and Country Music Association Award victories each.
Undaunted by the moment, Leslie Fram, CMT's senior vice president of music and talent, highlights that country's familial traditions (via sister trio and Georgia-born The Castellows and North Dakotan sibling duo Tigirlily Gold), plus Canadian-born artist Madeline Merlo and UK-native Twinnie and already highly-regarded songwriters with performance chops like Denitia, Ella Langley and Lauren Watkins, are highlighted in the 2024 class.
Moreover, she cites a new partnership with Todd Cassetty and the team at longtime Nashville singer-songwriter collective and frequent songwriting round host Song Suffragettes to create "greater parity for underrepresented female voices in [country music].
Lexington, Kentucky natives are different but similar
2024's class does feature 2022's two-time contemporary Christian GMA Dove Award-winner Anne Wilson in the mix. The 21-year-old Universal Music Group-signed Lexington, Kentucky native and "My Jesus" vocalist's swift crossover into what her forthcoming debut country album refers to as a "rebellious" move highlights a broadening of perspectives on young female artists presented as first-line, top-tier artists expected to make an immediate impact in country's format.
Capable of delivering contemporary pop vibes while flexing into more rock-aimed stylings, gospel-style vocals and timeless traditional country songs, she's both an outlier and so specifically gifted at a myriad of styles typically requiring many artists to be showcased.
"Unlike many artists, I'm not afraid to put my faith at the forefront of my art," Wilson told The Tennessean.
"The mission of my art is, like any other artist, to share my best, authentic self -- which lies in a [faith-based] perspective.
On the other side of the spectrum is Tanner Adell. Her authenticity arrives via impressive social media interactions and wearing self-constructed crystal bralettes, inviting myriad questions about her authentic connection to country music's century-long traditions.
However, the rising star's Southern and Western roots include formerly being a Mormon who completed her two-year mission commitment in Stockholm, Sweden. Also, couple that with her being bi-racial, adopted and bearing Wilson's Lexington, Kentucky, alongside Manhattan Beach, California and Star Valley, Wyoming in her roots.
In the nine months since her last conversation with The Tennessean, the viral spread of her singles like "Buckle Bunny" and "Trailer Park Barbie" has seen Adell's social media followers on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter increase 66 percent -- likes on her TikTok posts have increased by over 25 percent, too.
"Country music's songwriting and storytelling's timeless impact on people, regardless of their age or place in life, plus the broadest power of social media are continuing to benefit me," Adell stated to The Tennessean on Tuesday morning.
Even though she's under the age of 30, she offers that the "beauty of the diversity of grace [she shows the] realities that [she's] authentically lived" has mixed with the "celestial and ethereal" manner how devoted fans, regardless of artist, show up, ready to "embody their passion as an often unseen, but [by an artist like Adell] seen community of people."
"A time unlike any in country music's history"
Alongside Colbie Caillat, veteran country and pop star Kimberly Perry (initially of The Band Perry fame) is mentoring 2024's Next Women of Country class.
A half-decade before the inception of CMT's Next Women of Country program, Perry and her brothers' "If I Die Young" was a 7-times platinum-selling single. Moreover, her 2023 solo "Bloom" EP that heralded her return to Nashville's mainstream featured Jimmy Robbins as a producer. His credits in the past half-decade include co-writing Maren Morris' quintuple-platinum selling, 19-week Billboard Country sales chart-topping 2020 single "The Bones."
She's an ideal person with whom to speak about the importance of the Next Women of Country program in this era and in general.
Perry is presented with the idea that over twelve dozen women in over a decade are tied with acts with roots in the genre ten and 20 years prior, like The Chicks, Faith Hill, Lady A's Hillary Scott, Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman, Miranda Lambert, Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles, Shania Twain and Taylor Swift. Even deeper, performers including Wynonna Judd, Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton and Tanya Tucker maintain award-winning, chart-topping and headline-making relevance.
Comparatively, the "bro-country" era of the 2010s was preceded by seven male country acts -- Alabama, Clint Black, Brooks & Dunn, Garth Brooks, Billy Ray Cyrus, Alan Jackson and George Strait -- having country music's No. 1 song roughly every other month between 1980 and 1992. Plus, between 1992 and 2009, nearly 90 percent of the nominees for the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year trophy were male.
Compared to women, men have a powerful lineage of top-tier success in country music. However, what is a narrow scope of success for women in the genre is bolstered by the tools required to survive emerging into country stardom. Plus, there is the potential for incredibly broadened sustainability once arriving at the pinnacle of country music acclaim.
"Alongside the impacts of technological evolution, content development and marketing being put back into the hands of the artists, [CMT's Next Women of Country program] has ushered in a different culture for being a woman in country music. However, women are still represent some of the genre's strongest song creators -- and it all gets back to the power of the song," says Perry.
"The Megan Moroneys and Lainey Wilsons of the world are having amazing moments, but there are, indeed, multiple waves of women in country music, beneath them, continuing to sustain that success by consistently still maintaining relevance -- then, in rooms like CMT's Next Women of Country, we're still spotlighting women on the cusp of visibility in unprecedented ways."
"Quite simply, this is a time unlike any in country music's history."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: 2024 CMT Next Women of Country class arrives in era 'unlike any' in the genre's history
