Latest news with #FollowYourArrow
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
6 songs that were shunned by country radio and rejected by Nashville — but still became hits
Kacey Musgraves recently opened up about the backlash to her 2013 single, "Follow Your Arrow." The pro-LGBTQ song was blacklisted by country radio stations but later became a fan-favorite hit. Beyoncé, Lil Nas X, and Loretta Lynn have faced similar pushback from country music gatekeepers. Country music has a stricter reputation than most popular genres, which has led to territorial battles over what gets played on the radio and who wins awards. Country gatekeepers in the music industry like radio programmers and awards show voters are known for imposing a high barrier to entry, which fans say keeps the genre authentic. In practice, however, the barrier has been enforced in an attempt to bar Black artists, outspoken women, and progressive themes from Nashville. Keep reading for six of the most notable and controversial country hits, listed below in reverse chronological order of release. Some radio stations initially refused to play "Texas Hold 'Em" by Beyoncé. Beyoncé delighted fans by surprise-releasing "Texas Hold 'Em" during the 2024 Super Bowl. The boot-stomping honky-tonk song was promoted as the lead single off her forthcoming album, "Cowboy Carter." However, some country radio stations did not share the Beyhive's excitement for new Beyoncé music — including one in Oklahoma, which rejected a fan's request to play "Texas Hold 'Em." "We do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station," the response read. Still, "Texas Hold 'Em" debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, making Beyoncé the first Black woman in history to achieve the feat. It also reached No. 1 on the Hot 100, where it remained for two weeks. Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" was booted from Billboard's country charts. Lil Nas X caused a stir in 2019 when he harnessed his social-media savvy to transform "Old Town Road" — a country-rap novelty full of Nashville tropes like bull rides, cowboy hats, and Wrangler jeans — into a viral hit. While the song launched trends on TikTok and racked up views on YouTube, the music industry scrambled to categorize its success. Billboard abruptly pulled the song from its country charts, saying it "does not currently merit inclusion" due to a lack of unspecified "elements." The decision sparked widespread backlash among fans and music critics, many of whom accused the magazine of holding Black country artists to a different standard (Billboard denied that race played a factor). Shortly after, Lil Nas X released an "Old Town Road" remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus (of "Achy Breaky Heart" fame to some and "Hannah Montana" fame to others). The song shot to No. 1 on the Hot 100 and reigned atop the chart for 19 weeks, setting a record that remains unbroken. (The feat has since been matched by another country hit by a genre-blending Black musician, Shaboozey.) "Old Town Road" also became the fastest song in history to be certified diamond and won two Grammy Awards. Beyoncé's "Daddy Lessons" was rejected by CMA Awards viewers and the Grammy country committee. When Beyoncé announced "Cowboy Carter" in 2024, she said the album was inspired by a time when she "did not feel welcomed" by the entrenched Nashville establishment. "Because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive," Beyoncé explained on Instagram. "The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me." Many fans speculate the pivotal event was the 2016 CMA Awards, where The Chicks joined Beyoncé for a duet of "Daddy Lessons," a standout country song from her then-new album, "Lemonade." During their performance, cutaways to the audience seemed to betray a sense of discomfort. Some people reportedly walked out. The Chicks later confirmed they felt a frosty reception from the room: "They treated us very weird backstage," Natalie Maines told The New York Times in 2020. "For them to disrespect her that way was disgusting." Reactions on social media were similarly harsh, often turning outright racist. As Vox reported at the time, the CMA Awards fanned the flames by removing a promotional video that featured Beyoncé from its social media accounts. Later that year, AP News reported that Beyoncé's team had submitted "Daddy Lessons" to country categories at the Grammys, but the Recording Academy's country committee had rejected it. In public, however, country musicians defended the song, including Blake Shelton, Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town, and Dierks Bentley, who told AP News, "There is just something intangible about it that it feels like a country song." More recently, Beyoncé kicked off her Cowboy Carter Tour, which features "Daddy Lessons" on the set list — much to the delight of the Beyhive. "DADDY LESSONS!! THE REASON WE ARE ALL HERE," one fan wrote on X. Kacey Musgraves said her pro-LGBTQ song "Follow Your Arrow" was "banned by country radio." During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kacey Musgraves said she faced pushback about releasing her 2013 single, "Follow Your Arrow." In the twangy guitar ballad, Musgraves skewers double standards for women, salutes same-sex love, and advocates for smoking weed, "if that's something you're into." She wrote the song with Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, who are both gay. McAnally said he remembers the label telling Musgraves the song would be "suicide at radio." Indeed, upon the song's release, several country radio programmers told Billboard they wouldn't be able to play the song, especially in Southern areas that tend to lean more conservative. When Musgraves performed "Follow Your Arrow" at the 2013 CMA Awards, the lyrics were repeatedly censored, including the line "roll up a joint." Nevertheless, that same night, she took home the award for best new artist. At the 2014 ceremony, "Follow Your Arrow" won song of the year. Today, "Follow Your Arrow" is known as one of Musgraves' signature anthems and is credited with helping to usher in a more inclusive era for country music. "Oh my gosh, it was so controversial," Musgraves told THR. "It ended up tanking — it was banned by country radio. But I would never trade that for the love and the people it brought to my world. I'm not going to present a watered-down version of myself to be accepted. I'll fucking shovel shit for a living at a horse barn, and I'll be really happy. Or I'll just be a songwriter. Anyway, it ended up working out." "Goodbye Earl" by The Chicks sparked debate and pushback from country radio programmers. The three women of The Chicks (formerly known as the Dixie Chicks) are no strangers to conservative backlash. In 2003, the Texas musicians became country music's most famous outcasts after they said they were "ashamed" to be from the same state as President George W. Bush. "I saw how one comment ended such a powerful reign, and it terrified me," Taylor Swift told Variety in 2020. "These days, with social media, people can be so mad about something one day and then forget what they were mad about a couple weeks later. That's fake outrage. But what happened to the Dixie Chicks was real outrage. I registered it — that you're always one comment away from being done being able to make music." The Chicks had gotten their first glimpse of exile three years prior, when they released their now-beloved single "Goodbye Earl." The song, written by Dennis Linde and initially recorded by Sons of the Desert, tells the story of two women who plot to poison one of their abusive husbands. After The Chicks released their version, some critics worried the band was inadvertently advocating for premeditated murder. However, in spite of initial resistance from country radio programmers, "Goodbye Earl" continued to climb the Billboard charts, eventually becoming a top-20 hit on the Hot 100 and reaching No. 13 on Hot Country Songs. "It's one of the things where some of the gatekeepers take it more seriously than the audience does," Lon Helton, country music editor for Radio & Records, told the Tampa Bay Times in 2000. "Programmers were nervous at first about offending parts of their audience, but I think they've gotten the message," Helton added. "The single is going up our (country airplay) charts as fast as any single the Chicks have put out." Loretta Lynn's controversial single "The Pill" became a crossover hit without radio play. Throughout the '70s, Loretta Lynn made a name as a feather-ruffler with her frank songwriting, which often tackled sexist stigmas and women's issues. Many of Lynn's songs were shunned by country radio, including "Fist City" and "Rated X," but none were quite so well-known or provocative as "The Pill," a 1975 single about birth control and reproductive freedom. The industry's rejection of "The Pill" is well-documented. According to the Daily Beast, it was "banned by radio stations spanning Atlanta to Detroit," which subsequently caused it to stall at No. 5 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs. When Lynn died in October 2022, nearly five decades after the song's release, Time reported that country radio still hadn't come around: Luminate data showed the song had only been played once on country radio for that entire year. Somehow, "The Pill" still managed to find an audience and resonate with listeners. It became the biggest crossover hit of Lynn's solo career, peaking at No. 70 on the Hot 100. "I just write what I feel, what is going on with me and my life. It just happened that a lot of other women felt the same," Lynn told Parade in 2021. "I would never set out to write something just for it to shock someone; I am not that clever. It's always been about truth and if that means radio wants to ban it, well that's their problem. Most of my records they banned became No. 1 anyway." Read the original article on Business Insider
Perth Now
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Kacey Musgraves reveals if she's really quit weed for good
Kacey Musgraves has insisted she hasn't totally quit marijuana. The 36-year-old country star sang about "getting rid" of certain habits in her 2024 track 'Deeper Well' and later said in an interview that she weed was "not for this chapter" of her life, but now she's clarified her stance. She told The Hollywood Reporter: 'Um, I never said I don't ever partake. 'I just don't wake up and hit a gravity bong the size of my face anymore, which is what I did for a long time. "But, hey, more power to whatever suits you.' In her 2013 track 'Follow Your Arrow', she urged listeners to "kiss lots of boys, or kiss lots of girls", and "roll up a joint, or don't". The song's referencing to homosexuality and cannabis sparked controversy among the country music scene's more conservative circles. She recalled: "Oh my gosh, it was so controversial. I was told not to [release the song] and all these reasons why." She added: "It ended up tanking — it was banned by country radio. But I would never trade that for the love and the people it brought to my world. "I'm not going to present a watered-down version of myself to be accepted. I'll f****** shovel s*** for a living at a horse barn, and I'll be really happy. Or I'll just be a songwriter. Anyway, it ended up working out." Last year, Kacey told The Cut that she was leaving her stoner persona behind. She quipped: "It's not for this chapter. Maybe later, when I'm a 60-year-old lady with nothing to do and I'm just doing pottery all day, maybe. We'll see." Meanwhile, the 'Rainbow' hitmaker also reflected on the fallout of her divorce 2020 divorce from Ruston Kelly, and subsequent romance with now-ex boyfriend Cole Shafer, which she shared a lot on Instagram. She said: 'I don't regret living and loving as hard as I do. Whenever I'm in a relationship, I'm all f****** in. "I think that hesitancy breeds hesitancy, and if you go in with something with one foot, it's going to fail. 'After divorce, it's like on one hand I do want to self-protect, but at the same time, if your heart is feeling open, I think you have to just show up for it. I'm still trying to figure out the balance of that.'
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Kacey Musgraves reflects on controversy surrounding her breakthrough song ‘Follow Your Arrow' 12 years later.
When Kacey Musgraves released 'Follow Your Arrow' in 2013, she didn't expect it to emerge as one of country's most controversial singles. But it did. The third single from her debut, Grammy-winning studio album, Same Trailer Different Park, 'Follow Your Arrow' was quick to generate discourse within the country music community when it was released in October 2013. Musgraves, who was 25 years old when the song came out, received backlash for the song's references of same-sex love and recreational marijuana use. The Golden Hour singer-songwriter co-wrote the track with Brandy Clark and record producer Shane McAnally. With lyrics like, 'Kiss lots of boys/Or kiss lots of girls, if that's something you're into' and 'Roll up a joint, or don't/Just follow your arrow where it points, yeah,' the track made it onto Billboard's list of most controversial country songs of all time. While performing the song during the 2013 Country Music Awards, the lyric 'roll up a joint' was also censored and deemed inappropriate for primetime television. 'Oh my gosh, it was so controversial,' Musgraves told the Hollywood Reporter of the song in an interview for their May 2025 issue. 'It ended up tanking — it was banned by country radio. But I would never trade that for the love and the people it brought to my world. I'm not going to present a watered-down version of myself to be accepted.' Musgraves told the Hollywood Reporter that she didn't release the song, which went on to win Song of the Year at the 2014 CMA Awards, with the intention of being seen as a rule-breaker in country music. 'I'm just doing my job as a songwriter,' she said. 'When you look at country music as a genre and where it started, it is really textured, beautiful layers of real stories, heartbreak, things that aren't always easy to talk about. It's stories for the everyday person. And that's what always draws me back to country music: It's there for you, no matter what you're going through.' For fans of Musgraves, this sentiment couldn't be more true. On TikTok, fans have shared what the song means to them — and how it's helped them embrace themselves. Considered 'the queer fan's country music queen' by BuzzFeed, and the 'ultimate ally' by Them, Musgraves was the first country music artist to perform at the GLAAD Media Awards, which honors artists who use their platforms to spotlight the LGBTQ community. She also has a history of championing queer artists: She collaborated with Troye Sivan on the rerelease of his track 'Easy,' and previously toured with King Princess and electropop trio MUNA. The country music darling, who hails from Golden, Texas, told NPR in 2024 that while she did have a 'wonderful childhood,' she is from a 'very conservative' part of East Texas. Musgraves attributes her shift in perspective to an ex-boyfriend, whom she met after moving to Nashville. 'He was from a completely different upbringing than me, a liberal family in upstate New York. He had a ton of gay friends and he just sat me down one day and we had a real hard and honest conversation about it,' Musgraves said. 'He just helped me completely open up my eyes and see and I was just like, 'Damn, I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to get out of where I came from, and have my eyes and my heart open to this really wonderful community, and they've made me way more well-rounded.' Twelve years later, Musgraves still proudly plays 'Follow Your Arrow' at her shows. The country star played the song at numerous stops along her Deeper Well Tour in 2024. 'It was met with a lot of 'hell no's.' It was met with a lot of opposition,' Musgraves told a crowd in 2024, before launching into the song. 'They said, 'You're gonna go down in flames if you do this.' And I was like, 'Well, at least I'll be going down in flames for something I really believe in. At least it was my true self.''
Daily Mail
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Kacey Musgraves details extent of her past drug use... but laughs off the idea that she's totally sober
Eight-time Grammy winner Kacey Musgraves revealed she has significantly cut back on her marijuana use during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Although she laughed off the notion that she is completely sober, the country star, 36, set the record straight on whether she is still gets high and how often. 'I never said I don't ever partake,' she told the outlet. 'I just don't wake up and hit a gravity bong the size of my face anymore, which is what I did for a long time. But, hey, more power to whatever suits you.' Last year, it was widely reported that Golden Hour hitmaker was done with cannabis after she told The Cut that pot was 'not for this chapter' of her life. 'Maybe later, when I'm a 60-year-old lady with nothing to do and I'm just doing pottery all day, maybe. We'll see,' she said, at the time. Still, she said she wasn't quitting all mind-bending substances. During the 2024 interview, Musgraves also confessed to being a fan of psilocybin, the naturally occurring psychedelic compound produced by more than 200 species of fungi, aka magic mushrooms. 'When used with intention, I think it's a massive dose of compassion and reverence for nature, fellow humans, yourself,' she claimed to the outlet. In the title track to her sixth studio album, Deeper Well, released last year, she admitted that she 'used to wake and bake.' After those eyebrow-raising lyrics, she went on to declare she was 'getting rid of the habits that' she feels are 'real good at wasting' her time. During her chat with THR, Musgraves also reflected on how her 2013 track, Follow Your Arrow, which embraces weed and homosexuality, upset a lot of conservatives. 'Oh my gosh, it was so controversial. I was told not to [release the song] and all these reasons why,' she recalled to THR. 'I was nervous... it ended up tanking — it was banned by country radio.' Still, the singer insists she would never had traded that 'for the love and the people it brought' into her world. 'I'm not going to present a watered-down version of myself to be accepted,' she explained. 'Anyway, it ended up working out.' When asked if she can see how Follow Your Arrow helped make the country music scene more inclusive, Musgraves, a vocal ally for the LGBTQ+ community, clarified that she never set out to 'some martyr or freaking rule-breaker.' 'I'm just doing my job as a songwriter. When you look at country music as a genre and where it started, it is really textured, beautiful layers of real stories, heartbreak, things that aren't always easy to talk about,' she stated. 'It's stories for the everyday person.' Musgraves, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, noted during the interview that she was on route to rural Williamsport, about an hour from her home. 'A good friend of mine has a beautiful farm on hundreds of acres,' the Texas native gushed. 'It's on the Duck River, which is one of the most biologically diverse rivers in the world. It has all these specific species of things that don't exist anywhere else.' While there, she raved about the 'peaceful environment' where she and her friends like to picnic and just live their 'best lives — barefoot, dirty, in the river.' 'It's so fun,' she said. Trips like these have, ultimately, influenced some of her most popular songs, like Space Cowboy, Butterflies, Cardinal and Oh What a World. Musgraves, who recently announced her return to the newly relaunched Lost Highway Records, pointed out that excursions like these and horseback riding have become 'an outlet for tranquility' in her hectic world. 'It's something that takes me outside of looking at my phone screen,' she explained. 'It gets me to look up, look out, breathe oxygen in.'
