Tucker Wait, More Wallen?

In which Joe delves into the murky world of TikTok country trap.

Morgan Wallen has unlocked a new achievement

No. This is not about collaborating with Post Malone on the smash hit that is I Had Some Help. Nor is it about him being the first country singer to crack 40+ million monthly Spotify listeners. Not that these aren’t worth talking about. Both of those anecdotes vividly illustrate the depth and popularity of the current country craze. They also tell compelling stories about country radio’s shifting relationship with country audiences and the remarkable streaming driven rise of Billboard topping country music. This is what happens when an artist arises who fairly could be characterized as the biggest country music singer in the public consciousness since, most likely Garth Brooks or Shania Twain. However, that is not the focus of today’s piece. Instead, the intention here is to focus on something surprising that has always stuck out about the Wallen phenomenon. 

Let’s not bury the lede. When it comes to the big business of Nashville country music, artistic trends follow a blandly formulaic cycle. After a trend has crested, room opens up for a push past the meta. Nearly always, the new trends are driven by relatively new artists who don’t have the weight of preconceived expectations. This new artist finds success, and then two things happen. Established artists adjust their sound towards the new meta- enjoy some second hand embarrassment for the Truck Yeah era of Tim McGraw- and new artists arise following along with the newly established meta. Morgan Wallen took advantage of the much-prayed-for waning of bro country to insert himself as a fixture at the top of the country charts. He has steadily been gaining steam since 2017 or so. However, unlike expectations, he doesn’t seem to have spawned any disciples. 

And this copycat concept is not just an occasional happening. Lest you think that this missing piece in the Wallen empire is only an easily shrugged off curiosity, rest assured. These "artistically inspired" disciples always, and I mean always, come crawling out of the woodwork at the first hint of an opening.

Think back to the decade that was. Florida Georgia Line had Ignite The Night era Chase Rice. Sam Hunt had early career Jordan Davis. Luke Combs has Jameson Rogers, Nate Smith, and Shane Profitt, just to name a few. We already see the massive rise in acoustic sadbois (Zacholytes per Grady Smith's sharply insightful nickname) desperately chasing the Zach Bryan moment. This is the inevitable result when faced with a money making moment. If an artist doesn't have copycats, real questions deserve to be raised about the true extent of his/her impact. 

At first, it was thought by many in the commentariat that Bailey Zimmerman would become the first Wallen acolyte to follow along. This was quickly proven to not be the case. Give a listen to his songs and you'll see Zimmerman pulls from a distinctly different background of angst-ridden pop-punk inflected vocal cadences mixed with a country-rock blend that, grainy vocals aside, doesn’t land within the Wallen wheelhouse. 

Batting this question around, a compelling theory came to mind. It hypothesized that the lack of followers was because Wallen had not carved out a distinctive musical character, in spite of his vast commercial success. Unlike other clearly groundbreaking artists, it is never quite clear if Morgan Wallen was a trendsetter or trend follower. Taking it back to the beginning of his mainstream success, Up Down enlisted Florida Georgia Line as a cosign. The song was a throwback in the waning days of bro country. Resuscitating the dying flames of a recently hit trend isn’t much of a trendsetting thing to do. Conversely, covering Jason Isbell’s now classic Cover Me Up was a shocking step forward in the stagnant mainstream that long loathed to acknowledge the existence of alternatives. 

The last three years have furthered this identitarian ambiguity surrounding Wallen.  Dangerous and One Thing At A Time have crystallized the current iteration of Wallen albums as jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. This means one could take nearly any form of music vaguely within the country tent and correctly assert a similarity to a Morgan Wallen song. Versatility is useful, but the downside is there's nothing specific in his discography that could make a clearly Morgan Wallen influenced artist. A new artist with a modern take on traditional sounding country could point to steel and soft acoustic driven songs like Thought You Should Know as an influence. Ditto an anthemic country trap track and Wallen's Wasted On You. Smooth pop crossover material to Last Night etc etc... If you are everything, you are nothing. 

All this commentary was accurate until right about a couple months ago. What changed?

Tucker Wetmore happened. 

Wetmore is country music’s latest breakout star. The Kalama, Washington born artist’s first song to hit streaming was on February 23rd. (Wikipedia says that three promotional singles were released in 2021, but they do not appear to be on streaming at the moment). Since then, three additional songs have been released. In that short time, he has totaled over one hundred and fifteen million streams, and has seven and a half million monthly Spotify listeners. This is as close to overnight success as it gets. 

The key to his success clearly is rooted in his music. Dedicated but niche fanbases are the backbone of the mid tier artists revenue stream, but that doesn't get you Billboard numbers. Clearly, the sounds and styles of Wetmore's output click with a broad church audience. 

Speaking of, let's break down the Wetmore sound. With only four songs released, there isn't much to work with. However, in this case, that limited number of songs is no obstacle. Every self released song has a near identical palette (the fourth is a soundtrack number and therefore adheres to a different sonic idea, aligned with the overall soundtrack rather than the solo artist style.) The Wetmore sound is a now-familiar mixture of washed out guitars and aggressive trap drum kits. A snarly, drawn out, and raspy vocal provides the pièce de résistance of his signature sound. 

The above description easily could have been copy pasted from a Morgan Wallen album review. Just look at his last album. I Wrote The Book, You Proof, Thinkin Bout Me, Cowgirls and a few others that are in the same country trap paradigm. Dangerous had a few songs that follow that rubric as well. Now obviously, these country trap crossovers are only a small percentage of the album as a whole. In fact, the traditional country inspired tracks outnumber the trap anthems by a good margin. And yet no one considers Wallen a trad country artist! Why is it when we hear a Wetmore track with its trap fusion, we immediately think of Morgan Wallen?

An enlightening aspect that writing for audiences teaches is the subjectivity of interpretation. Obviously, a writer knows what ideas were aimed at in the writing, but what the reader takes away is often different. Interpretation is the sum total of the writer's words and our personal intellect/experience/skills interacting with that content.  In other words, even if Morgan Wallen aimed to have a diversity of styles, a near-inevitable concretization would form surrounding his artistic persona, even if it was only in the ears and minds of audiences. This cementing of perception is shown to us by our reaction to Wetmore. Whenever someone hears Tucker Wetmore for the first time, the immediate reaction is "Wait, that sounds like a Morgan Wallen song!" The disciple has arrived and via that process, simplification and definition has occurred. Morgan Wallen, for all the different and varied styles he has played around with, is identified by audiences as the country trap guy. 

As a bit of a postscript, I want to address two potential counterpoints. The first regards the framing of Tucker Wetmore as the first Wallen follower. By a strict definition, this is false. Any Spotify generated pop country playlist will have some Wallen-esque trailer trap influenced artists on there. Plenty of wannabe Wallen's on there. Yet, I don't think that the existence of a bunch of Sean Stemaly's invalidates this point. The point is not that no one has tried to copy Wallen. The point is that it hasn't been done at a commercially successful scale. Large scale commercial viability of a new sound is evidence of artist influence. Unsuccessful attempts by D-tier artists looking to break into the mainstream is in fact proof positive to the Wallen legacy weakness theory. Wetmore was the first to take the template and demonstrate success.

Second, regarding the allegedly inevitable simplifying and definition of an artist, it is worth pointing out a notable counterexample. Kane Brown. Brown has been a major part of the mainstream scene for even longer than Morgan Wallen. He has dabbled with nearly every sound available in the mainstream, and even created a few of his own. His range extends all the way to duets with pop stars and EDM acts, covers and features with Latin artists, and even good ol’ fashioned raucous honky-tonk. And yet, this simplification and definition has not taken place with him. 

Perhaps it's because he has refused to be penned in. In spite of Wallen's diversity, his radio singles often pull from the country trap part of his albums. Perhaps this shows some of the remaining power vested in radio. The medium no longer can create a star out of whole cloth, but it is still an impactful presence in defining an artist to the ears of the audience. Regardless, it's a notable counterexample that is worth thinking about. 

Thanks for reading,

Joe

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