Earlier this month, Cambridge Dictionaries Online dubbed "bro-country" an official word:
"Bro-country, noun: a sub-genre of country music sung by young white men, featuring songs with macho themes such as trucks, drinking, and partying."
New York Magazine's Jody Rosen originally coined the term in 2013, and he defined it slightly differently. "Bro country," Rosen wrote, is "music by and of the tatted, gym-toned, party-hearty young American white dude." He invented the term to describe Florida Georgia Line's hick-hop-tinged bro-single "Cruise," which at the time was breaking the record for the most weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart (where it ultimately stayed for 24 weeks). Since then, the pejorative term has exploded in popular culture. Between the two definitions, Rosen's is better — its emphasis falls on the personality of the white dude-bro making the music rather than what the white dude-bros sing about. It's an important distinction, because bro country's flagship titans (Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan and, of course, Jason Aldean, who returns to Bridgestone Arena on Saturday) sing about trucks, drinking and partying ad nauseum. But at the same time, it's become painfully clear that these bros couldn't care less about what they're singing. What they do care about is how they're singing and how tight their tracks sound. That's what makes them bros: They flip the traditional approach to the country song on its head, preferring style over substance.
Aldean may be only bro in the pack who began his career as a non-bro, making him a good window into the genesis of country bro-ness. Aldean's first single, the 2005 Top 10 hit "Hicktown," humorously describes how residents of a place called Hicktown get down. In Hicktown "you can see the neighbor's butt crack nailing on his shingles."
If "Hicktown" had come out 10 years later, it would have fit squarely into Cambridge Online's definition of bro country. Watching the song's video in 2015, it's easy to wonder if the song might actually have been the birth of bro country — the clip features a fleet of jacked-up pickup trucks, a swarm of minidressed women and a crowd of people partying in a field. That's not to mention the song's active-rock production, which is chock-full of cranked-up, post-grunge power-chord riffs, a sound that was all the rage in the Nickelback era.
"Hicktown" reached No. 10 on the Hot Country chart, paving the way for Aldean's more traditional-sounding second single "Why," which went to No. 1, and his third, "Amarillo Sky," which reached No. 4. Both songs fit seamlessly into the mold of what was on country radio circa 2005-2006 — tunes with clean middle-of-the-road production and meaningful lyrics. In fact, with the exception of Aldean's amped-up, dumbed-down, strip-club anthem in the making "She's Country" in late 2008, the bro-country flag-bearer-to-be continued releasing singles that played to traditional country norms. While, in hindsight, "Hicktown" and "She's Country" showed Aldean's bro-tential, for five years he was an artist who clearly, for the most part, valued substance over style.
That changed in 2010 with the release of "My Kinda Party," from Aldean's fourth album of the same name. By Cambridge standards "Party" is a bro-country jam through and through, and so, by its measurement, it's fair to say this is when Jason Aldean joined the bro-ternity. The song (originally written and recorded by his bro-ness Brantley Gilbert) is sung from the perspective of a guy telling a chick about how he's gonna chill at a party this weekend. The chorus includes jacked-up tailgates, a "really tall cold drink" and partying. So all the lyrical elements of bro country are present. But what's also present is a jacked-up, rock-heavy production competing with a messy, wordy lyric Aldean spits out with emphasis on rhythm and attitude rather than on conveying anything meaningful. In a few years, the lyric would be practically interchangeable with any other bro-country song, and most Aldean songs for that matter.
The same is true for the record's third single, "Dirt Road Anthem" (another Brantley Gilbert joint). The lyric is about a guy who's chillin' and reminiscin' on a dirt road, drinking a beer and listenin' to George Jones, while the song has a more distinguishable Staind influence than Possum influence. But again, that's not what the song is really about. It's about Jason Aldean's rapping, and the laid-back feel of the chorus. To their credit, while bros have set lyric-writing back many years, they've pushed style forward. The past few years have seen an unprecedented influx of hip-hop and rock in country music. There are electronic drums and flares of R&B and even reggae. That's what the bros care most about.
If you still need convincing, consider finally the lyrical sameness of Jason Aldean's more recent hit "Burnin' It Down" and Florida Georgia Line's current single "Sun Daze." Released last year within three months of each other, the songs are practically identical. Both feature narrators who just wanna have a low-key party for two at home; speak to a flirtatious lover; are adamant about just chillin'; are listening to specific music (FGL is listening to Haggard, Jagger and Marley, while Aldean prefers "some old Alabama"); and, lastly, are drinking Jack. Coincidence? Not when you know that both tunes were penned in part by FGL bros Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley. So they must have known full well that they were putting out two things so lyrically similar at the same time. They just didn't care. Which is what makes a bro a bro, bro. It's not the content of the lyric, but the disregard for the lyric. It's about how chill ya sound when you sing it.
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