Let me say from the start that I have no idea who Maren Morris is. When I saw what she was whining about in country music I didn’t bother to look up any of her music because, honestly, I don’t care. She looks like 90 percent of the women in music in general nowadays – chubby, scrunchy faced, large forehead, cleavage-showing, middle-aged – desperate to appear younger than she is, afraid to just let the music and talent speak for itself (think of every time you’ve seen Madonna in the last decade) – in other words: boring. But also a leftist, because conformity is everything.
I’m old enough to remember when musicians rebelled against conformity, now they demand it. Morris is no different.
There’s nothing wrong with conforming, by the way, if that’s what you like. If everyone wears a rainbow wig and you want to wear a rainbow wig, knock yourself out. But fascism lives in demanding everyone wear a rainbow wig or else.
I’ve always recoiled at doing what I was told I had to do. I don’t care what everyone else is wearing, reflexively dislike most of what is popular, particularly in music because it’s played to death and largely boring and predictable. Give me a clever lyric, something that makes you think about the words in a new way and I’m in. Whine, and I’m out.
It doesn’t matter if the whining is in your songs or your life, I’m not interested. I find it boring. Anyone can complain, anyone can whine about anything. More often than not, if you’re honest with yourself (and most people can’t be), if you look at what you’re whining about you’ll realize you’re not the victim, you are your own perp.
Morris whined about the state of country music and blamed “the Trump years” for what she perceives and her key to victimhood and likely good publicity (and it worked). If she’d talked about how country music sucks now, how it’s a poor man’s version of Dave Matthews or not-so-talented bands playing what they see as “rock” with acoustic guitars, I’d be right there with her.
But she didn’t, she cried like a little baby about politics; left-wing politics, of course. “After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic.”
Anyone who won’t conform is a monster, the first entry in the progressive playbook. These people aren’t bright enough to have a discussion like adults, nor do they have the mental stability either. They are ruled by emotions, which makes them easily manipulated drones. Name one good choice you’ve made in life in an emotional frenzy. I’ll wait.
In talking about the song “Try that in a small town,” Morris said, “People are streaming these songs out of spite. It’s not out of true joy or love of the music. It’s to own the libs. And that’s so not what music is intended for. Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed — the actual oppressed. And now it’s being used as this really toxic weapon in culture wars.”
First off, who the hell is she to say what music is “intended for”? She’s probably dumb and arrogant enough to think she should dictate what music is and what thoughts are allowed to be conveyed through it, but she can run straight to hell. That’s not how the world works, crybaby.
I can’t comment on her songs because I’ve never heard any of them, but I do think “Try that in a small town” is a bad song. It’s musically boring, with lyrics too “on the nose” to be clever or interesting and it uses obvious rhymes, when it bothers to rhyme. It’s just not for me. Do I care that people liked it? Nope. I’ve heard it twice and that’s enough for me. But that’s two too many times for Maren Morris, who doesn’t want the world to hear it at all.
She appears to suffer from white savior complex, viewing herself as one of the few special people who must stand guard and protect those not as enlightened, the Neanderthal mob who’ve made her (I assume) wealthy. Not sure how anyone can view their audience with contempt, but she sure seems to.
Morris views them with so much contempt she’s “leaving country music,” or so the declaration claims. Not sure how someone leaves a music genre, and she doesn’t say how, she just bitches about other, more popular people and themes than she’s able to belch out.
Ultimately, who cares? I assume she’s not going to stop recording. She’s too old to make a splash in a different genre of music and doesn’t appear to have really had any serious hits in country, with only one top ten hit. But she tops the charts in positive publicity.
The LA Times headlined their story, “Maren Morris is getting the hell out of country music: ‘I’ve said everything I can say.’” The Today Show’s headline was, “Maren Morris is stepping away from the country music industry: ‘It’s burning itself down.’” CNN sucked up with, “Maren Morris is putting country music on notice with fiery new EP ‘The Bridge.’” She was written up by every outlet from The Tennessean to People Magazine – publicity generally reserved for musicians with significant success, all because of her political whining.
In that sense, her “principled stand” worked. Which was probably the point of the publicity stunt from the jump. Progressive talking points are a poor substitute for talent, but they work with “news” editors.
Maren Morris is leaving country music, and I’m not sure anyone actually in country music gives a damn that she was ever there to begin with.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.