It's also OK, however, to challenge country music, and particularly the white male decision-makers who lord over country radio, to do more to open the genre, to be louder and be more inclusive. Only covering country music when there's a "resist" narrative, or a subversive singer or a false "first" isn’t productive to the community that now includes Lil Nas X and beyond - it makes it look like country music is more closed off than it should be, so why bother even trying to fit in? And that mindset continues to squeeze out queer voices by discounting those who have worked tirelessly in the past, against extremely difficult odds. And as long as country radio keeps it up, country's white, straight men will continue to dominate most of the energy, from festival stages to award shows. But the painting of country radio as regressive and exclusionary? Right on target.
Painting the genre as some sort of regressive, backwoods place where there simply could not have been any queer people let in before Lil Nas X is antithetical to the progress that has been made, and the incredible country voices that exist everywhere from rural Appalachia to deep in Canada ( is a great place to find out about those). On this week's Billboard Country Airplay chart, you'll find one solo female artist in the top 20: Miranda Lambert, an absolute superstar of the genre who probably won't even make it to number one. You won't hear Musgraves, Price, Simpson, many women in general, or queer voices, and you certainly will not hear Lil Nas X. But corporate country radio, with very little exception, is.