Marissa R. Moss

You wouldn't necessarily know it if you listen to country music radio stations today when three out of four songs are male singers belting out homages to dirt roads, pickup trucks and girls in tank tops, but not so long ago there was a golden era of success for female artists in the genre. The late 1990s and early 2000s saw an explosion of high-charting singles by women like Shania Twain, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Martina McBride, and of course The Dixie Chicks. But it didn't last, and show more journalist Moss lays out a case for why that starts with brute capitalism and ends with our old friend sexism with the obligatory soupçon of racism.

The consolidation of radio stations around the country under the umbrella of just a couple of big corporations — primarily Clear Channel Communications — meant that instead of local deejays at each station choosing music that most appealed to them and their listeners, programming was centralized. And the use of computer algorithms to construct those playlists made things worse. A programming operations manual spelled it out clearly:

I don't want more than two ballads in a row. I want to avoid having more than two female singers in a row.

When you limit the number of tracks by women in any given hour to just a handful, that leaves a lot of talented artists fighting for just a few seats at the table, and it means especially that women of color are largely left standing out in the hall, not even in the room.

The sexism aspect was best illustrated in 2015 by a deejay who said that women were the "tomato" in the country radio salad, while the biggest male stars were the "lettuce." It's a bad sign when an industry is so sure of its monopoly that it no longer has to hide how the sausage gets made.

The answer, so far, has been for female artists to stop trying to appeal to the chauvinists in the country-music establishment and especially the all-powerful country radio wing (where they were expected to endure men ogling them and making crude remarks about their physical attributes, and occasionally looking for other "favors") and to appeal directly to audiences through Spotify and other streaming services as well as live shows. Moss gives readers a look at how some of the biggest names today (Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris, Miranda Lambert, Mickey Guyton) have found success by refusing to compromise their artistic visions to placate an industry that wouldn't want them even if they followed all the rules.

This is an engaging read, very breezy in style, and I would have finished it much more quickly if I hadn't kept stopping to open up Apple Music and search for tracks by women artists that I wasn't familiar with. I'm not going to lie: While I found a lot I like, others of these women make music that doesn't particularly appeal to me, for all I admire their ability to create their own success. But that's sort of the point: When you make room for more women, you make room for music that doesn't all sound alike and doesn't cater to the same narrow band of listeners.

The biggest critique I have is that this book really could have used an index. Moss tells the story of the artists she features in roughly chronological order, but that means any one person's story is scattered across the whole book. It would have been useful to have a way to hone in on a particular artist or song or event without having the skim the whole book.

For me, as a fan of country music who has no interest in modern country radio, the lesson was to stop thinking of radio or chart success as the harbinger of quality. There's lots of great music getting made out there, and pretty much all of it can be found on streaming services. And when you listen that way, you don't have to put up with constant advertising interruptions or inane deejays breaking the spell. show less

I read Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be by Marissa R. Moss. I don't follow music but I had heard of the Dixie Chicks and how they were treated. It seems, for some bizarre reason, country music stations didn't want to play female artists. Their explanation was that country music is like a salad - they need lots of lettuce, which is the male artists, and just a sprinkling of tomatoes - the female artists. They especially wanted their show more female artists to be compliant and feminine, which did not exactly cover the Dixie Chicks. Aside from their political comments about Bush, country radio found them over all to be too rebellious. You can imagine how the straight, white men reacted to "Good Bye Earl." I'd never heard this happy song about killing an abusive husband, so I'm glad the book directed me to it. It also directed me to country women who won Grammys, and even then radio didn't want to play them because they were queer or of color or just outspoken. So I've been able to listen to people I'd never heard of before that the rest of the wold has - Brandy, Mickey Guyton, Maren Morris, Amanda Shires, Natalie Hemby. I don't know if those in charge of country radio have wised up by now, but I think all the kerfuffle about Beyonce going country reflects the same old attitude. show less

It should be no secret that women have more challenges to overcome in the entertainment industry, most of them unfair ones, set into motion by a system predominantly run by - and elevating - men.

Country music is a more challenging industry than most for women, with its conservative take on the role of women in society and in the realm of entertainment.

And so, it's been refreshing to see the emergence of a number of female artists over the past few years who fill arenas, win Grammys, and show more garner critical praise, despite receiving little-to-no radio play.

The stories shared by the women featured in this book - Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris, and Mickey Guyton, in particular - are troubling. It's the kind of thing you wouldn't imagine still happens in the 21st century...unless you're a woman in America, and can perhaps see all too easily how it happens. Creepy radio reps hitting on artists while on air, being told "we already have a woman on the label" by record execs, and of course, being asked to change lyrics to appease the conservative country audience, when male artists are free to express themselves however they see fit.

It's an infuriating and inspiring read, but I left the book feeling like women are winning, though they are - as they often have had to do - taking a different path, a road less traveled - to find their audiences, workaround the lack of radio support, and form an alliance where they lift each other up in the face of an industry that tells them, "we can only have so many women, so you gals fight it out."

In a business that sees women as the "tomato on the salad" (TomatoGate was an actual scandal in country music a few years back), it's time for them to be centered as the main entree. They've got something to say, and people DO want to hear what they have to offer. Thanks to Marissa Moss for giving them yet one more voice and opportunity for connection. I'm now committed to listen to and share the music of Allison Russell, Amanda Shires, Amythyst Kiah, Brandi Carlisle, Chapel Hart, Kacey Musgraves, Lilly Hiatt, Maggie Rogers, Maren Morris, Margo Price, Mickey Guyton, Miko Marks, Rhiannon Giddens, Rissi Palmer, Valerie June, Waxahatchee, Yola, and others. show less

Her Country by Marissa R Moss is an engaging read that will satisfy readers ranging from fans of country music to those interested in women's studies and systemic sexism. The writing is very good and even the parts that most clearly illustrate the good ol' boys club stops short of being preachy and is more about the strength of these women who are, whether they want to or not, battling it and paving the way for those who will come after.

I do not listen to country music as my preferred genre, show more though the country music I like I tend to really like. So while I was looking forward to the music industry anecdotes that wasn't the main reason I came to the book. I was interested in an inside look at exactly how the industry exercises its own type of sexism, heterosexism, and racism. Not because I thought the country music industry was unusual in these things but each industry and field seems to have their own of making these things seem like they are right and rational.

For the most part the stories of these performers is told in such a way that anyone simply wanting to read about them won't be disappointed. The obstacles they faced (and still face) and the things they did to circumvent them makes for an intriguing narrative. If you didn't know very much of this backstory you no doubt had a lot of respect for their music. This will shed new light on just how phenomenal these women are as human beings as well as artists.

Highly recommended for fans of country as well as anyone with an interest in the obstacles that face women in not only country music but pretty much every industry.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less