Throughout many decades of music, there has been a wide variety of artists who have been known to change their music style or genre. For most musicians, they tend to find themselves in one genre, stick to it and somewhat it becomes their personality.
Some of the big names, like Taylor Swift, Lana Del Ray, Miley Cyrus and now Beyoncé have started to switch their styles. Music trends have constantly changed throughout the years and artists have started to break through the trend of sticking to one place, whether that be the genre of music, the producing style or the songwriting.
Beyoncé has always been known as the queen of R&B music. Now as she is starting to experiment more with country music, she is breaking that box she has been put in for years. As she is now starting to move around genres, this isn’t the first time she has done anything country-related before. “Daddy Lessons“ was just the beginning of her Country stardom in 2016 when she released her iconic album, “Lemonade”. “Texas Hold ‘em” is one of Beyoncé’s new country songs that will be featured in her new upcoming album, “Cowboy Carter”. Beyoncé has been around the music game for years and will continue to be, this different creativity style is just showcasing how good she has gotten in her craft.
Taylor Swift and Lana Del Ray are somewhat switching with one another. Taylor Swift began her music journey as a young country singer. In 2014, she made the switch and officially dropped her 5th studio album and first Pop album, 1989. Taylor Swift has continued to become one of the most influential people in songwriting and Pop music since then. Lana Del Ray has started to make the switch from alternative pop or dream pop to country music. Lana mentioned in her upcoming tenth studio album, “Lasso,” that the album will be more country-like and stated, “The music business is going country; we’re going country,” following a trend found in the music industry recently.
Miley Cyrus started out being known as the Disney Channel star from Hannah Montana, which was seen as her personality from 2006 to 2011. During her time as a Disney star, she released music that was more of a Pop Rock and clean for her audience at the time. “7 Things” had more of an Avril Lavigne style to it. In 2012, Miley Cyrus broke the internet with “Wrecking Ball,”and was seen as a “kid actor that’s gone insane,” comparing her to Lady Gaga who also had a weird reputation back in the early 2000’s to 2010’s. As of recently, Miley Cyrus has found her way back into the main spotlight again as she won two Grammy awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Record of the Year for her hit, “Flowers,” which was somewhat of a spin-off of Bruno Mars, “When I Was Your Man.” Another reason this could’ve been a hit was more of a nostalgic feeling as well, I remember as a kid listening to this song. Listening to Miley Cyrus overall can recreate such a nostalgic feeling based on her presence from Disney, so double whammy, in a good way.
With music constantly changing and new trends forming every day, it is bound to happen in the music industry as well. The music industry has seen a major change in the last decade, especially during the major challenge with COVID-19, but it will continue to adapt. Music breaks the barrier between people and gets people and musicians to connect with one another. I believe that a switch from genre to genre can’t do any harm to such influential people, they hold so much power within their own industry that a simple switch can’t do much damage that most fans or outsiders might believe.
Why country though? When did the world decide on making the country genre the new hit trend when it comes to music? After Lil Nas X becoming such a hit on TikTok with “Old Town Road,” many people have started to follow in that direction, even though it’s been years and it wasn’t even that good. I can somewhat understand the fluidity of switching genres but let’s have more variety instead of following in the footsteps of one another, that’s when the originality and creativity is lacking.
People and music can’t stay stagnant for too long, then it just becomes too boring. With so many musicians making the switch from country to pop or pop to country, there is only a matter of time before there are more artists who start to follow that pathway. Let’s hope the next genre artists switch to can be a little more fun, what about some funk?
