For decades, American country music has been exclusively an American phenomenon. It’s something your mind would go to when you think about cowboy boots, cowboy hats and the state of Tennessee. Until recently, most people in the UK would only be able to count off the amount of country songs they know on one hand, and the majority of them were probably sang by Dolly Parton or early Taylor Swift.
But now, the genre has taken off in Britain in a way no one anticipated it to and is currently the fastest growing genre of music in the UK. Between Zach Bryan being one of only six people ever to sell out Hyde Park two nights in a row and Luke Combs announcing a UK stadium tour that sold out in a matter of minutes, it is clear that the genre has taken the country by storm.
Country music might have only become increasingly popular in the last two years or so, but really the boom began in the mid 2010’s with the arrival of C2C: Country to Country festival. This started as a niche event in the o2 Arena in London but has grown to be wildly popular throughout the country and draws in tens of thousands of fans a year after expanding to both Glasgow and Belfast. This festival has brought some of the world’s biggest country stars to the UK stage, bringing in headliners such as Luke Combs, Carrie Underwood and Kacey Musgraves. The positive reception of this festival since its start in 2013 has shown that there is as much a place for country music in the UK as there is in the southern states of America.
I personally first noticed the country music boom with the release of the movie Twisters in 2024. The film’s soundtrack was made up entirely of original songs from popular country artists, and the album itself created a cultural storm of its own. Featuring songs from country superstars like Luke Combs, Shania Twain and Meghan Moroney, the soundtrack helped to introduce a new wave of listeners, most notably a new wave of international listeners, to the genre. I have also noticed the rise of country music in the UK’s live music scene. For the first time the Grand Ole Opry, a famous Nashville institution, played a show in London for the first time last September, and as previously mentioned, Zach Bryan headlined two massive shows at Hyde Park, and is set to play eight shows across the UK and Ireland this year as part of his “With Heaven On Tour”. The grand scale of these performances reflects the growing demand for country music among British audiences, with fans filling stadiums and festival grounds for artists who, not so long ago, rarely toured outside of the United States. As more American country stars bring their tours overseas, the UK is quickly becoming one of the genres most enthusiastic international markets.
And it’s not just the music that is catching on in the UK, but the whole culture surrounding it. How many of you have worn a cowboy hat or bought a pair of cowboy boots to wear to a concert recently? This is something that would have rarely been seen in the UK music scene a decade ago, and now it is completely normal to head to the o2 in Glasgow and see someone dressed as if they’d just came out of a bar on Broadway in Nashville.
Country music is no longer confined to the American south and has become a far larger part of British culture than people may realise. From sold out stadium shows and the growing presence of Nashville traditions like the Grand Ole Opry overseas, it’s clear that this genre has found a brand new passionate audience across the Atlantic. What was once considered distinctly American is now resonating with millions of fans around the world, proving that this genre can travel far beyond Nashville.
