Joe Sterling ’26 sits behind the wheel with Barron Linnekens ’26 riding shotgun as they begin their two-hour journey toward Indio, California, to attend the Stagecoach Country Music Festival. On Interstate 10, they sit back and relax while “Dancing in the Country” by Tyler Hubbard comes on. The drive continues with a steady stream of country music, a genre the pair recently got into. Linnekens said he began listening to country music because of his Spotify algorithm.
“I only started listening to [country music] about a year ago,” Linnekens said. “Songs came onto my Spotify and I liked the rhythm. I got into certain tracks, and then the Spotify algorithm realized that I liked country music and kept recommending new artists to me.”
Country music is one of the fastest-growing genres of music, accounting for 8.4% of the total volume of U.S. music streaming, according to entertainment data company Luminate.
Math Teacher Adam Varney said he believes the rise in popularity of country music is a product of younger generations wanting a genre that resonates with them.
“They want their own unique music to separate them from previous generations,” Varney said. “These kinds of things move in cycles. I assume in the next 20 years, country music will take another decline because the next generations will want a different, unique sound.”
Linnekens said he thinks country music has become more popular because of its more recent appeal to pop and folk listeners.
“There are two [branches]of country music. [There’s] a guy playing guitar on his tractor and a more poppish, modern country,” Linnekens said. “The newer audience of country music usually gravitates towards the pop and folk sides of country music rather than the traditional style.”
Varney said that over the past decade, country music has increasingly blended with other genres, introducing new artists as ways to begin listening to the genre.
“From 2010 to 2020, country music was trying to be more like pop, the same way pop was trying to be like country,” Varney said. “There have been many genre crossovers like Post Malone, Beyoncé and Diplo. Diplo had his honky-tonk event at Stagecoach.”
Dennett Stibel ’25 said she believes listeners should broaden their music choices by listening to artists whose work is associated with multiple genres.
“It’s important to expand your view and try new artists, especially some of the gateway artists like Noah Kahan, because he has a lot of pop and folk influence,” Stibel said. “The country world has always been very vast and broad, but the main thing is that people are expanding their music choices.”
Stibel said she enjoys country music because it feels more relatable to her experiences.
“There are a lot of songs that relate to a more personal experience and share anecdotes of life,” Stibel said. “Country music does a great job sharing day-to-day human experiences rather than one big event. It is more about the subtle things, and that’s nice because it’s relatable.”
Stagecoach is an annual country music festival held in Indio, California, featuring around 60 artist performances. The festival sold out of tickets this year, underscoring the demand and popularity of the event, according to Palm Springs newspaper The Desert Sun.
Stibel said she chose to go to Stagecoach as a way of bonding with her family.
“Country music has always been a big part of my family’s life, and it’s something that’s really special to us,” Stibel said. “A lot of my family members went [to Stagecoach] this year.”
Addison Carson ’25 said she wanted to attend Stagecoach because of the impressive selection of performers and her past experiences at the artists’ concerts.
“I saw the lineup and it was really good,” Carson said. “I saw Zach Bryan in a concert last year and it was amazing, so I wanted to see him again. I had never been to a festival like it, so I wanted to see what it would be like.”
Stibel said Stagecoach is more about experiencing the festival, whereas Coachella is more of a social event.
“It is a lot more about the music compared to Coachella, where it’s more about taking pictures and being with friends,” Stibel said. “Stagecoach is more about being there for the artist, living in the moment and enjoying the music. There was a lot less recording and a lot more watching.”
Politicians have long utilized country artists such as Johnny Cash to promote their campaign, according to the academic journal Dædalus. In fact, George Wallace, the longest-serving governor of Alabama, used country music to appeal to the working-class during his campaigns. Sterling said despite the controversy surrounding the political implications of country music, the genre has become less political in recent years.
“I think people are trying to turn it into something that it’s not,” Sterling said. “There are some older songs that are maybe more controversial, but I think a lot of the newer artists are trying to get away from the controversy. The newer artists are still rooted in southern culture but are trying to make it more neutral and less political.”
Stibel said country music can be associated with the Republican party because of its southern origins, but that it is important to separate the music from the political stereotypes.
“Some people might see the country genre as music for a certain political party because it’s centered in the south, which can have political leanings,” Stibel said. “I don’t think those stereotypes are true at all, and it’s important to separate [politics from art]. Many people who are left-leaning enjoy listening to country music, and it has nothing to do with politics for us.”
Linnekens said that liking country music has now become less politically charged because of the decline in stereotypes associated with the genre.
“I think if you asked somebody five to ten years ago if they liked country music and they said ‘yes,’ you had a negative opinion of who they are as a person and even what they may believe,” Linnekens said. “Now, I would say that the reactions to people listening to country music are less about who somebody is as a person and what they might believe, and more so something they get made fun of a little bit for.”
