Kacey Musgraves, Kelsea Ballerini, and More Have Had Enough of Country Radio’s Sexist Nonsense

They’ve got a real problem with playing women artists, and now the women are fighting back.
Kacey Musgraves, Kelsea Ballerini, and More Have Had Enough of Country Radio’s Sexist Nonsense

They’ve got a real problem with playing women artists, and now the women are fighting back.

Words: Scott T. Sterling

photo by David Iskra

January 16, 2020

Kacey Musgraves

Anyone familiar with contemporary country music radio knows it’s a serious boy’s club. But the sexism has become so blatant no less that Comedy Central’s Samantha Bee was inspired to investigate, featuring luminaries Tanya Tucker, Brandi Carlile, and Margo Price speaking out on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.

The situation escalated when Variety editor Chris Willman made a joke on social media after a Los Angeles country station played songs by Gabby Barrett and Kelsea Ballerini back-to-back on-air.

The tweet generated a firestorm of comments, some missing the sarcasm of Willman’s tweet. The responses from the women of country music, however, made it clear that radio stations do indeed have a very real problem when it comes to playing their songs.

Among those leading the charge was Ballerini herself, who made a point of screen-grabbing a now-deleted message from Michigan country music radio station, 98 KCQ Country, admitting that they are actually forbidden from playing two women in a row on the airwaves.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7YnjWHFxEg/

Ballerini’s contemporaries have been quick to support her outrage—including Kacey Musgraves, who also shared the deleted message with some added insight of her own: “Smells like white male bullshit and why LONG ago I decided they cannot stop me.” She then followed with another tweet: “And yet, they can play 18 dudes who sound exactly the same back to back. Makes total sense.” Touché. 

“Ask yourself this question: ‘What do you want your daughter to know about herself?'” Brandi Carlile asked on The Samantha Bee Show. “And if you can’t get that from country music, if you can’t get that from country radio, it’s a problem.” Watch the Full Frontal segment below.