It’s been a strange few weeks for the face of country music. On November 5, 2014, Kacey Musgraves’ cult single ‘Follow Your Arrow’ won the CMA for Song of the Year, alongside her two openly gay co-writers, Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark. The song celebrates doing whatever makes you happy with a ton of fun, tongue-in-cheek lines that remind us there’s always going to be someone who disagrees with what you’re doing, so you might as well ignore them and do whatever. The chorus begins, “So make lots of noise, kiss lots of boys, or kiss lots of girls if that’s something you’re into”, while the bridge advises, “say what you think, love who you love, ‘cause you just get so many trips round the sun, yeah you only live once.” Despite only reaching #43 on radio, by far Kacey’s lowest bow, the track was recently certified Gold and had a huge impact on fans around the world for its positive LGBT message.
“Do you know what this means for country music?!” Kacey exclaimed when she and her co-writers took the stage to accept the award. It means a lot of things. First, that a traditional-sounding song could still be appreciated by the country community in 2014. Second, that attitudes are changing to a variety of things once considered too controversial for their conservative audience. A key element of that is the acceptance of gay people, something that was reiterated in the nomination of Brandy Clark for New Artist of the Year; she lost out to Brett Eldredge in the end, but she became the first openly gay CMA nominee ever. Perhaps surprising given its 48-year history (and certainly closeted artists have been nominated before, such as Chely Wright), but it just goes to show how this year has been fundamental in the progress of the genre.
Fast forward to November 20, and Ty Herndon revealed to Enertainment Tonight that he was, in fact, gay. He cited ‘Follow Your Arrow’ winning Song of the Year as a major factor in his coming out, and country stars and fans were tripping over each other to congratulate him and celebrate another artist (albeit one no longer charting in the mainstream arena) feeling comfortable enough to be open about their identity and sexuality. Then, just a few hours’ later, Billy Gilman released a video explaining that he too was gay, and that something he had been trying to figure out how to say for weeks was made a lot easier by Ty taking the plunge earlier that day. Like Ty, Billy is successful and well-known, but not currently a big star on radio. The progress made recently is significant but we are still a little way from having someone at the forefront of the commercial genre in 2014 being open about their sexuality. Many believe it is impending.
And yet, just a few months ago the story broke that up-and-coming teen-orientated artist Nate Green was, in fact, gay. The reveal was not of his own admission, with researchers discovering that his real name was Josey Greenwell, and in 2011 he had performed under that name as an openly gay country artist, releasing music and doing interviews explaining how difficult it was to break through in Nashville when public about his sexuality. Three years later, and it seemed he had jumped back in the closet in order to achieve fame and success; he was being marketed as a heart-throb to young girls and was singing romantic country/pop tunes.
When I heard the news, I assumed that Nate (or Josey) would be forced to give up the act and that a conversation would begin about homophobia in the format. But his camp never commented on the reveal, and just recently (even after ‘Follow Your Arrow’, Ty Herndon and Billy Gilman making strides) his team announced the January release of his new EP ‘Road Map’, with no mention of his real identity and all of the same imagery and marketing as before. Even though a lot of people now knew the truth, they were continuing under this charade clearly convinced that to admit his sexuality now would be damaging. Maybe it would. But as a proudly gay man, how can you bear to go back in the closet, lie about yourself and fool your fans, be someone you’re not and actually hurt the plight for LGBT visibility in the country community, when that was something you suffered from just a couple of years before? How can you look yourself in the mirror and know that what you’re doing is hurting yourself and others, even if it seems “right”, in order to get somewhere?
There have been so many good things to report about the representation of gay people in country music of late. It finally feels like a shift is beginning to occur and that increased acceptance is just around the corner, but when even relatively-unknown acts like Nate Green completely reject openness in favor of playing to convention, what hope is there for anyone else? Who is going to be brave enough to challenge the norm and potentially risk their career in order to be honest with themselves and their fans, to help the cause of visibility, to make a much-needed change? I have hope that 2015 will bring more coming out stories, but until artists like Nate Green stop pretending, we will always be held back from what we can truly achieve.
