Supplied photo Peoria singer Courtney Swan, who performs with the Spring Creek Station band and local theater, prefers “more wholesome” country music to the trendy “bro country.” Artists from Miranda Lambert to Maddie & Tae seem to agree — although radio listeners aren’t complaining.

Counting on Miranda Lambert’s Feb. 21 concert at the Civic Center Arena to feature some version of “Somethin’ Bad,” her hit duet with Carrie Underwood, is like hoping for comic Rodney Carrington to stroll over from his performance in the Civic Center Theater that night.
Who knows?
But you can bet that many women in the audience will know and love Lambert/Underwood’s “girl power” answer to “bro country” clichés, which have dominated Country records and radio for years.
“I find it a little upsetting,” says Courtney Swan, a vocalist with the six-piece Spring Creek Station band. “A lot of it’s very degrading. I guess I’m more into more wholesome stuff when it comes to lyrics.”
New York Magazine’s Jody Rosen created the term “bro country” in 2013, when he defined it as “music by and of the tatted, gym-toned, party-hearty young American white dude.” Since then, it’s come to mean lyrics objectifying women and featuring trucks and tailgating, blue jeans and drinking, a clear horizon beyond a dirt road and other Country & Western formulas.
Some say its time is passing, like “urban cowboy” or the mullet.
“It caters to a different audience, I guess, a different dynamic,” says Swan, whose Country schedule is slow until the group’s festival and local-club season picks up in the spring. “It appeals to some people.
“I enjoy older music, Country, but I have pretty eclectic tastes,” continues Swan, who’s also active with other music and involved with Corn Stock, Eastlight and Peoria Players stage shows. “In Country, I love Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette.”
But Chris Michaels, program director at WXCL-FM 104.9/ The Wolf, Peoria’s top radio station, with a Country format, said bro country is popular, and it’s difficult to mix it with classic Country.
“It’s similar to the oldies format,” he says. “The majority of oldies listeners that like the ’50s and early ’60s music don’t care for the late ’60s or early ’70s music. The types of music are just so different and it’s the same with Country music. If you loved Conway Twitty or Loretta Lynn, chances of you wanting to hear Luke Bryan or Carrie Underwood mixed in are slim. There have been some radio stations trying to mix the two, but not with much success.”
Swan and Spring Creek Station have had some success mixing the music, blending cover songs and original material, she says.
“I write some original songs – I always have – and it’s Country and Gospel both,” she says. “And the band does a broad variety, too, flavored with bluegrass or rock even. We take the music and make it our own. We mix it up, we have fun with it.”
Some of the musical pushback in reaction to bro country has fun as well. The tune “Girl in a Country Song” by Maddie Marlow and Tae Dye targets bro country with lyrics like these:
I hear you over there on your tailgate whistlin’,
Sayin’, “Hey girl.” (“Hey, girl.”)
But you know I ain’t listenin’
‘Cause I got a name
And to you it ain’t “pretty little thing”, “hottie” or “baby.”
Yeah, it’s drivin’ me red-red-red-red-red-red-redneck crazy
Lambert and Underwood’s “Somethin’ Bad” is less a criticism of bro country than two women’s version of “sisterhood is powerful at the party, too”:
Stand on the bar, stomp your feet, start clapping.
Got a real good feeling something bad about to happen.
Drinks keep coming, throw my head back laughing.
Wake up in the morning – don’t know what happened
Lambert has said she likes to lift up women any way she can, and women are gaining ground in Country music, saying, “We’ve all got to stick together.”

Swan is optimistic.
“I think more realistic words and music could be making a comeback,” she says. “Now it seems like most Country is very produced, Auto-Tuned, mass-produced and artificial. It has to be perfectly precise.”
At The Wolf, Michaels doesn’t exactly defend bro country, but points out that music of all genres has many aspects to appreciate.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a boys-will-be-boys type of attitude of acceptance,” he says. “It’s just there are so many different parts to judge a song on. There are songs you hear every day that lyrically are not the strongest, but musically and vocally hit the nail on the head.”
For Courtney, female Country artists should respond.
“We need to come back strong, like Faith Hill, Martina McBride and a bunch of women were,” she says.
She’s doing her part beyond a Peoria club scene she sees as “hit and miss” and working with local theater. She’s auditioned for TV’s “American Idol” and “The Voice,” making it into the fourth round of the 10-round regional competitions.
“So far, it’s been, ‘You’re too short,’ or ‘we’re looking for someone 16 or 17 years old,” she says, laughing. “That’s all right. You got to keep going.”