Album Review – Megan Moroney’s “Am I Okay?”

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#530.2 (Country Pop) on the Country DDS

There may be no greater sign of the transformational momentum moving country towards more roots and twang than the music of Megan Moroney. There are certainly more traditional-sounding artists out there, even in the mainstream. There are certainly better songwriters and singers as well. But it’s the fact that Moroney is a platinum blonde fashion plate ripe for country pop stardom who’s putting steel guitar on her radio singles that makes her so interesting, and important.

Seeing the photos of Moroney and then hearing the music, it really takes a novel recalibration of your country music brain to understand what is happening. All signs point to her being the second coming of Taylor Swift, but your ears pick up on all the country sounds and the bursts of sincerity, and you’re not sure where to slot her. That’s because Megan Moroney is making her own path. She is traditional country and pop country all at the same time.

It isn’t just the country instrumentation that can come unexpectedly wafting into some of these songs, or even when roots instrumentation constitutes the entirety of the arrangement on certain tracks. On Megan Moroney’s new album Am I Okay?, it is the almost unprecedented depths of depressing material she unleashes on her audience amid deep explorations of heartbreak that makes it so striking, bold—and for someone from the mainstream—relatively exceptional.

You certainly hear the Taylor Swift influence in some of these songs—something Moroney freely fesses up to. “Noah” is the classic Swift approach to songwriting, drawing directly from a former love interest for inspiration, while the muted banjo and melody remind you distinctly of Taylor’s “country” era. Many of these songs ruminate on young adult experiences, which only makes sense from a 26-year-old like Megan. The single “No Caller ID” also has a Swift-like melody, and the obsession with the phone as a portal into the world is distinctly Gen Z.

You can’t go into Am I Okay? expecting to hear the second coming of Jean Shepard. The songs “Miss Universe” and “Man on the Moon” are pretty uneventful. But even when you have a bouncy and fun song like “The Girls,” it’s almost jarring, but in a good way when you hear a line like “When we drеss up, yeah, we sure draw a crowd, but we can throw down cabernet on the couch…” that is sent home by a crying steel guitar heavy in the mix.


Certain selections on Am I Okay? go so hard at scoring an emotional response, it almost stuns you. The opening song is about the excitement someone feels at the start of a relationship. For much of the rest of the album, it’s about that relationship unraveling. Putting out the piano ballad “28th of June” as one of the lead singles from the album shows the kind of commitment Moroney has to this involved emotional exploration. It is a purposeful and ambitious approach to her music.

“Heaven By Noon” is about Megan Moroney’s uncle who died on 9/11 at the World Trade Center, written from her aunt’s perspective. It’s hard to fathom tackling heavier material than this, and Moroney does so with grace. It’s one of those songs that is excruciatingly hard to listen to, but you’re glad you did.

The album ends with an acoustic song solely written by Moroney called “Hell of a Show,” which speaks to how even when we find success in our careers, it feels hollow if our personal life isn’t aligned right. Like multiple songs on Am I Okay?, Moroney is able to put the audience into the unsettled mindset when you know a relationship isn’t working, but don’t have the mental stamina to walk away just yet. It’s not always the aftermath of a relationship, but those in-between moments of passionless anxiousness, anger and frustration that feel like they eat away at your soul.

Whether it’s purposeful or inadvertent, Megan Moroney is tackling the difficult task of making country music cool to pop fans. This also means she runs the risk of being neither fish nor foul to find favor with an established country music constituency. Am I Okay? is still distinctly country pop with all the trappings thereof. But you also can’t discount the depth and roots of this effort. It’s music you may not listen to, but you’re proud if your daughter does.

It’s hard to know where to put Megan Moroney. But it’s one of the hottest things in country music, and that feels like a victory.

7.2/10

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