Lee Brice’s New Song “Country Nowadays” (A Rant)
Sure, I watched the Bad Bunny Super Bowl Halftime performance. Now I’m GAY!
I also immediately wanted hordes of illegal immigrants to flood over the American border bearing the flags of their respective countries, and armadas of refugee boats to crash onto our shores to unload throngs of unwashed masses to immediately receive health benefits and voting rights, transforming the United States of America into a Hispanic socialist utopia, subjugating all White people under an oppressive totalitarian thumb, and banishing them to gulags for re-education.
But luckily there was an antidote to the grand psychosis I’d succumb to. Just one spin of Lee Brice’s new song “Country Nowadays” and it slobberknocked the gay right out of me. And like the mighty caw of a bald eagle echoing through a canyon as it flies over rocky, snow-capped peaks with an American flag superimposed across its face, “Country Nowadays” resonated throughout every crevice of my cranium and red-blooded American heart, setting my perspective straight. Lee Greenwood, eat your heart out.
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Hey thanks Lee Brice for making all of country music, and all country music fans look like regressive cousin f-ckers, you horse’s ass. And an a pox on your house for attempting to revive the absolute most terrible excesses and sins of the Bro-Country era with your egregiously bad listing off of American country iconography, groveling to the very lowest level of low-brow denominators.
Nobody’s trying to tell you that you can’t mow your damn lawn or wear boots, or go fishing or whatever the hell else you say in this stupid song—you middle-aged, dork-ass, washed-up third-tier country entertainer hoping to springboard yourself back to relevancy by angling for “cancellation.” I thought victim casting was the domain of the left? You’re really trying to tell me you’re having a tough time of it, Lee Brice? Why, because you defaulted on your yacht loan because you haven’t had a hit in six years? Quit being such a pussy.
Listen folks, don’t be coerced into thinking you must defend this song just because it lands on your side of the stupid culture war. I’d rather country music succumb to AI slop than this panty-waist, fear-mongering, obsequious and slavish pandering to a constituency, slobbering over low-hanging culture war issues like it’s a vein-popping male appendage.
And yes, the folks that have tried to sell us on the idea that gender is a social construct who’ve all of a sudden become more anti-Darwin than the creationists, they need to step back. How about we let kids grow up and go through the growing pains and exploration we all did before making life-altering health decisions when they’re still adolescents?
But even that issue is resetting back to a more reasonable equilibrium. “Country Nowadays” feels like it was written in 2020 or something, and for smart reasons, was left on the shelf. At least the Aaron Lewis and Oliver Anthony songs were timely. This just feels abruptly outdated.
Hey, it’s your dude who’s in power now, Lee Brice. It’s a country song that’s #1 in all of music at the moment. So why are you bitching? And as we all lob grenades at each other over stupid songs like this one, it’s the elites from both parties robbing the treasury and immiserating us all. Now that would make a good premise for a country song.
“But Trig, this isn’t even a really song yet! There’s not a studio version of it!” For the love of God, let’s please keep it that way. Don’t let this bun out of the oven. Even right wingers can advocate for this being one creation not worth bringing to term. Because if they had any sense, they’d realize this song portrays them in the most negative of negative light.
Wait, what? The studio version comes out Feb. 19th? Well screw me.
This is the kind of refuse you get when you politicize country music. Either it’s screechy Maren Morris garbage that makes you want to scrape your eyeballs out, or this crap.
“Country Nowadays” does NOT represent actual country music these days at all. It represents one man’s over-ripened perspective as he overextends himself by feverishly grasping for attention for his dying career, inadvertently working to pull the entirety of the country genre down with him.
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February 16, 2026 @ 11:54 am
I think you need to give it another listen; It didn’t seem to knock the fa-got out of ypu.
February 16, 2026 @ 3:11 pm
wait, you got that guy confused with guy who runs this site….
you know “feverishly grasping his ego” while censoring those who point it out
He is CornHoleous
February 16, 2026 @ 3:23 pm
Who’s being censored here? Kevin got the first comment in the comments section, and it was critical of me.
February 16, 2026 @ 11:59 am
I’m not going to defend this guy or his song, because why? But I will say that there is some country music that has a political bent that isn’t horrible. The Pill, D-I-V-O-R-C-E, Ira Hayes, pretty much everything Steve Earle ever wrote. Maybe it’s not the having an opinion, maybe it’s just that this guy and Maren Morris suck.
February 16, 2026 @ 1:45 pm
The Pill and D-I-V-O-R-C-E were about social issues, not politics.
February 16, 2026 @ 1:55 pm
Come on lol
February 16, 2026 @ 2:14 pm
What are your panties in a bunch about today?
February 16, 2026 @ 3:18 pm
“Strait” (el senor personality cult zombie)…. he say
“Why you panties good?”
Anda, culero…calmete
February 16, 2026 @ 2:18 pm
The majority of this song is also about social issues if that is the way you want to try and cut the cake.
It’s basically complaining about trans kids, flag burning (apparently ol’ Lee doesn’t like the 1st amendment), gun control attempts, and cancel culture.
Was “Mama Bake a Pie/Daddy Kill a Chicken” political? Or was it a social statement about vets coming back from Vietnam maimed? Was “I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew” which includes a verse directly calling out economic inequality a social song or a political one?
The best songs that broach this subject matter tend to walk the line and leave it up to the listener – sadly Lee Brice and his co-writers decided “ChatGPT, what are some things that piss off conservatives” and decides to wrist a listical of just that.
February 16, 2026 @ 12:00 pm
He really has a good voice; the lyrics almost don’t stand out.
February 16, 2026 @ 12:09 pm
He can be very good with the right material (“Rumor,” which was a hit, and “Cry,” which stiffed), but takes the lazy way out most of the time. I guess he’s been in the business too long to change his ways, even with his lack of recent success.
February 16, 2026 @ 1:28 pm
Doesn’t that sum up like 90% of male radio artists though?
There is nothing unique about Lee Brice. If you swapped Lee Brice for Russell Dickerson or Justin Moore nobody would really notice.
I think this is one of the sad realities of modern “mainstream” country music for over a decade now. There are very, very few “middle class” careers anymore. When the music industry was healthier, you had guys (and gals) who could make a solid career out of just churning out mid-chart hits and maybe they would hit on a top 5 single every few years.
Now the charts have gotten so compressed that unless you are constantly churning out top 5 songs you fade into “male country artist without a ton of talent, but a few #1’s a half-decade ago irrelevance.
February 16, 2026 @ 12:05 pm
Lee Brice is the only country singer I have any personal connection to (my wife knew him growing up) and I would like to defend him but he’s making it tough these days
February 16, 2026 @ 12:37 pm
My wife worked with Dennis Rader for three months back in 2003, in Park City, Wichita. I’m not going to defend him. He was a jerk, according to her (and virtually everyone who ever crossed his path).
February 16, 2026 @ 12:55 pm
This is hilarious. I wish Mindhunter had gone on longer so they could have continued showing how pathetic this guy was.
February 16, 2026 @ 12:09 pm
You nailed it. Possibly the worst song of the decade. It had to be AI right? Nobody would actually put their name on this record as a songwriter.
February 16, 2026 @ 12:23 pm
I watched Pat finnerty (what makes this song stink on YouTube ) do a reaction live stream to the tpusa thing and that was pretty hilarious. I think that was maybe the first time I’ve seen modern country idiots like this and several years. “I just wanna kish my feesh”.
I can’t wait for the exaggerated accent trend to eventually get shamed out of existence. If you listen to how 90s country acts sang versus everybody in country today, it starts to look like a parody of itself. Independent artists are no exception.
February 16, 2026 @ 12:25 pm
Written by Brice, Matt Alderman and Matt Kenyon. Alderman has co-written with Mitchell Tenpenny, Dylan Scott and Nate Smith. Kenyon has contributed to songs by LoCash and Chris Young (the current, bro version of Young). Given those “credentials,” this song might be the best either of these men can produce. Ugh. Double ugh.
February 16, 2026 @ 12:28 pm
Agree with this rant, especially how songs like this make country and its fans seem like we live down to the very worst stereotypes some people have of us. I’m registered as independent, detach from culture wars as much as humanly possible, and this current political hellscape can’t possibly end soon enough for me. As always with this type of “statement” song, not one mind will be changed and not one productive conversation about our differences will take place- it’s just more inflammatory BS that highlights and exacerbates our divisions. In other words, it’s exactly what we don’t need.
Also, why is Pace’s face so alarmingly beat read in that picture? Is it the endless supply of rage that fuels the entire MAGA movement, alcohol or drugs, or some sort of medical condition? A warning sign for all of us – anger, even when it’s just performative BS, ain’t good for the soul, the body, or for the quality of our music!
February 16, 2026 @ 1:21 pm
“Is it the endless supply of rage that fuels the entire MAGA movement, …
: D No, it is the endless supply of rage that fuels the entire liberal movement.
February 16, 2026 @ 1:52 pm
The fact that anyone believes that it’s one or the other and not both in 2026 is hilarious.
February 16, 2026 @ 2:11 pm
: D Uh-huh.
February 16, 2026 @ 2:15 pm
Trigger, we had adults as Presidents until Trump. Anger is good, but must be channeled properly to bring us back to sanity. I think you would agree with that.
But Trump is more mentally ill than most, with anger, ADHD, sadism, narcissism, and probably some kind of psychopathic mix in there. Yes, even as a liberal I know we can go overboard with the racism bit and blame everything on race or Trump. And yet, is Trump a racist? Absolutely. Do you trust Noem who shoots dogs when they “misbehave?” Is it lawful for Trump to make billions because he is President? Yes, both sides can go overboard or blame the other, but let’s face it; if one is honest, Trump, the incessant liar and chaos agent, will remain one of the worst Presidents in history, if not the worst. Anger for the sake of anger is not healthy, but righteous anger is. Are you investing in Greenland,by the way?
February 16, 2026 @ 2:32 pm
Would love to keep this conversation more on the Lee Brice song and its impact on country music. Nobody is going to be convinced on who or who not to vote for President by a comments on a country music website.
February 16, 2026 @ 2:52 pm
Your point is well taken about keeping the conversation to Lee Brice’s song. That said, I am unclear as to why this song sent you into a rant. This kind of song is a staple in country music. I am sure Lee Greenwood would be proud. Are you angry because you think country music has escaped it’s conservative past of beer, boots, and whatever else? Is it because it went to number one? I think you owe it to your readers the real reason why, and not just do the guy thing and hide behind anger and a rant. You’re an excellent writer with great knowledge, so why not share what upsets you the most and just be honest. You might be surprised at the support you would get.
February 16, 2026 @ 3:32 pm
This song is not a staple of country music whatsoever. It’s a staple of the type of stereotypes that people impose upon country music fans when most country music fans could give a shit about this song, or Lee Brice. It’s being supported by political types outside of country similarly to how Beyonce’s “country” album was supposed by pop/hip-hop fans, not country fans.
The song is not #1. It hasn’t even been released yet. Lee Greenwood hasn’t had a relevant hit in a quarter century.
People falsely claiming this song is representative of country music in 2026 is the reason I decided I needed to twist off on this song. There is a sister article coming up to this that will explain more.
What upsets me the most is that people will truly think this song represents country music. That’s the reason I wanted to vehemently distance from it.
February 16, 2026 @ 2:12 pm
I’m not either MAGA or liberal, but it’s just objective fact that mindless, baseless rage and grievances fuel the populism that enabled a cognitively impaired, immoral sociopath like Trump to rise to power. But the fact that ignorant losers on the right can’t defend their stances other than to feebly say “but the libs suck, amiright?!” says everything about how MAGA is an ugly, angry cult rather than a legitimate movement with an actual ideology.
February 16, 2026 @ 3:03 pm
Laughing.
February 16, 2026 @ 12:36 pm
Sunny Ledfurd’s new dedicated country lane project ‘Grown Man Country’ just released the antithesis of that song. You can listen to ‘Horseshoes’ here; https://open.spotify.com/track/6jPTT9nFVHRZohu7xwDi2n?si=b1e5ec134546454a
February 16, 2026 @ 12:40 pm
Poor, poor Lee. Ever since the previous administration communistically banned beer, trucks, long guns, lawn mowers and dogs, he’s been one sad, hurting buckaroo. I mean golly, Lee can’t even watch the TV news anymore, what with the news and all. He just yearns for a simpler time, when a man could drink a bunch of beers, drive over to his tree stand, and accidentally kill his dog, without a bunch of uppity libtards lecturing him about it.
I particularly enjoyed the crowd “wooos” when he (sigh) made it a point to bring trans into the mix. In pro wrestling parlance, that’s the ultimate cheap pop. It’s cute how people pretend this sort of grievance-based entertainment is what they like.
February 16, 2026 @ 12:58 pm
I just want to sincerely thank Mr. Brice for putting this steaming pile of hot garbage onto a tee so there was no way in hell Trig wasn’t gonna take a swing at it with a Fat Albert bat. We desperately needed an epic rant and some levity around these parts.
February 16, 2026 @ 12:59 pm
I do love me a good Trig rant and this is a great one. I do like how the majority of people instantly shit on this not necessarily because it doesn’t fall on their side of the political spectrum, but because the song just flat out sucks.
February 16, 2026 @ 1:18 pm
Luckily I spared myself watching either half time show, as neither seemed like my idea of entertainment. Listened to some classic country instead. Glad I missed it. Lee Brice has always seemed to be on the outside looking in when it comes to country stardom. Sounds like for good reason
February 16, 2026 @ 3:00 pm
There was also the “Puppy Bowl”, though. =)
February 16, 2026 @ 3:16 pm
True, I always forget about that. My wife and I have had St. Bernards ever since we were married 15 years ago. Just lost one a couple weeks back. I have a feeling had we watched the puppy bowl, we would have had a new puppy by now lol
February 16, 2026 @ 1:21 pm
One point of contention – I don’t think this is the result of the “politicization” of Country music. This is the result of low-talent artists trying desperately to hang on to some semblance of career relevancy by micro-targeting political audiences to try and squeeze some $$$ out of them.
That is true with Maren Morris. That is true with Lee Brice (and John Rich).
These folks were never all that talented and once radio went away, decides they really liked living a nice lifestyle and figure liberals from Bluesky and TPUSA/Fox News watchers will spin their song a time or two to squeeze a couple more pennies out of their fading careers.
February 16, 2026 @ 3:09 pm
I subscribe to this theory myself: as Brice is coming on the heels of four consecutive misses on the country airplay chart.
Still: when Randy Houser himself attempted to pander to culture war grievances with “Cancel” and that proved to be a massive failure for his career, and Brian Kelley’s “Make America Great Again” also largely went unnoticed……………..and even Kid Rock’s most recent album “Bad Reputation” barely charted the Billboard 200 despite all the free publicity his couple of anti-woke promo singles generated……………….Brice should have very well known that the probability of failure for this risky strategy is pretty high. Much like we really never hear from Maren Morris anymore.
February 16, 2026 @ 1:36 pm
Pretty sure you can still do most of those things already Lee Brice.
February 16, 2026 @ 1:37 pm
Better have Tyler Childers put him on his bitin’ list.
February 16, 2026 @ 1:42 pm
Most Country artists would like to write their own version of Merle Haggard’s ‘Are The Good Times Really Over For Good’ but no one has come close. Even at the end of the Hag’s song he says the “good times ain’t over for good.” What makes Haggard’s song so much better is that even though lyrically it seems to be from one perspective, he’s subtlety leaving room that the assertation and feelings expressed in the lyrics don’t mean “It’s over for good.”
February 16, 2026 @ 2:03 pm
Actually, I consider the song itself more musical than most of the stuff I hear on mainstream country radio with the same tempo and same range of voice-about 5 notes. Nowadays, very few singers seem committed to the music or if they do, they oversing it and sound insincere and affected. Two exceptions I can think of are Charley Crockett and Melissa Carper.
“I was down south Jesus raised.” Well, Lee Brice, Jesus welcomed strangers and talked about the Prodigal Son. How 80% of white Christians voted for Trump simply means to me that for the great majority of people, their faith(southern or wherever else) is simply cultural and what they were raised with. I don’t think most know what living out the faith truly means, and yes that is a criticism. And ain’t nobody gonna stop you hunting deer or drinking beer. But I wonder if ICE would have picked up brown skin Jesus if he were in the streets of Minneapolis-wrong color and looking too gay, Son of Man!
February 16, 2026 @ 2:18 pm
Yeah, he might well have directly dedicated this song to the people that think voting for the current administration automatically made America great again (again), even though in practice it is doing the exact opposite of everything it said needed to be done to make that happen. It’s the same type of cowardly hypocrisy that’s driven me crazy coming from the mainstream left for years.
As someone who has uncomfortably found themselves landing more and more on the political right out of necessity, it’s sad to see and have to admit that the mind viruses of virtue signalling, political correctness, and cancel culture have infected both sides equally and completely.
I can only hope the Epstein class does with us what they will before I ever have to hear this song again. We, from one end of the mainstream political spectrum to the other, richly deserve it.
* I know we aren’t supposed to post politically hear, but this is a post-partisan post. My intent is not to stir the typical political either/or pot. I’m so done with it. I get the feeling this article came from a similar head space and greatly appreciate the rant.
February 16, 2026 @ 2:23 pm
“I just want to cut my grass, feed my dogs, wear my boots / Not turn the TV on, sit and watch the evening news / Be told if I tell my own daughter that little boys ain’t little girls / I’d be up the creek in hot water in this cancel-your ass-world.”
American-nationalist-machismo aside… This isn’t about engaging in culture wars. This is about objective morality which actually has nothing to do with culture. Is the song writing less than impressive and cheesly clever, yep. Don’t care. It’s a song our Godless post-modern world needs to hear.
So keep on singing Brice.
February 16, 2026 @ 2:54 pm
Many have been comparing “Country Nowadays” to Bo Burnham’s “Countr song” in his 2013 comedy special…………….and while I’ve personally always felt torn over that because I feel parts of his performance and framing veer a bit too heavily towards that usual coastal elitism smugness and high-falutin’ attitude towards our community and also fails to acknowledge the wide chasm between the Nashville songwriting machine and the much broader independent country music community here where so much authenticity resides……………..in this particular context I think that comparison pretty much nails it on the head.
The lyrics are seriously implying that Brice literally CAN’T mow his lawn, feed his dogs or drink a beer…………………because trans people exist. Regardless of your thoughts and feelings on this particular issue overall: this fake-ass victim complex is just beyond embarrassing and reeks of self-parody of the first degree.
February 16, 2026 @ 2:55 pm
Quality of the song is subjective, but the sentiment speaks for the majority of the citizens of the United States.
This critique was a little rough and probably not too objective.
February 16, 2026 @ 3:10 pm
Trigger isn’t objective that’s why he’s good. He brings point of view and opinion to every subject. That’s good that’s why he’s a great writer. Because he actually has thoughts about stuff. What “objective” information would you like about the song? The length? Who wrote it? How many views it has on YouTube?
February 16, 2026 @ 3:15 pm
I would suspect the song speaks for about a third of the country. I do agree that the critique went too far, unless you are addicted to rants, like so many these days, unfortunately. Entertain me, entertain me seems to be the mantra.
February 16, 2026 @ 3:38 pm
I’m telling you, the majority of American citizens think this song is a joke, gimmicky, pandering, and patently awful, and the majority of people who DO support it are doing so because they believe that’s what they’re supposed to be doing with a song like this. This son is very directly being used to discredit the Conservative movement, and country music, and it’s effective in doing so. That’s why as a country music advocate, I have no choice but to vehemently distance from it.
February 16, 2026 @ 3:11 pm
It must be a slow news day in country music if this is the worst thing you have to rant about. That said, I do relate to the song, even if some of the things he mentions aren’t being taken away from me personally.
I grew up in a small farming town on the Ohio–Indiana border, about 45 minutes from Kentucky. Those rural roots shaped my outlook in a lot of ways. Now that I have two sons of my own, I find myself trying to pass down the same values, traditions, and sense of culture that defined my upbringing in the 1970s and ’80s—ideas like personal responsibility, respect for others, hard work, and a strong sense of community.
What surprises me is how often I’ve been labeled a bigot or racist simply for expressing beliefs like the importance of secure borders or the idea that people should be judged by their character, choices, and merit rather than their skin color or ethnicity. From my perspective, the themes in the song represent more than specific issues—they symbolize a longing for what I see as a simpler time, when being “country” meant relying on basic common sense, shared values, and a grounded way of life.
For me, the song taps into that sense of nostalgia and cultural identity. It reflects the tension many people feel between preserving the traditions they grew up with and adapting to a rapidly changing world, and that emotional connection is part of what gives the song its impact.
February 16, 2026 @ 3:28 pm
Absolute banger of an article starting with maybe your best first line of all time
JPR