NY Mag’s New Awful, No Good, Very Bad Country Music Article/Infographic

The continued frustration with how the media and journalists decidedly outside of the country music fold who are uniquely unqualified to commentate on the genre irresponsibly decide to veer into the country space was sent into the stratosphere, catapulted into space, and slingshot around the moon recently by an especially poorly-researched, expertise-bereft, and frankly dangerous treatise penned by hip-hop journalist Craig Jenkins, and then simulcast between between New York Magazine and Vulture to attempt to have it permeate every corner of American culture.

Even worse, as a companion piece to this aggressively uniformed and irresponsible “article,” New York Magazine and Vulture decided to accompany it with an infographic on social media stratifying out the supposed political alignment of certain country music artists in a way that inexplicably makes the situation even worse, while actual country journalists with actual knowledge of country music and its political nuance absolutely seethe with abhorrence at the level of intellectual depravity, and the collateral damage it will likely cause.

Though this subject is admittedly something that tends to send Saving Country Music into a tizzy and descend into shop talk over often polarizing subjects, this recent example really takes the cake so well, it has enraged a large swath of the country music populous, especially on the left, but on the right as well, as it should, making something dealing with such polarizing subjects like politics and country music find something nearing consensus in how it’s being rebuked.

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First and foremost, you must attempt to digest this terrible infographic, since it really is the front facing portion of the greater work done on the article titled Country Music’s Middle Road, which among all the other justifiable criticisms that can be levied against it, is of course paywalled, making it the domain of elite discourse, despite its attempt at egalitarian preaching about the ills of country music, the causes of these inequities, and their ultimate side effects.

The first problem with the slides in this infographic is they include multiple artists that are decidedly not country, including by assessments from the artists themselves. Three of Sturgill Simpson’s last four primary albums dating back to 2019 have not been country, including his most recent, Mutiny After Midnight. The mainstream media continues to slot Kid Rock as a country artist, despite never having been considered primarily a country artist previously, despite a few country collaborations.

In the first slide supposedly representing left-wing country artists, they show Sturgill Simpson, Maren Morris, and Kacey Musgraves. A strong case can be made that all three of these artists shouldn’t be considered country in the present tense. A few years ago, Maren Morris did a huge spread to declare she was leaving country, and due to politics, though since she’s gaslighted everyone into thinking that never happened.

If any of these artists should still be considered country, it would be Kacey Musgraves since her upcoming album Middle of Nowhere promises to be more country compared to her previous two. But Musgraves really hasn’t even been that political in her career, and said a while back that she was trying to avoid polarizing topics. What makes her such a strong left wing country artist, because she release “Follow Your Arrow” a dozen years ago?

As she said in 2019,

“People expect [social commentary] from me, I know. And part of my creative persona is that. But three years later, it’s gotten so extreme and convoluted. There are so many issues; everyone’s on a soapbox and has an opinion. It’s just loud and churning people up in not always great ways. I wanted to focus on the beauty in the world. There are these parts of life we’re all missing because we’re getting hit over the head by the ‘fake news’ 24 hours a day. They’re—whatever side you’re on—keeping you churned up, and we’re missing all this good in our world.”

The “Liberal” slide perfectly illustrates the left of country music in maybe 2016. In 2026, it’s not just irrelevant, it’s insultingly exclusionary.

Making a menu of country artists and their political alignment is a deleterious exercise to begin with. But if you’re going to do it, at least try to do it right. This infographic completely excludes artists who’ve put their careers on the line to speak out about things they believe in, and simply because they don’t fit within the “mainstream” mindset.

Tyler Childers just won a Grammy award, sells out arenas, yet somehow is excluded in this coverage. Looking over other 2026 Grammy nominees in the country realm, they could have also highlighted Charley Crockett, and Margo Price who is extremely politically outspoken. Instead they’re ignored for much less culturally relevant performers like Maren Morris and Brantley Gilbert, just because Brantley and Maren have been on mainstream country radio in the past.

And this doesn’t even begin to talk about artists like Bryan Andrews, who’s basically built his whole viral career off of being a left-wing country artist. Granted, with some of these artists, the political stuff is marketing, just like it is with country music’s right wing performers. But again, if you’re going to do this political labeling, do it right. Where is Tim McGraw and Faith Hill? The Chicks? Willie Nelson?

As far as the other artists featured in the next two frames, this is perhaps the most damaging assertion of the entire work, because they’re casting aspersions about artists without really any concrete or definitive evidence these performers deserve to be in these spots. So you’re just going off of “vibes,” but you’re labeling these artist on one side or the other in a way that could cost them thousands of fans? Let’s not forget that Texas artist Tanner Usrey recently received death threats simply from being associated with a Kid Rock tour. You can’t just willy-nilly assign binary political alignments to artists.

It seems pretty clear to most people that Zach Bryan came out against ICE raids, and the right-leaning Super Bowl Halftime Show. Shaboozey made a speech about the importance of immigrants like his parents at the Grammy Awards. So why are these artists being cast in political ambiguity? Again, if you’re unsure, why include them anywhere at all? Do you have to include Lainey Wilson and Megan Moroney just because they’re part of the pop country realm?

Furthermore, all of this flies in the face of the actual realities of American life. There is this idea from both right and left-leaning perspectives that artists are “cowards” or “boot lickers” if they’re unwilling to come out and broadcast their political beliefs publicly. But as Pew Research has helped verify, a record number of Americans now identify as independents at 45%, and spiking, while identity with the two specific political parties is also down historically. It stands to reason some of the performers NY Mag wants to paint red or blue are neither.

That doesn’t mean that some performers might not like the actions of President Trump. They might just also see the Democrats as feckless and complicit, and so don’t see the reason to change or assign themselves a political color. Though the NY Mag infographic tries to leave whether Luke Combs is right or left ambiguous, he told The New York Times recently in no uncertain terms he is “not liberal enough for liberals and not conservative enough for conservatives.” Combs emphasized avoiding political activism and labels, favoring unity over the current “contentious” climate.

So why is that so hard for this infographic to compute? Why not just include artist who have come out and made their political stripes known? Once again, the strange need to plop each mainstream country artist into some bucket is the worst philosophical approach this exercise could have taken. Yet where is Zach Top, who is one of country music’s top artists? Again, he’s excluded, because he’s outside of the purview of the article and the infographic’s outdated, mainstream mindset.

Another criticism the infographic has stimulated is how in the third slide highlights artists that supposedly are “Playing the Fence, But Coded Red.” As some have pointed out, Carrie Underwood performed at President Trump’s inauguration, and Morgan Wallen was caught on camera saying the N-word.

In fairness, neither of these things immediately mean you identify as a political conservative. Performers have sang at political inaugurations for years. Snoop Dogg performed at the Presidential nomination too, and nobody’s calling him right wing. Why is Ella Langley highlighted here, because she’s on a lineup with Kid Rock this summer? Why isn’t Parker McCollum included since he also played the Trump Inauguration, because he’s not mainstream enough for NY Mag? Yet Brantley Gilbert is?

It’s also interesting to note that when looking at the two “coded red” slides, you sure do see a lot of artists who’ve dabbled in hip-hop ion their careers, or started there, including Jelly Roll, Kid Rock, and Brantley Gilbert, who co-wrote “Dirt Road Anthem” for Jason Aldean—country music’s first mainstream country rap hit. For all the talk of the importance of sonic diversity and undermining gatekeeping in country music, country rap is where the “coded racist” crowd resides, including Jelly Roll, who didn’t just say the N-word on camera once, but three times, and two years after Wallen. Yet outlets like New York Mag and Vulture continue to refuse to report on it.

Meanwhile, Nate Smith is included in the final right wing infographic. But again, this information is outdated. The overall argument from the article itself is that country music is becoming less conservative with the growing unpopularity of President Trump. First, it’s questionable if this is true. But if there was any piece of evidence of this, it would be the fact that Nate Smith—who previously came out as strongly MAGA—recently backtracked, and said he wanted to focus on unifying people. But if Nate Smith’s flip flop is the premise for your article, why put him in the far right slide?

Does the actual article tied to this infographic offer any sort of antidote to the terrible approach of it? No, it doesn’t. If anything, it verifies the uninformed nature of this entire exercise. And even if it did, since it’s behind a paywall, it’s inaccessible to large swaths of the population. Some wonder why conservatives get their information from things like Joe Rogan and Fox News? One of the reasons is because it’s actually readily available, unlike most left-leaning journalism like this NY Mag/Vulture piece.

Perhaps at some point, the substance (or lack thereof) of the actual New York Mag/Vulture article by Craig Jenkins will be addressed as well. But since it’s paywalled, you can’t point to it as a defense of the infographic, which it doesn’t offer anyway.

Meanwhile, how is all this being received by the public? It’s been a general bloodbath for NY Mag, Vulture, and writer Craig Jenkins in the comments.

Country artist Fancy Haygood’s response was simply, “Y’all, what?”

Left-leaning country music commentator Jordy Cray responded, “What the hell is this, and why didn’t anyone reach out to me for help? I read this entire article, and I was struggling to find the point of it, and I found it to be pretty poorly researched. If your goal was to expose MAGA in country music, then why not use this as an opportunity to spotlight the artists that are often overlooked?”

“I want to talk about another non country music entity discussing country music, especially within a political context,” says Country Cultler. “These range of artists is … quite questionable. From missing very key important members of the left-leaning country landscape … and mixing in some of these fence sitters, I don’t quote get. This is really lazy, and I kind of expect more.”

One of the regular wrinkles in these articles is how they do not reach out to get expertise or guidance from people on the country beat, or in the country community. Saving Country Music is regularly talking with colleagues in music journalism about country music, trying to inform and guide coverage in a way that is accurate, and hopefully, objective. Meanwhile, Craig Jenkins, who is probably a great pop/hip-hop reporter, has a history of getting his reporting on country music wrong in ways that Saving Country Music has reported on before.

And now that AI is dominating discourse by scraping the internet for info and regurgitating it to readers, it makes articles and infographics like this even more dangerous and undermining of the truth, and overshadowing of independent artists.

Maybe at some point, the New York Mag/ Vulture article itself will be addressed here as well. But the only responsible thing for NY Mag and Vulture to do would be to pull the infographic, offer a correction, and maybe reach out to some artists and journalists within country music to make a purposeful effort to share an informed perspective on country’s intersection with politics. Otherwise, you’re simply kicking over an anthill, and causing collateral damage in a community you don’t even exist in for the rest of us who do to try and clean up.

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