We Need to Have a Discussion About Ian Munsick

Random Notes 123 Comments


I haven’t wanted to do this. I’ve held my tongue for years at this point. And even now as I speak up, I do so reluctantly, and as a last resort, though confident in what needs to be said. This isn’t a message that should be coming from some dude in the press. This should have been handled within the population of music performers. Someone should have sat down Ian Munsick backstage and had this talk. But for whatever reason, that either never happened, or those efforts were unsuccessful. So it’s time to flip a table.

Ian Munsick seems like a great dude. This is nothing personal. And this isn’t one of those “authenticity” arguments about him trying to be something that he isn’t, per se. Ian Munsick has as many skins on the wall to be able to proclaim himself a true Western artist as anyone, if not more. He grew up on ranches in Wyoming, and since the age of 10 he was singing in a Western band with his two older brothers and father.

Saving Country Music has profiled/reviewed brothers Sam Munsick and Tris Munsick, and they both are excellent Western traditional country artists with incredibly underrated, and under-the-radar music. But Ian moved away from the West to attend Belmont University in Nashville, graduating with a Songwriting and Music Business degree, and eventually got signed to Warner Bros. Records. Wherever Ian Munsick’s heart and perspective started, it now has been completely institutionalized in the Music Row perspective.

There had been some earlier instances too, but the first time I really paid attention to Ian Munsick is when he collaborated with Cody Johnson on the song “Long Live Cowgirls” in early 2022. Though you got excited this could be another moment for a Western artist to rise out of obscurity in a resurgence of the music, Ian’s strong pop sensibilities made that somewhat of a paradox. Sure, some of the lyricism evoked the West (and some didn’t). But many of the songs sounded like mainstream radio country.

The first time I saw Ian Munsick perform was at Mile 0 Fest in Key West, Florida in early 2023. This is when it became obvious something was very off, and he’d been worked over in Music Row’s image. As I said at that time,

“It took a matter of minutes to recognize Munsick had no bass player, or backing vocalists, or other instruments that you heard but didn’t see on stage. Playing to backing tracks does not go over well in Texas/Red Dirt music, and Munsick should have known that. Perhaps in the mainstream the practice is fine, or even par for the course. But this ain’t the mainstream, and with the way Munsick plays up his Wyoming cowboy roots, it all ultimately came across as disingenuous and out of place, even if some of the lyricism touched on Western themes.”

But hey, though Munsick was a fast-rising name at the time, perhaps it was tough to pull together a full band, and easier on production costs to travel without a bass player. Unfortunately, when seeing him over a year later at the Two Step Inn Fest in Texas, he was still performing without a bass player, and to obvious backing tracks.

Last year when Zach Top was contractually obligated to play a 20-minute set before Lainey Wilson shows—all while he’d so clearly grown well beyond that point as the fastest-rising artists in all of country music—Top then had to sit there and watch Ian Munsick play for 40 minutes, again with no bass player and to backing tracks. As of a few months ago, Munsick was still playing to backing tracks, and probably still is.

Meanwhile, you see Munsick booked on all of the real/traditional/independent country music festivals and lineups like he’s a interchangeable with Colter Wall. But Ian Munsick is like the Dungeons & Dragons nerd of Western music. The cowboy and Native American motif is over-the-top, even if it’s backed by authenticity. It reminds you of those full-sized eagle and wolf blankets they sell out of vans at gas stations on weekends. He’s like a character from Napoleon Dynamite. Calling Ian Munsick a Western artist these days is like calling Dierks Bentley a bluegrass artist.

This all sounds so mean, huh? I agree. But it’s also the truth.

All of this is underscored on Munsick’s latest album, Eagle Feather. Does it have some good songs, or even some Western songs in the 20 tracks? Sure it does, just like Dierks Bentley has some good songs, and bluegrass songs. But so much of it is synthesized through the Music Row, major label system to the point where only the “essence” of a Western artist is left to simply offer a slightly more distinctive flavor to mainstream music, while some of Ian’s songs are outright cringey with clearly Auto-tuned vocals and machine beats.

Take Ian’s collaboration with Cleto Cordero of Flatland Cavalry called “God Bless The West.” Sure, the Western imagery is there in the lyricism. But the songs sounds like bad Michael Jackson, down to the unbearable falsetto and programmed drums. Who finds this good, or “Western”? It’s guys who weight themselves down in turquoise jewelry for their job in a call center in Chicago, and women who believe in the healing power of crystals and take three-hour baths surrounded by votive candles while reading trashy romance novels.


Yet in a puff piece spread in Rolling Stone recently, the terrible Josh Crutchmer praised, “His music is so tethered to the culture and lifestyle of his rural Wyoming upbringing that it’s likely Munsick the artist wouldn’t exist without it.”

Performing to backing tracks, high falsetto pop choruses, machine beats, and Music Row writing sessions are “tethered to the culture and lifestyle of his rural Wyoming upbringing”? If you needed any further evidence that Josh Crutchmer is uniquely unqualified to commentate on music, this would be it. Josh Crutchmer is the Ian Munsick of country music writers.

The one criticism you can levy at Ian Munsick that he can’t control is high high-pitched voice. It is what it is, and polarizing to some listeners all unto itself. Yet by leaning into the falsetto, the pop stylings, and the over-processed vocal signals, it emphasizes the polarizing nature of his tone as opposed to trying to find ways to compensate for it, or emphasizing the strengths of it. Ian Munsick is a good singer, and naturally talented. But it just doesn’t fit with what he’s trying to do.

You can’t control what your voice sounds like. But you can control whether you’re playing to backing tracks on stage or employing a full band. You can control the production of your music. You can fight back against the Music Row puppetmasters who want to make you the Colter Wall for the masses. And for Ian Munsick, it probably wouldn’t affect his popularity at the moment. Western music is hot. But Ian music is only Western by name.

Ian Munsick isn’t like a lot of the other sad sacks caught up in the Music Row sausage factory. Somewhere in there is a true artist who grew up in a Western band and knows the right and wrong when it comes to country and Western music. You hear that in moments in his songs. It’s just when you’re schooled at such a close proximity to Music Row and then get handed over directly to that system, you lose touch.

But Ian Munsick is redeemable. Somewhere inside is that kid from Sheridan, Wyoming who grew up listening to Chris LeDoux. Maybe managers and label types have their talons so deep in Ian, it would be impossible for him to wrestle loose. Maybe he likes pop music, and is actually living out the expression of his true self. Maybe now that he’s infiltrated so deep inside of the mainstream system, he’s in a position to make a true Western album that could make it to the masses, and put the “Western” back in Country & Western music where it belongs.

This would be the hope. But for now, Ian, my man, just get a bass player and insist on only playing live henceforth. Trust me, it will be better off for you in the long run.

I criticize constructively, and because I care.

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***UPDATE *** UPDATE***

Here is a response Ian Munsick posted on Facebook.

If spreading western music to a new audience isn’t “saving country music” then I don’t know what is. I produce my records, play on my own records and engineer my own records. That’s why it doesn’t fit in anywhere yet fits in everywhere. It’s me. Not someone else telling me who to be.

Let’s talk backing tracks during live shows. There is a right way and wrong way. I record my own backing tracks, play multiple instruments live on stage, and have a BAD ASS band behind me every single night. I’m an entertainer… I can’t just sit there and strum.

Finally, I would strongly recommend getting some fresh air. Doesn’t have to be in the mountains of Wyoming, just go touch some grass. Happy Earth Day

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