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Country music is having a moment—but not where you’d expect. Once firmly rooted in Southern U.S. soil, the genre is being reimagined by pop artists and adopted by fans far and wide from Nashville. And in 2025, the UK is quietly becoming one of the most exciting places for country’s next chapter.
The catalyst? Beyoncé, undoubtedly. Her 2024 album Cowboy Carter was not just a genre-bending release—it was a proclamation. While the Country Music Awards entirely ignored it, it reached number one on charts, dominated the conversation, and brought a new generation of listeners to country. Singles like her reinterpretation of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” and her duets with Miley Cyrus and Shaboozey introduced tens of millions to a new kind of country—one that’s unafraid, inclusive, and unapologetically Black and female.
That intolerance created a ripple effect. Sabrina Carpenter remastered her chart-topper “Please, Please, Please” with Dolly herself, and for five weeks, it topped the UK chart. Chappell Roan’s “The Giver,” a “little gay yodel,” entered the March charts at number two, a new, queer take on an otherwise hetero- unstraits genre.
British country music artists are getting on the wave. Manchester pair Neeve Zahra and Izzie Walsh are part of a grass-roots movement which is attempting to get on the wave and into wider public consciousness. Zahra, 20, credits her country tastes with her grandad and Hannah Montana. “I was country before country was cool,” she implies. But she knows that credibility counts too: “I’m not going to say I’ll come pick you up in my truck because I don’t have a truck.”.
British country artists such as Remember Monday, the UK’s 2025 Eurovision contender, are drawing on storytelling at the genre’s core while remaining faithful to their own lives. As their lead vocalist Lauren Byrne says, “It doesn’t all have to be yeehaw.”
Streaming services support the trend. UK country streams have increased more than 150% since 2019, and are now increasing five times faster than in the United States, reports Apple Music.
It’s early days at this point, but the way is clear: country music is no longer pickups and dusty roads. It’s about stories—told from Manchester, Missouri, or wherever the truth is. And the UK, it seems, is ready to tell its own.
