Kacey Musgraves appears to be a little peeved that her latest album has been ruled out of contention for a country Grammy. Of course she is. The country category is far less competitive. Last year there were, according to Billboard, 186 entries in the pop album category but only 92 in the country album category. Therefore the odds of picking up a trophy with a ‘country’ album are far greater, and Musgraves has a history of winning - she previously triumphed when her "Same Trailer Different Park" album won Best Country Album and "Merry Go ‘Round" from the same album won Best Country Song at the 2013 awards. "Pageant Material" was nominated in 2015 but was unsuccessful. However, at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards her "Golden Hour" album not only won Best Country Album but also was named Album Of The Year (all categories), as well as winning awards for Best Country Song ("Space Cowboy") and Best Country Solo Performance ("Butterflies"). Musgraves must have been delighted. Her star had risen. She was universally lauded. The world outside of country music suddenly paid attention, but more importantly she could no doubt play larger venues, sell more tickets, get invited to Met Galas and glitzy premieres, become a person of interest to the tabloids and generally live the lifestyle of a pop star. Her record company were also delighted as the growth in interest in their artist following Grammy success fuelled a surge in sales/streams. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s always all about money. All artists want to receive recognition for their work.

However, if Musgraves was being honest, there can be absolutely no way on this earth that "Golden Hour" should have been considered country and she should consider herself lucky that it snuck past the Grammy decision makers (reportedly “about 15 country executives and creatives, many of whom return each year and whose identities are not made public”). It was pop, it was EDM, it was disco-lite that blatantly courted the LGBTQ+ market. It was many things but it was not a country record in any shape or form. And neither is "Star-Crossed" which debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart (all genres) behind Drake and Kanye West. As someone whose earlier work actually included some of the most fabulous examples of what country music could be in the 2010s, she knew.

Musgraves brought a quirkiness to "Same Trailer Different Park" that was different to anything else. Brandy Clark’s songwriting input helped, the production by Luke Laird and more importantly Shane McAnnally brought wonderful arrangements to some super-catchy songs. It was commercial in the true sense. It didn’t chase crossover, it just found some because it was so good. It showed the very best side of contemporary Nashville. It was also undeniably country and the traces of a traditional country influence were as obvious as footprints in the snow. Follow Your Arrow even picked up regular rotation on BBC Radio 2.

"Pageant Material" delivered more of the same. It topped the Billboard Country Albums Chart and its opening song, "High Time", and its innovative use of Hawaiian steel, stands as one of the most utterly commercial country songs of that decade. But "Pageant Material" probably under-performed in Musgraves’ eyes and those of Mercury Records looking to grow their artist. It might have been critically well-received but failed to translate into making Musgraves the ‘country’ star she should have been, and seemingly wanted to be. Maybe if they’d have stuck with it (there was a Christmas album as well) she would have become the next in line to try and fill Dolly’s boots, but whether it was a management decision, A&R advice/instructions from the record label, input from her then husband - Ruston Kelly - all those influences she had previously cited like Loretta Lynn, Ray Price, Roger Miller, Glen Campbell, Lee Ann Womack and more were no longer evident in her work.

Quite why Musgraves continued to receive the praises of the country music industry when she had clearly jumped ship and was now cruising on the pop/dance steamboat is a mystery, but no more so than the long-standing identity crisis from which country music suffers. It is also where the problem with her country ineligibility ultimately lies. It’s not really the fault of the experts guarding the gate of the Grammy nominations, although some of their historic choices are questionable and over-reliant on sales success, but it is the fault of the country music industry in general, and in particular the CMA who, as they always do, try to hang their hat on anything they think will further sales, fuel a crossover market, and in their minds make country seem “cooler”.

Country music (or those that control it) really wants to be inclusive. It REALLY wants to. It wants it so bad and it likes to show its horror when the young white kid whose image they’ve portrayed as mulletted redneck white trash bad-boy with a fondness for liquor from the Blue Collar Trailer Park in Hicksville, Hicks County actually turns out to reflect that image for real by shouting the ‘n’-word in the street in what Morgan Wallen says was the 72nd hour of a 72 hour bender. Quel surprise! They couldn’t see that coming? But they still seem happy to include the album in the CMA Awards.

They’ve made a business out of ‘glamourising’ that very image. Got a truck? Got mud? Got beer? Got girls in Daisy Dukes? Then you’re assured of a good time in three minutes of the latest country hit co-written by the same ten writers who wrote just about everything else that went to radio that week. It’s a production-line with a formula that is only occasionally rocked by something like "Girl Crush" and the story-telling they value so highly is more often than not shunned completely.

Say it’s all about three chords and the truth and/or the storytelling and you’re in, even if those stories are rehashed teen clichés full of finger snaps and a drum loop with screaming rock guitar. And if one more person tries to use the ‘Three chords and the truth’ mantra to justify what usually is a really crappy song they know darn well isn’t country I might have to send Jamey Johnson round to have words with them. Nashville artists are ‘advised’ to play it safe. They are told not to ‘criticise’ other artists, not to be ‘political’, and not to get involved in anything generally controversial. Keep schtumm or risk your career. Dolly Parton is the pinnacle of diplomacy and it has served her well. Frequently refusing to be drawn on controversial topics she can resort to the “I’m just a li’l ol’ gal from the backwoods dumb blonde” image when it suits her, and it usually does, even if anyone reading between the lines can tell she is as liberal as they come.

Already the committee members who decided to exclude Kacey Musgraves from the country category of the Grammys are being referred to as ‘gatekeepers’. How dare they pass judgement on what is and what isn’t country? Well, isn’t about time somebody did?

Nashville continues to dilute country music with rock producers and pop recording techniques. They chase the current pop sound for all they’re worth. They entice non-country performers (the bigger the better) onto their awards shows to attract the non-country fans, and they reward team-ups with artists from other genres in the misguided hope of improving country music’s image. They will virtue signal for all they’re worth and they’ll embrace non-country elements under the ever-widening all-encompassing country umbrella. Journalists from outside the genre will frequently cite “the problems with country music” and provide what they consider proof that country artists and country fans are just a bunch of racist and misogynistic rednecks and the powers that be will try even harder to prove that they’re not.

But at the risk of belittling the causes of racial inequality, gender inequality, and the freedom to be sexually orientated any damn way you choose, shouldn’t we take a moment for the music. There’s no outrage that the music Nashville pours down our throats with its huge funnel is more often than not just… well… a lot of it is just awful. There was outrage that Lil Nas X was removed from the country chart when the outrage should have been that it was there in the first place. That in itself might be part of the problem. Nashville lost its shit filter years ago and it assumes everyone else did too. In its desperate attempt to be accepted by the masses they’ll take anyone from old rockers to internet sensations reared on Justin Bieber or struggling songwriters who were born too late for the classic rock of the 1970s. And it’s not just limited to artists. “Got a background producing the Kings of Leon? You’re in. Lefty Frizzell, never heard of him!”

I care about the music. I care a lot, and there’s a reason I gravitated towards country in the first place: because of the way it sounded. It was real people playing real instruments and they were instruments I liked very much. Therefore, I don’t want for country records to be indiscernible from the records you might hear on a pop station. That’s the whole point of genres. So that once I’ve decided I want to listen to country music I don’t have to be subjected to other genres I don’t want to hear. Genres exist for a reason. They keep everything nicely together. If somebody was listening to a soul station they shouldn’t expect to hear a rock record, or if they are listening to a classical station they would rightly expect to not hear the latest from Dua Lipa no matter how many records she’s selling. The ownership of US country radio by huge media corporations and the resulting smaller playlists and focus-group chosen songs is another problem altogether. The only way you’d know it’s a country station is by the twang in a singer’s voice, not by the twang of a Telecaster or a steel guitar. But is that the tail wagging the dog?

Country has been influenced by what’s going on in the pop world forever. They shat themselves when Elvis came along, and they did their very best to embrace the Mersey invasion. They even tried to get a bit psychedelic for a while there, and they went overboard with a disco production when they decided that was the flavour-of-the-month wagon they had better get hitched up to. That doesn’t mean country music can’t evolve, and it doesn’t mean it all has to sound like Webb Pierce, but as it evolves it should still be recognisable as being country music and it should evolve naturally. You shouldn’t have to shoe-horn hip-hop into it any more than you should electronic dance music.

UMG Nashville’s Cindy Mabe trying to make the case for Musgraves’ inclusion in the country category of the Grammys as “an artist of change” and to prove to the world that “this is not who we are” is just going for the sympathy vote, and bowing to the preconceptions of journalists who write indignantly about the ‘problems’ within the genre without really having any real knowledge of it, or it would seem, any true appreciation of it.

The trouble is, whilst all this is going on, everybody forgets about the actual music. Whether it actually sounds like country music doesn’t matter anymore, but at least some of those folks at the Grammys have been decisive.

And let’s not even go down the “what is country music?” road. You know it when you hear it. I know you do. I do, and I’m pretty sure that the decision makers who choose terms like “rock-driven” or “genre-challenging” to market their latest “country” release know it too. I know that Springsteen and Bon Jovi are not it. They might make music that has led their fans to discover something in country they find appealing but they ain’t country. Ed Sheeran isn’t country. Beyoncé isn’t country either, and the Recording Academy were correct to reject "Daddy Lessons", the song she performed at the 50th CMA Awards for consideration in the country category despite a bit of token banjo courtesy of The Chicks.

 Of course it’s possible for an artist from another genre to make a country record. Elvis Costello is a prime example. Van Morrison and Cyndi Lauper are others. Likewise, an artist known for being a country artist can make a record in any genre they choose, but that shouldn’t mean it is automatically considered to be country because of their history. Indie artist Creed Fisher makes records that are country as well as records that are Southern rock but he has the decency to keep them separate from one another and market them to different audiences. The decision to exclude "Star-Crossed" from the country category is the right one. They should go further and exclude a whole bunch more. "Star-Crossed" is an EDM/pop album and it’s about time somebody called it out as such.

At least when Taylor Swift went all-out pop she had the decency to announce it, and let’s face it, some people need to be told such information in case they are under the misapprehension that she still makes country records. That the country music world still tries to cling to her coat-tails in the hope of improving its image just highlights the problem. Let her go. Let her do her pop thing and sell billions but let’s stop pretending it’s country when it isn’t and get back to making contemporary country music that is recognisable as country music, of which Same Trailer Different Park was such a shining example. It innovated musically, it was modern, quirky, progressive in some of its lyrics - “kiss lots of girls if that’s what you’re into” - it featured the kind of songwriting that it seems only Nashville can produce when it sets its mind to it. Not only that but the songs were wrapped in some of the catchiest tunes this side of the 1970s. But ultimately it sounded like a country record and that’s all I really ask for. It has nothing whatsoever to do with gender, race, nationality, or even where you grew up and it has everything to do with making good country records and not being ashamed of them. It was once a proud genre and it can be again. The decision The Grammys have taken is a step in the right direction but we need to go farther.