Country Music’s Expanding Tent
Dolly's legacy makes the genre welcome everyone
Sep 1, 2026 · 35 min · 14 segments
For the first time in history, five country songs were at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Ella Langley, Morgan Wallen, Taylor Swift and Stella Lefty all have songs that range from two-stepping hits…
Nate SloanHostOkay, so in August of 2026, country music for the first time ever took the top five Hot 100 slots.
Yeah, right? So what I wanna do is listen to these five songs and see what they tell us about country music, and I wanna ask that same question.

I feel like the question of what is and what is not country is endlessly fascinating-

And yet it's pretty important in a way, n- not so much for ultimately deciding is this thing country or not, but what those conversations say about what we value in music and how we define genre itself.
You know, so often country music is thought of as being in a particular geography, maybe from the South.
It's interested in the present, but also the past, and, you know, it cares a lot about working class people.
It cares about multi-generational storylines that, you know, you can be of many different ages and be a country star.
We're gonna listen to the top five songs in the order that I have chosen, most country to least country-
... beginning with one of the most important songs possibly ever now, Ella Langley's Choosin' Texas.
Okay, so in August of 2026, country music for the first time ever took the top five Hot 100 slots.
Yeah, right? So what I wanna do is listen to these five songs and see what they tell us about country music, and I wanna ask that same question.

I feel like the question of what is and what is not country is endlessly fascinating-

And yet it's pretty important in a way, n- not so much for ultimately deciding is this thing country or not, but what those conversations say about what we value in music and how we define genre itself.
You know, so often country music is thought of as being in a particular geography, maybe from the South.
It's interested in the present, but also the past, and, you know, it cares a lot about working class people.
It cares about multi-generational storylines that, you know, you can be of many different ages and be a country star.
We're gonna listen to the top five songs in the order that I have chosen, most country to least country-
... beginning with one of the most important songs possibly ever now, Ella Langley's Choosin' Texas.
Every episode on Radar is fully transcribed, speaker-labeled, and rich with metadata. Here is a taste of this one. Try Radar for free to see the rest.
3 of 8
Country Music’s Expanding Tent
Dolly's legacy makes the genre welcome everyone
Country’s Chart-Topping Mystery
A chart statistic raises a bigger question
Genre Is More Than Sound
Genre turns out to be more complicated
+5 more clips · 5 min 35 sec of audio in all
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
All 8 clips — the highlight moments, each cut as its own audio, with a title and a speaker
All 14 segments — the transcript broken into labeled sections, every ad read marked
All 17 topics — jump to every other episode discussing the same subject
Every related episode — other shows Radar links to this one
No account is needed to search Radar.