Is Scott McCreery's Success The Proof Of Youth?
posted in: Country • Music News
Looks like Scott McCreery is the next pop-country super star.
The American Idol alum seems to fit the bill pretty well. A clean cut crooner with faith to spare, a couple of singles under his belt and a charming “golly, gee shucks” attitude. No surprise that his debut record moved a ton of units in the first week and made chart history. The 200,000 copies of Clear As Day sold in the first week was good enough to net McCreery the second best debut of the year. Now the question is what makes this young kid so unique, aside from his success?
It’s exactly that. In a field that doesn’t have that many youthful stars, McCreery is young”he really was a kid, for all intensive purposes, until his eighteenth birthday on October 7th. Sure, there’s the likes of Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum but can you think of any other established country music stars that aren’t old enough to drink? There’s a reason why his newest video takes place in chem class (and it’s just an honors course too, it won’t even count for college credit).
Look at Billboard’s Top Country Songs chart. Yeah, there’s a handful of youngsters mixed in, but these artists are mostly ’70s babies and George Strait is pushing sixty!
Country music is it’s own animal in the music business, a different beast compared to the worlds of rock, pop and rap. It’s not just that the center of the country universe is Nashville, TN”which is separated from the other great cultural centers by distances both geographic and demographic”though that certainly helps.
The rules are just different, which explains why we don’t see many young stars in the country music world. It’s an interesting phenomenon in that every other genre has embraced the young in full force. Justin Bieber is an extreme example, but an indicative one. Pop has Disney– and Nickelodeon- produced stars and starlets, there are a ton of indie and alternative rock bands fresh out of high school and the convention of kid rappers has long been established.
Maybe it’s because so many country musicians have ground it out as writers before getting big with their own material. Maybe it’s because, up until Swift, country wasn’t directly courting the youth audience. Whatever the reason, McCreery doesn’t have to jump any hurdles and has an ravenous fanbase already built in, just waiting to be exploited.
But is this good news? Country music has crossover appeal built into its DNA; clean vocals relating commonly identifiable themes with a distinctly American sentiment. Many may decry country music and it’s ubiquity in the Top 40 sphere. In a way, country music that we hear on the radio is country music that is closest to it’s roots. Sonically speaking, anyways.
McCreery is going to be interesting to watch because his success may foreshadow the direction country music in the future. Swift wasn’t the first female country performer and she has plenty of peers. She isn’t the reason why Lady Antebellum have become hit makers, she didn’t get Kellie Pickler or Carrie Underwood jobs. And sure, LeAnn Rimes was going multi-platinum and winning Grammys before she could drive. But still, McCreery might be different. Thanks to Scotty, we just might see a countrified Bieber just yet people. Once McCreery is too old for the title himself.