In the past 12 months the country music scene has exploded: in the US, it accounted for more than a third of streams of the top 50 songs on Spotify last year; in the UK, according to the Country Music Association, “consumption was 40 per cent up on 2022”.
Shania Twain is playing Glastonbury and headlining a 65,000-capacity British Summer Time concert in July. Lana del Rey covered John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads, signposting her next album, Lasso, while the latest TikTok phenomenon is Austin by Dasha, a track that has singlehandedly sparked a line dancing revival. And at January’s fashion shows Louis Vuitton sent fringed leather jackets and chaps down the catwalk.
This week Beyoncé unveils her eagerly awaited country
