Thomas Rhett, Chris Lane and the Changing Specificity of Lyrical References

In the world of country music marketing, there are a few artists who stand out in their direct association with an object or idea. The thing that casual fans immediately think of when that artists’ name comes up. Luke Bryan has his skin-tight jeans, Eric Church has his aviator sunglasses, Luke Combs has a red solo cup (sorry Toby Keith), Morgan Wallen has his signature mullet, and Thomas Rhett has...his wife and family. Clearly, one of these associations is not like the others.

While country music has always featured love songs written about the special individuals in artists’ lives, especially with the recent prominent couples of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill and Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert, no one has quite marketed their relationship as well as Thomas Rhett. His ability to incorporate the story of meeting his now wife Lauren in the second grade and pursuing her unsuccessfully until marrying when they were twenty-two, has taken him to country music superstardom. In fact, I met a girl at a bar last week and when I asked if she liked Thomas Rhett when one of his songs came on, she replied “yes his wife and kids are so cute.” There was no comment on his music. Her evaluation, and subsequent fandom, was almost solely based on his reputation as a great father and family man. That conversation made very clear to me just how successful Rhett’s marketing is, which makes it no surprise that it is now being mimicked in the genre.

Last week, Chris Lane released a video showing him and his girlfriend in her parent’s backyard listening to a new song, with him then proceeding to propose. The video, shown below, was the first chance for his fans to hear the upcoming song titled “Big, Big Plans.” The video has over 2 million views in the week since it’s been posted, and the comment section is filled with (mostly women) gushing over how beautiful the proposal was. Multiple comments even mentioned how the video made them cry. This is the exact same marketing recipe that Thomas Rhett’s camp leverages so successfully and will undoubtedly work for Chris Lane as well. See, Chris Lane’s now fiancé is also named Lauren, except they didn’t meet in the second grade. Chris Lane’s Lauren is Lauren Bushnell, the high-profile former contestant of the hit ABC show, The Bachelor.

As a participant in the 20th season of The Bachelor, Lauren Bushnell “won” the season and got engaged to that season’s bachelor, Ben Higgins. Unfortunately for the couple, they called off their marriage and split up just one year later. This sent shockwaves through The Bachelor community and only further propelled Bushnell to celebrity status. Given this situation, Chris Lane was not just proposing to anyone. He proposed to a well-known celebrity with an established fan base of her own, and this was obviously factored into the decision of the creation of this video and song. In fact, in a world where social media followers are seen as a form of currency, Bushnell’s account dwarfs that of Chris Lane as she has 1.2 million Instagram followers to his 600,000. Her celebrity plays right into the marketing of the song, which is a 3 minute and 7 second self-proclaimed love letter to her and will likely become one of his most successful.

Before I continue, let me be very, very clear. In no way, shape, or form am I insinuating that Chris Lane’s intentions with his fiancé Lauren are anything but genuine. I’m sure that they have a great relationship and I wish them nothing but the best in their impending marriage. The same goes for Thomas Rhett. Rather, I am insinuating that their plan to market their personal lives is directly affecting their music; and can likely be explained logically by looking at the criticism of the genre from the last decade.

The Past's Mark on the Future

Way back in August of 2013, Luke Bryan released the song “Dirt Road Diary” off his album Crash My Party. For whatever reason, I have a specific memory of hearing the second verse for the very first time and questioning the line “if it wasn’t the boys it was me and her / by fire in a field or down on a river.” At the time I was extremely thrown off that the “her” was used as a pronoun in ambiguity instead of naming someone specific. Since the song is about the narrator’s memories, perhaps a name was excluded to implicitly suggest there were many girls throughout the narrator’s memories. Yet still, this lack of specificity stuck with me. Not surprisingly, I was not the only one wondering about this issue of vagueness.

This decade of country music has been dubbed the “Bro-Country" era and regardless of how I feel about this name, the criticisms encapsulated within it are valid and pertinent to the rise of Thomas Rhett’s style. The criticism of the early 2010s can be efficiently summed up by Grady Smith’s YouTube video titled, “Why Country Music Was Awful in 2013.” While the title is harsh, it went viral because of its validity and undeniable evidence that mainstream country music was repetitive and lacked substance that year. One section of the video, beginning at minute 2:54, condemned the use of the phrase “girl” in so many of the popular tracks from that year. As shown by the compilation, this was used heavily by artists that year and functioned just the same as the ambiguous ‘girl’ in Luke Bryan’s “Dirt Road Diary.” This specific issue of country songs demeaning women even led to the polarizing yet popular protest song, “Girl In A Country Song” by Maddie & Tae.

Given this, I find it absolutely no surprise that today in 2019, we see a plethora of songs praising and even idolizing women as a direct response to the criticism of the last few years. To name just a few examples, there is “Woman, Amen” by Dierks Bentley, “Good as You” by Kane Brown and “Look What God Gave Her” by none other than Thomas Rhett. This trend is very logically addressing the shortcomings of the songwriting of the past few years. Yet the Thomas Rhett song on that list takes this idea even further and given the marketing of his wife discussed earlier, allows even the casual fan to understand that song was written about his wife Lauren. Thomas Rhett’s marketing and specific lyrical references to his wife and kids tackled multiple issues and created a template for success in today’s market. The songs not only praise women, they praise a specific woman and the family they are raising together. Their direct references, sometimes by name, addresses the second “Bro-Country” criticism of having the “girl in the country song” go nameless. With the response Rhett has received, people clearly appreciate this and there it is no surprise artists like Chris Lane are attempting to do the same thing.

Reflecting and Moving Forward

While Thomas Rhett’s synergy of marketing and song writing has allowed him to become one of the genre’s most successful artists, his style has not come without its fair share of criticism. Ignoring the large group of traditionalists who condemn the undeniable aspects of pop music in his records, there are plenty of individuals who disagree with the promotion of his personal life. They see him as comparably a less talented artist than others, but one who has seen way more accolades because he markets his family so well. Likely, this group will not be pleased with Chris Lane’s recent efforts to copy this technique and probably feel there are many artists more deserving of this attention based on talent alone, as opposed to having a celebrity engagement. While I understand where this viewpoint stems from, and certainly agree there are many deserving artists who should also be awarded more exposure, there are a few other things to consider.

To begin with, in my opinion it is entirely valid to criticize Chris Lane’s promotion of “Big, Big Things” through the proposal video since it is essentially taking advantage of the situation to endorse the song. However, I think this comes with an important stipulation. This criticism must exist simultaneously with the acknowledgement that there is a large market for this kind of marketing, and the strategy has clear precedence for success. For a young artist like Chris Lane, who has had a very up and down career, this could be the move that puts him over the edge and firmly establishes his fan base. The subset of fans ready to engulf this kind of content could lead to more radio play, streams, a bigger tour and ultimately huge revenue increases. Empathetically, it is easy to understand why Lane decided to take this route, especially if it had been suggested by his label. Furthermore, other artists will likely attempt to employ this same strategy because currently the market embraces it. I am in complete agreement that there are more talented artists who would offer better content to the genre, but that discussion is for another time. As of now, one doesn’t have to like “Big, Big Plans,” but you should recognize that Lane is simply catering to the current marketplace. Until that changes, him and other artists will continue to follow that path to mainstream success.

Finally, I believe there is an alternative benefit to artists leveraging their personal lives to gain traction in the genre. In order to have the success seen by Thomas Rhett in referencing one’s personal narrative, the story has to be specific to that artist. I am a firm believer that music written by the performer more frequently leads to quality content. So many of the albums distributed through Nashville’s music row only include a small number of songs written by the artist themselves, and personally I feel this negatively impacts a record. Country music was created on the foundation of storytelling, and I believe that if more mainstream artists look to tell more of their own stories, we could see their increased involvement in the writing process lead to better outcomes for the genre.

As always, I am interested to hear what others think about this topic so feel free to let your thoughts be heard in the comment section below.