Everyone knows that Bruce Springsteen was born to rock.
But even a certified rock god like the Boss is rolling into country territory now: This week his “Sandpaper” duet with Zach Bryan marks the first time that Springsteen has ever appeared on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart since the New Jersey legend first greeted us from Asbury Park, NJ, on his debut album way back in 1973.
And not only does Springsteen hit No. 26 on the Hot Country Songs chart with his genre- and generation-crossing collaboration from Bryan’s new album, “The Great American Bar Scene,” but he scores his first appearance on the overall Hot 100 tally since 2009.
Bruce Springsteen performed with Zach Bryan at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in March.@barclayscenter/Instagram
Forty years after “Born in the USA,” the man has been revived at the ripe old age of 74.
And the No. 2 on this week’s Hot 100 is Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” the second single by an African-American artist to top both the pop and the country charts this year — after Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ’Em.”
Meanwhile, No. 3 is “I Had Some Help,” Post Malone’s collab with Nashville sensation Morgan Wallen from the “Rockstar” rapper-singer’s upcoming country album “F-1 Trillion,” due Aug. 16.
All we need now is for Kendrick Lamar to do a country remix of his No. 1 hit “Not Like Us.”
But if you look at the Billboard 200 album chart, it’s clear exactly why some unusual suspects are hopping on the country bandwagon. Five of this week’s Top 10 are country LPs: Bryan’s “The Great American Bar Scene” (No.2), Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” (No. 3) and “Dangerous: The Double Album” (No. 6), Shaboozey’s “Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going” (No. 8) and Bryan’s 2023 self-titled set (No. 10).
It’s a country world — and pop is just living in it.
Beyoncé led the charge for black country artists with her “Cowboy Carter” album in 2024.beyonce / Instagram
Of course, 2024’s country game change began when Beyoncé released her “Cowboy Carter” opus in March, putting a new spin — and skin — on the genre that has long been dominated by white artists.
Reforming and ruling over the genre like the Queen B that she is, Bey also spotlighted black country artists who had been previously unheralded — including, yup, Shaboozey on two tracks.
Not so coincidentally, in retrospect, Bey also got down-home with Post Malone on “Levii’s Jeans,” a a slyly sexy ditty on which the two fit surprisingly well together.
Then former One Direction member Zayn Malik — the first one to go solo, before Harry Styles — took a sharp turn into country terrain on his fourth solo album, “Room Under the Stairs,” in May.
Shaboozey followed Beyoncé to the top of both the country and pop charts with “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”REUTERS
No doubt, Malik is just one of the artists who saw just how country stars such as Wallen and Luke Combs — as well as the divisive likes of Jason Aldean and Oliver Anthony — tractor-bulldozed the upper regions of the pop charts in summer 2023.
No less of a pop hitmaker than Ed Sheeran performed with Combs at the 2023 Academy of Country Music Awards and said he would “love to transition” into the genre.
“I love the culture of it, I just love the songwriting,” he told Billboard. “It’s just, like, brilliant songs.”
Earlier this year, Lana Del Rey — the mistress of alt-pop moodiness — announced that she was making a country album called “Lasso.”
Giddy on up, girl.
Post Malone (right) performed with country sensation Morgan Wallen at the Stagecoach Festival in April.Getty Images for Stagecoach
In recent years, artists such as Bryan and Kacey Musgraves — who duetted on the Grammy-winning chart-topper “I Remember Everything” — have blurred the lines between country and pop.
And there is plenty of rustic rootsiness in the music of hot young singer-songwriters such as Noah Kahan — who just headlined two sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden — and the Taylor Swift-cosigned Gracie Abrams.
But one of the biggest signs of the country times is the fact that Jelly Roll — one of the breakout acts in the genre who was nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy this year — actually began his recording career as a rapper in 2011, another lifetime ago.
Long before it was cool for country singers to have tattoos on their faces.
