Maren Morris Announces She's Leaving Country Music: ‘It’s Burning Itself Down'

glamour.com:

is taking “a step back” from country music after years of from inside the industry. “I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over,” Morris told in a candid new interview. “But it’s burning itself down without my help.”For starters, the 33-year-old Grammy-winner will now release music through Columbia Records instead of their Nashville branch. “Obviously, being that had any success on country radio, everything you do is looked at under a microscope,” Morris explained. “You’re scrutinized more than your male peers, even when you’re doing well.

So I’ve had to clear all of that out of my head this year and just write songs. A lot of the drama within the community, I’ve chosen to step outside out of it.”Morris says she became disillusioned with the industry after presidency. “After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display," she said. "It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic.

All these things were being celebrated, and it was weirdly dovetailing with this hyper-masculine branch of country music. I call it butt rock.”Most recently, Morris at Jason Aldean's , “Try That in a Small Town,” just a year after , Brittany Aldean, for transphobic comments in 2022.

Morris argues the song's popularity is more about identity politics than music. “People are streaming these songs out of spite,” she told the LA Times.