{"id":1307461,"date":"2019-03-30T13:29:25","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T19:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1804560"},"modified":"2019-03-30T13:29:25","modified_gmt":"2019-03-30T19:29:25","slug":"at-29-thomas-rhett-is-re-defining-country-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/music-news\/at-29-thomas-rhett-is-re-defining-country-music\/","title":{"rendered":"At 29, Thomas Rhett is Re-defining Country Music"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:ao:image:cmt.com:670901?width=1200&amp;height=675&amp;.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"byline\">by <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/author\/morrise\/\" title=\"Posts by Edward Morris\" rel=\"author\">Edward Morris<\/a><\/span> <span class=\"date\">31m ago<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Both in the songs he writes and the ones he chooses to record, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/artists\/thomas-rhett\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Thomas Rhett<\/a> has been chipping away at country music stereotypes without actually shattering them. He still sings of drinking too much and loving too hard \u2014 just as Hank Williams did \u2014 but he brings to his work what might be called \u201csuburban sensibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before we plunge into some of Rhett\u2019s deviations from conventional country, let\u2019s pause to wish him a happy 29th birthday today (March 30).<\/p>\n<ul class=\"listicle-container\">\n<li>\n<div class=\"heading-container\">\n<h3 class=\"heading\">\u201cAll-American Middle Class White Boy\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"description-container\">\n<p>In 2014, Rhett opened the New Faces Show at Country Radio Seminar with his good-humored \u201cAll-American Middle Class White Boy.\u201d Humor aside, though, it basically marked the boundaries of his artistic territory. \u201cWe wasn\u2019t rich, but we wasn\u2019t poor\/Lived on a cul-de-sac \u2018til my parents divorced,\u201d he sang. Other than the down-home affectation of saying \u201cwasn\u2019t\u201d when it should have been \u201cweren\u2019t,\u201d he made it plain where he stood\u2013no phony odes to picking cotton, digging coal or begging for bread. Here was a 21st Century kind of guy for 21st Century country music. In case the intro weren\u2019t sufficient to brand him, his lyric later that said he \u201cwent to a private school for a couple of years\u201d certainly made the point.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"heading-container\">\n<h3 class=\"heading\">\u201cDie a Happy Man\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"description-container\">\n<p>So who does he name check in his songs? George? Merle? Waylon? Not hardly. In \u201cDie a Happy Man,\u201d he says, \u201cBetween the bottle of wine and the look in your eye and Marvin Gaye.\u201d Well, were we expecting \u201cBilly Ray?\u201d Rhett alludes to such non-American sites as \u201cthe Northern lights\u201d and \u201cthe Eiffel Tower at night.\u201d Nothing alarming here. People travel these days, you know. And not just to Detroit City.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"heading-container\">\n<h3 class=\"heading\">\u201cUnforgettable\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"description-container\">\n<p>In \u201cUnforgettable,\u201d he croons, \u201cThat mango-rita you were drinkin\u2019\/And that Coldplay song you were singing.\u201d A pretender to country authenticity probably would have said: \u201cthat Conway song you were singing?\u201d What we have here \u2014 dare I say it? \u2014 is a man of wide-ranging references.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"heading-container\">\n<h3 class=\"heading\">\u201cGet Me Some of That\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"description-container\">\n<p>When we arrive at the frisky titled \u201cGet Me Some of That,\u201d we find Rhett making more cracks in the country armor. \u201cYou\u2019re shakin\u2019 that money maker like a heartbreaker, like your college major was twistin\u2019 and tearin\u2019 up Friday nights.\u201d Can you imagine Hank cuddling up to Audrey and asking, \u201cWas your college major honky tonkin\u2019?\u201d All these years later, he might have.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"heading-container\">\n<h3 class=\"heading\">\u201cT-Shirt\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"description-container\">\n<p>In \u201cT-Shirt,\u201d Rhett utters, \u201cYour hair messed up like a Guns N\u2019 Roses video.\u201d In \u201cVacation,\u201d he confides that he\u2019s \u201cGot a couple of bucks, but I\u2019m spending them like pesos \/ Might be Motel Sixing, but it feels like the Turks and Caicos.\u201d Sure, that\u2019s stretching for a rhyme, but think of how many fans he sent scurrying to Google. The man\u2019s an educator.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"heading-container\">\n<h3 class=\"heading\">\u201cLife Changes\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"description-container\">\n<p>Finally, there\u2019s Rhett delightful and autobiographical \u201cLife Changes,\u201d in which he speaks of his \u201ccollege dorm\u201d of \u201cmajoring in undecided\u201d of his wife having \u201ca blue check mark by her Instagram\u201d and of adopting a daughter from Uganda.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What may we expect from this New Country hitmaker next? Thomas Rhett &amp; The Silicon Valley Boys?<\/p>\n<div class=\"author\">\n<div class=\"description\">Edward Morris is a veteran of country music journalism. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a frequent contributor to CMT.com.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/1804560\/at-29-thomas-rhett-is-re-defining-country-music\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: CMT News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Edward Morris 31m ago Both in the songs he writes and the ones he chooses to record, Thomas Rhett has been chipping away at country music stereotypes without actually shattering them. He still sings of drinking too much and loving too hard \u2014 just as Hank Williams did \u2014 but he brings to his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1307461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 01:42:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1307461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1307461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1307461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1307461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}