Photo illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images

As I scrolled through the 2025 Grammy nominations this morning, I came across the expected candidates: Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX. At the very least, I recognized the names of almost every artist mentioned; I laughed when I saw Khruangbin, the psychedelic funk trio that’s been vibrating since 2010, nominated for Best New Artist, and grinned when I saw Jacob Collier, one of those jazz wunderkinds that only the boomer Grammy voters seem to listen to. However, there was one big name I didn’t recognize: Teddy Swims.

Teddy Swims, nominated for Best New Artist, is a singer-songwriter from Georgia who makes blue-eyed soul. He looks like Travis Kelce Lil Wayne-ified, at least in the first photo that appears on Google Images: a gruff, bearded Southerner with face tattoos, chains and a grill. He also resembles Post Malone, who in his quest to fully enter Nashville this year, traded Young Thug and 21 Savage for Morgan Wallen in his collaborative lineup. You know who else looks like Post Malone? Last year’s Best New Artist nominee Jelly Roll, the country rap sensation from Tennessee with a cross tattooed on his cheek. They’re all rugged white guys embraced by the country establishment — both Teddy Swims and Posty will perform at the 2024 Country Music Awards — even as they cross genres and claim rap aesthetics. And they are very popular.

The narrative emerging from the 2024 Grammys in February is that women now rule pop music. They still dominate the 2025 nominations, with eleven nods going to Beyoncé and seven to both Billie Eilish and Charli XCX. Mainstream music discourse has focused on female artists like Charli, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, who create sassy songs about the joys of sexually liberated women. But the charts told a different story. While critics declared this year the “summer of girl doll,” men were in command Billboard “Top 100” — in June, only Sabrina Carpenter and Billie Eilish made the “Top 10,” while Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” took the top spot.

This year has been a huge one for working-class men in rural areas, or at least for artists who claim that aesthetic and pretend to be lonely drunks whose only friend is their pickup truck. Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” just became the longest-running No. 1 single of the decade, tied only with Morgan Wallen’s 2023 hit “Last Night.” (Wallen, whose numerous controversies include the N-word saying on camera and including violating it SNL‘s COVID protocols, was rejected by the Recording Academy last year and just received his first Grammy nomination.) Take a close look at the Billboard charts and you’ll find guys you probably have too that I’ve never heard of, like Koe Wetzel, a Texas country rock singer who just uploaded a hunting video to YouTube. Even Beyoncé, the most Grammy-nominated musician of all time, has tried to channel this anti-establishment spirit into Cowboy Carter. Country is everywhere, and everyone tries to appear blue-collar. Think of the camouflage hats that were first Chappell Roan merchandise and then symbols of the Harris/Walz political campaign, or Lana Del Rey and Quavo’s Lana Del Rey/Quavo collaboration, “Tough,” in which Lana—now married to an alligator— Louisiana travel guide – crons about guns, leather boots and ‘red-dirt attitude’. We’ll be back next year, but for now it seems the culture is going south.