Johnathan Walker:Beyoncé's Grammy nominations in country categories aren't the first to blur genre lines

In 2007,Johnathan Walker Bon Jovi won its first and only Grammy Award for “Who Says You Can’t Go Home.”

The song, a roots-and-fiddle-inflected anthem from the heretofore guitar-squealing New Jersey rockers, claimed victory not in a rock category, but best country collaboration with vocals. A shrewd update to the album version of the song with country singer Jennifer Nettles, then at her peak with Sugarland, landed the band a No. 1 country song as well as a gilded gramophone.

But Bon Jovi is hardly an outlier when it comes to bending genres at the Grammys – specifically within country categories.

Steven Tyler, Bret Michaels, Cyndi Lauper, Lady Gaga, Elvis Costello and even Tina Turner and Ray Charles tipped a cowboy hat to the genre, while Darius Rucker detoured from Hootie & The Blowfish to carve a sustained career in country.

So here we are in a world of fuzzy aural boundaries with nominees for the 67^th annual Grammy Awards, as Beyoncé, Post Malone, Jelly Roll and Shaboozey hope that a mix-and-match approach to submissions will net a higher win probability.

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Beyoncé blurs the lines between country and pop

“It’s a little bit of blurring the lines for sure, which is exciting,” says Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, of this year’s mega-diverse nominations lineup. “It’s giving the artist a chance to be creative. But we have to acknowledge that now we have voting members who are experts in their genre, so if an artist from one genre comes into another, they’re being evaluated from experts in that genre.”

That said, of Beyoncé’s 11 leading nominations, only two are in pop categories – best pop solo performance (“Bodyguard”) and best pop duo/group performance (“Levii’s Jeans” with Malone). The leadoff hit from “Cowboy Carter,” the boot-scooting “Texas Hold ‘Em,” landed in the general record and song of the year categories but also in best country song. The chameleonic superstar perhaps even more impressively stretched into rap (best melodic rap performance for “Spaghettii featuring Linda Martell and Shaboozey) and Americana (“Ya Ya”).

Does country music have a stay-in-your-lane ethos?

Inevitably, the unmuted mouthpieces on social media will lambast the Grammys for accepting pop artists in country music, particularly Beyoncé – even though “Cowboy Carter” is as much country as her competitors in the best country album category (Kacey Musgraves, Chris Stapleton, Lainey Wilson and Malone, whose transformation we’ll address in a moment).

Of these cross-pollinators, Jelly Roll and Shaboozey emerged as country-rock-hip-hop hybrids, so their assimilation across categories is viewed as authentic. Malone, meanwhile, isn’t tainted with interloper status for reasons known only to algorithms and public consumption.

But the guy who formerly ascended the charts with assists from hip-hop/pop stars 21 Savage, Swae Lee, Ty Dolla $ign and Doja Cat now boasts a No. 1 song (and two Grammy nominations) with country stadium-packer Morgan Wallen, hits with veteran Nashville stalwarts Blake Shelton and Luke Combs, a Stagecoach performance with Brad Paisley this spring and a debut at the Grand Ole Opry in August.

But given Beyoncé’s egregious snubbing at the upcoming CMA Awards, clearly some genre purists abide by an unyielding stay-in-your-lane ethos.

Luke Bryan, the ever-diplomatic co-host of that Nov. 20 show, suggested that perhaps if Beyoncé integrated herself more in the country community – “come to an award show and high-five us and have fun and get in the family, too,” he told Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM “Radio Andy” show – that she might have been welcomed.

“Everybody loved that Beyoncé made a country album,” Bryan said. “But where things get a little tricky ... if you’re going to make country albums, come into our world and be country with us a little bit."

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Shania Twain knows about mixing country with pop

But while the country industry frequently balks at accepting members of the pop brigade, that stigma isn’t reciprocated.

Even before Taylor Swift shifted from glossy twang to a big pop bang with “1989,” Shania Twain spent a decade blazing charts and breaking records in both genres.

The combination of Twain’s own savvy and the production from then-husband Robert John “Mutt” Lange, who adeptly married metal with mainstream for Def Leppard and AC/DC, led to pop Twain smashes including "That Don’t Impress Me Much,” “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” and “You’re Still the One.”

But even Twain, a revered queen in country, felt the sting of fickle fans at the 2023 CMT Awards after rapper Megan Thee Stallion presented her with the Equal Play honor and Gwen Stefani and Alanis Morissette performed their own classics – “Just a Girl” and “You Oughta Know,” respectively” – in her honor. 

“Pop has accepted guest vocals or duets with country artists,” Twain told USA TODAY in a 2023 interview. “I don’t know why it can work for one genre and not the other.”

Perhaps this year’s Grammy nominations will spur a shift.