Where is Roots/Americana Music Going in 2025?
Here's what I'm thinking is coming for us in a year of massive change and upheaval.
Was I right about 2024?
At the start of this year, I made a list of predictions for where I saw Roots/Trad music going in the year. Not all of them came true, fortunately or unfortunately. Here’s that Substack and let’s see how I did:
-2024 Prediction: Regional Mexican will change Country Music: Well no I guess not, country is still too racist for this. But a much better journalist than I, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, did track some of this trend in 2024.
-2024 Prediction: AI Will Take Over - this one is trickier to measure. Certainly AI took over a lot of things last year and will continue to do so. Marketing and publicity is now AI powered in part, music journalism somewhat too. Spotify of course going full AI on major playlists this year if not last year too.
-2024 Prediction: Resurgence of Indigenous Musicians - yes absolutely this is happening, and it’s coupled with a resurgence of endangered Indigenous languages. Hopefully we’ll see a lot more of this this year!
-2024 Prediction: Year of the Black Banjo - well, it should have been! I think the rise of New Dangerfield in 2025 will help a lot.
-2024 Prediction: Bluegrass Wakes Up - ehhh maybe not that much. We’ll see what bluegrass does when faced with a Trump administration.
-2024 Prediction: TikTok Domination - definitely continuing, we’ll see what happens IF the app gets banned.
-2024 Prediction: Autotune in trad music - sadly not in 2024! Maybe 2025 is the year? Doubt it!
What to Expect from Roots/Americana in 2025?
Here’s what I’m predicting for 2025, and spoiler, it’s not super positive. Hopefully I’m wrong about a lot of this and we all have a great year for music (and just in generally), but I’m not so sure…
Protest Music? Think Again. 2025 is the Year of Living Locally
You’d think with a fascist coming into power as the American president that we’d have a renaissance era of protest music coming, but I don’t think so. I think the American left (and center) is too exhausted from the past fights, and I think we’re starting to realize that part of the reason the far right is rising is because they exist to respond in fury to any liberal protest. Without liberals to hate, the right will eat itself. I’m working on a large feature article on the roots of today’s Americana in radical folk punk music from 2005-2015. I’m interviewing a lot of radical activists for this and asking their advice for this next term. Every one of them is saying the same thing we’re all thinking. Look to your own community, to your home. You will find no hope or help from the government, so let’s build a system of support for our immediate communities. I predict a lot less traveling in 2025, a lot less social media, a lot more real connections, a lot more radical community building.
Bye Bye Social Media
Speaking of, the easiest prediction for 2025 is the fall of social media. With Meta taking a hard far right turn now, and X already on record for changing the election through propagandizing for the right, there’s not much left for anyone from the center to the left in Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Bluesky isn’t the social media solution, as we’ll find, and TikTok might get banned. Instead, I’m looking at email newsletters and emailing, maybe text chains, to build community. It’s not like it matters, both Meta and Twitter were already on the way out, that’s why they turned right. Meta’s turn to the right is mainly to make sure the government kills TikTok. I mean Zuckerberg justlost like $40 billion dollars on some dumb VR scheme, so how can we say this is a well run business? Already barely a single person under 25 is on Facebook. Sure, they’re on Instagram, but that platform is less and less fun to use by the day and creatives getting burned out working in Meta’s content mines for free, then having their product drowned by boring algorithms. A change is coming, friends, don’t bet on Meta!
Hello FBI Surveillance!
OK this one makes me sound a little crazy, but I won’t be surprised if we start hearing rumors of FBI surveillance by the end of this year for activist artists. Don’t believe me? Read this piece. I’ve seen this happen in person. I’ve seen a line of cops in riot gear march into a free folk music festival surrounded by thousands of happy dancing people just so they can intimidate a band they believed had ties to the radical left.
Jesus is Coming to Nashville, Americana Takes A Right Turn
I JUST noticed this trend today, so I’m not 100% sure, but I’m feeling the Praise Jesus world sneaking up on Americana from behind. Sierra Ferrell’s turn to Jesus I think is the first domino to fall, and we may be looking at more to come as well. Even if I’m wrong about Jesus infiltrating the Americana scene, I suspect we’ll see Americana take a right turn starting this year. For years, I and many others have pushed Americana hard towards a progressive bent, but I’m just not seeing as many music journalists or radio folks who are engaged with that kind of work right now, and I’m not even seeing many bands or publicists promoting artists with deeply progressive or challenging perspectives. At least not to the degree we used to see like 4-5 years ago. All this is adding up to a likely turn towards the slightly conservative, or definitely a turn away from any kind of identity politics. I just don’t think there’s enough critical mass left in Americana to keep out the genericization of the genre and the rightist political wave coming on the horizon. I hope I’m wrong though!
Far Fewer Albums will be Released
Already the first quarter of 2025 is like a graveyard. Eerily quiet. I’m struggling to find enough albums to review for my monthly 5-album-review column for Songlines Magazine. Part of this comes from the state of the music industry. I think it was John Strohm that pioneered the idea of sitting on albums while building social media and fan reach. It worked amazingly well for Billy Strings and Sierra Ferrell, and I’m seeing it now for a lot of up-and-coming Americana artists. Another big issue is that music publicity costs more than ever and can only deliver less than before (because of so many journalists out of work and media outlets closing). Also, Spotify and streaming playlists have heavily prioritized single releases and artist are getting us to focusing on singles over albums. And then finally, it’s just hard to release fun music when the world is literally burning to the ground.
Climate Change Will Be a Huge Issue? Or Not?
Ok well this one is obvious, what with the massive, horrific Los Angeles fires burning right now. But what’s strange is that in 2024 I struggled very hard to find artists actually talking about climate change for my end of year essay. Maybe I missed a lot of key folks in roots and Americana but I don’t think so? My big hope is that we can look beyond some of the immediate divisions that are keeping many people from looking at the larger picture. Climate change has become pretty much impossible to ignore in 2025, though of course the government under Trump will do everything possible to deny, deny, deny.
More Folk Protest Songs about Insurance Companies
Just hearing that insurance companies in Los Angeles were canceling fire policies a few weeks before the fires makes me sure that we’ll get more great folk protest songs about insurance companies like this one.
African Artists Take Over Americana & Country
I know I havent’ talked much about actual new music trends in roots and Americana, my bad! But one thing I’ve been watching is a really cool wave of African artists making change in Roots, Country, and Americana music. From the soft folk songwriting of Liberian born Mon Rovîa, to Americana darling (and charming raconteur) Jon Muq, to heck Shaboozey who was born to Nigerian parents in the US. I mean, did you know Shaboozey comes from his last name Chibueze which means “God is King” in Igbo? I didn’t! I could be off on this one and maybe 2024 was the year for this? I’ve been bad at tracking this one, but something’s happening for sure and hopefully it’ll come to a head this year!
My First Articles of 2025!
Got a few articles just coming in for 2025! Ok well one is from November but I feel like I just saw it this month lol. More to come for sure!
Songlines Magazine’s Fireside Stories:
Cathy Fink and Ola Belle Reed
I got Cathy to tell a great story about her seeking out Ola Belle Reed and bringing her to a women’s festival! I loved this story when I first heard it years ago and wanted to get it in print for sure.
Feature Article on Agalisiga “Chuj” Mackey’s Cherokee Country Songs for No Depression
Got to interview and write about one of my favorite artists of 2024, Cherokee singer and songwriter Agalisiga “Chuj” Mackey.
Here’s some great music I’ve been enjoying:
Spanish Galician anarcho-folk-trad band Sangre De Muerdago put out a killer album of early music from 2023.
I’ve listened to crust punk folk music for years without ever listening to actual crust punk. Amebix is my new religion.
Sunny War got me into The Dicks. They’re great!
Totally missed this one in 2023, but Olympia based ethnolinguist Barrett Martin put together an amazing album of field recordings from Neets’aii Gwich’in artists in Alaska’s Arctic Village. Really fascinating look at how tradition and climate change protest can intertwine.
Serious question: Autotune is a good thing?