One Liner: Significantly more pop than country for a Nashville star
Poster Position: Top Quarter - Line 3
Weekend One Only.
Friday.
Thoughts: Her biggest song, by miles, is that ubiquitously overplayed EDM song from Zedd called "The Middle." That is not her normal mode in the slightest - she is normally Nashville country, not pop belting over clicks and clacks. Although, now that I am listening to her second-most popular song, it is probably more R&B-seeming than country. Maybe I am wrong about her schtick. I just remember one of her older songs being pretty great (but straight country) and so I assumed I knew the score.
Her debut album was 2017's HERO, and that was the only music that was available back in 2016 when she was last at ACL Fest. In my review back then, I noted that her most popular song was called "80s Mercedes," a poppy, auto-tuned thing that, despite myself, I found myself kind of toe-tapping along with. But the big hit from that album, with 20.4 million streams in 2016 and now 226.6 million in 2025, is a pretty darned good track tying church to listening to music in your car. I like this one, called "My Church."
Excellent song. I like the sound, the imagery, the tunefulness, and her voice a lot. However, I'll admit that the rest of the album leaves me less excited. The tunes span too wide of a sound, leaving me unsure if I'm listening to Rhianna ("Sugar" or "How It's Done"), Jessica Simpson ("80s Mercedes"), Sheryl Crow ("I Wish I Was"), Kelly Clarkson ("Second Wind") or Kacey Musgraves ("My Church") at any given time. And then there's "Rich," which reminds me of Lorde, except it ain't funny like "Royals" was. I can't say I care for the rest of the album as much as I do the hit. It makes me curious as to what her live sound is like - does she bring drum machines and synths, or does she countrify all of the tunes for the stage?
She's a Dallas girl, born and raised in Arlington. Her mom named her after an actress who was in Battlestar Gallactica. Her parents owned an Aveda hair salon, where she spent a lot of time and worked growing up. She started performing as a teen and toured throughout Texas, releasing independent albums. As a late teen, she auditioned for and was rejected by American Idol, America's Got Talent, The Voice, and Nashville Star. That is sort of amazing and just shows how fickle those shows can be to reject someone who has now been listed in Billboard's top 100 country artists of all time. Sooner or later, with the encouragement of friend Kacey Musgraves, she moved to Nashville to chase her dreams and apparently inject her lips with significant amounts of filler. HERO was a big success, with three total songs charting for her, but then it was the 2018 collaboration with Zedd that launched her into the stratosphere. 1.6 BILLION streams.
Her second album was released in 2019. Girl featured her biggest non-EDM streamer overall - "The Bones" - which has 486.6 million streams.
I actually reviewed her 2022 album, and you can hear some of the same echoes in this review as I have just thought through above. "Maren Morris - Humble Quest. This one has been in my queue for so long that it is starting to feel like an old classic that I have always known. I will readily admit that I don't love Maren Morris - or at least my mind has always registered her name with some disappointment. Like, I get that I am supposed to like her, but then I listen to anything beyond "My Church" and it isn't there for me. But I will admit that this album has adjusted that perception some. She's got a great voice and some clever lyrics in here. Frequently not a country album, like the piano pop of "The Furthest Thing," and sometimes she straight up sounds like an R&B singer from some classic Jive album ("Tall Guys"), but overall I suppose you would call this country. "Tall Guys" is an ode to how great a tall man is, which very much seems like a country singer topic, but the delivery just feels like we are listening to something by early P!nk. "Good Friends" is a fine tune. "Detour" sounds like something she might have released with The Highwomen. But the stream king is the opener, an ode to the aimlessness of life in your small hometown as you try to write hits to get you somewhere else. "Circles Around This Town," with 32.8 million streams [now up to 43.5 in 2025].
Something about her glamming as she sings bugs the crap out of me, like she's trying to emphasize the shape of her lips more than the shape of the words. But I like the song. Overall, I enjoyed the whole album. I am surprising myself with liking traditional Nashville country ladies recently."
She had been married to singer-songwriter Ryan Hurd for a while, but they finalized their divorce in 2024. After that, Morris came out as bi-sexual. I can't decide if that makes the divorce easier or harder.
And then, I had not realized that she released a new album last month in May 2025. D R E A M S I C L E (which was very annoying to type out) doesn't appear to have caught the world on fire with streams. 5 of the songs are still under a million streams, and only one has more than 4 million. And I also do not love it. Just a pure pop album now, for my mind. Ah, I looked it up, and it was partially produced by Jack Antonoff. So, she's making the Taylor Swift album of pop sheen and 80's synths. Not for me, and I wouldn't keep any of it around.
I'll be elsewhere during the Fest for sure - waiting for Cage or Hozier, watching Dr. Dog or King Princess. So the pop country stylings of Ms. Morris can go to someone else.
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