Traditional country music fans say it's not country and it certainly isn't George Jones. But what they now call country music is doing better than other music genres during the pandemic, at least when it comes to streaming.
Texas Tech pop culture Professor Rob Weiner says country music has changed.
"Country music has kind of become the new pop."
Professor Weiner says it's killing artists of all genres to not be able to tour.
"The days of million, trillion sellers are over in terms of music and they rely on the concerts for the merchandising -- that's where they sell their CDs."
Professor Weiner says artists don't make much from streaming services like Spotify.
"They don't get a whole lot of money from streaming services like Pandora and Spotify; I don’t know if it's helping them financially."
Professor Weiner says country lyrics are about universal themes to which we all can relate.