I’m no expert but you might like hick-hop and not country music. Again, no expert here but I grew up being forced to listen to country and it wasn’t these guys. I’ll understand if my opinion isn’t accepted, do what you will.

Maybe check out Orville Peck. A good country artist for non country lovers like me.

I like country music when I’m doing home canning because it feels like it fits the project. Otherwise I’m ambivalent towards it. Mother use to play it quite a bit, so it’s whatever she’d listen to in the 90s/00s.

People shit on country, but there’s good stuff there. A lot of good stuff, and if you avoid the usual country radio side of things, it gets even better.

Jelly Roll is for sure a damn fine gateway into it. He’s hip-hop informed country, with some soul and r&b in there. Which, there’s a lot of interaction between those genres that isn’t obvious, but that’s tangential. But, yeah, Jelly is the current forefront of a new take on country that leans more towards “outlaw” country than Nashville formula.

Willie, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, that’s what I think of as the holy trinity of outlaw country. Yeah, Waylon is there, but he isn’t quite as accessible to non country fans.

Orville Peck. He’s doing fairly traditional country style, but with a modern outlook. Right now, he’s as good a gateway to country as Jelly is, imo. And you’ve got direct hip-hop-county fusion out there called hick-hop, as well as stuff like gangstagrass that leans more hip-hop than country.

But even within the standard Nashville cookie cutter stuff, there’s gold to find, once you know what you really like.

You can also edge out into bluegrass and folk-country and find some incredible music that defies genres in terms of the songwriting.

You said you aren’t sure if it’s country changing, or you. It’s both. Country has opened up huge the last decade, with a lot of non traditional stuff being successful (check out The Dead South as a great example). When someone realizes that a genre contains things they do like, when their previous exposure was not enjoyable, it opens up the mind to explore more, so they’ll find the stuff that isn’t on the radio and discover that the genre (any genre) is more than what is easy to find.

And we all change over time. Twenty years ago, I wasn’t in the same place as I am now, so songs I didn’t like then hit different now.

Fwiw, the last two songs you mentioned are dead perfect examples of Nashville cookie cutter radio trash. Ngl though, as good as I once was hits a lot better for me as I age, and it is catchy as hell. Toby Keith low key sucks though.

But don’t worry about it. Maybe you’ll hear more that you like, maybe you don’t. But it’s always a fun ride to explore something you didn’t like before. I recently found some jazz that works for me, and I had spent decades actively disliking most of what I heard. Turns out I just don’t like horns in my jazz. So, now I’m exploring stuff that isn’t horn heavy, or lacks it entirely, and it turns out I like jazz.

It seems you’re liking a lot of songs that are fusions of modern pop and country music. I don’t have anything else to recommend in this vein, but this year I’ve gotten into some country fusion groups that blend genres you wouldn’t expect. You might check these out:

Charley Crockett - Country underpinned by blues, jazz, and funk. I highly recommend the album In The Night.

Rattlesnake Milk - country music meets surf rock.

Paul Cauthen - country music meets gospel, funk, and at times electronic. I’ve really enjoyed his recent album Black on Black and I’d recommend the title track or “Hot Damn” but don’t miss out on older songs like “Cocaine Country Dancing” and “Holy Ghost Fire”

Old Town Road by Lil Nas X is not country music. There’s not a single acoustic guitar in there at all.

Give Dixon Dallas a listen.