"Anything But Country"

Every year, Spotify listeners from around the world excitedly wait for the day their “Spotify Wrapped” is out. This greatly anticipated feature on the popular music streaming platform launches once a year on an unreleased date between late November and early December. “Spotify Wrapped” consists of a monthly recap of the listener’s favorite songs, albums, and genres, including the minutes the listener spent listening to music on Spotify, and other features that vary year to year. “Spotify Wrapped” has a large popularity due to the public interest in comparing top artists, genres, and minutes. 

This year, “Spotify Wrapped” came out the morning of December 3, 2025, when I was in my first-period English class. It wasn’t until the period after advisory that I started comparing my results with other students. As a true lover of country music,  my top artist was country/folk artist Noah Kahn, and country artists filled my top songs. 

After sharing my results, the reaction I received was as unexpected as it was hurtful. Multiple students exclaimed a line with similar variations, exclaiming how country music is trash, and they would listen to every genre except for country. While I believe everyone should be entitled to their own opinion, I didn’t understand why country music was the most hated genre. For the rest of the day, whenever I mentioned my Spotify Wrapped, I received the same reaction. 

After getting home, I conducted some research and discovered country music truly is the most hated genre. According to many articles online, many conclude that the reasons are that people believe it to be too repetitive of the same stories, and all country artists sound the same. In many articles, it was said that some people secretly do like country music, but only a select number of songs.  

I am not aware of when society as a whole decided that liking country music, or even just a select few, is embarrassing and should be kept secret. I guess that many people genuinely do enjoy country music to some extent, but do not want to share this personal fact for fear of being shamed. I would not be surprised if many haters of country music secretly don’t hate it as much as they are portraying, but instead hate the genre because that is the norm.

I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and musical taste is very dependent on the person. That is perfectly okay! If you are a person who genuinely dislikes country music, for whatever personal reason, that is perfectly valid. We don’t all need to enjoy and listen to the same kind of music. However, before hating on the entire genre of country music, ask yourself one question. Do I not like country music out of personal opinion, or because of the general society's opinion?