Dolly Parton On Whether She’s Still Considered Country: “I Do So Many Things, Sometimes I Wonder”

Dolly Parton doesn't think she's a country music artist anymore? In the modern era of non-country artists dipping into the genre, it can sometimes be confusing to define and categorize what is and isn't country music. That being said, there should be no doubt whatsoever that Dolly Parton is a country music star - and a legendary one at that. However, during a recent interview with CBS Mornings, Parton herself said she wasn't so sure as she talked about her new children's book Billy The Kid Comes Home for Christmas. Before the topic got to a recent country music accomplishment of hers, Dolly first talked about what inspired her new book:

"Of course, I love family… especially I love being home for the holidays. And to my knowledge, I’ve never missed a Christmas. But I’ve missed Thanksgiving and I've missed a lot of other holidays.

I try my best to be home for Christmas, but when you’re in show business you have to (go when) they call. It’s so important though - for the holidays - to try your best to be home with family and friends."

Following that very sweet sentiment about being home for the holiday season, the Billboard rankings that came out at the end of November came up in conversation. In case you didn't know, Dolly Parton was named the number one country artist of all time. That's a title that Dolly is certainly deserving of, though she admitted that she was taken back when she heard the news: "Well I was shocked, to be honest. I was surprised. I was in good company with Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn and all those wonderful people. I've been at this a long, long time - for 60 years - and people kind of know who I am. I've had the great opportunity, more than some, to be able to be in movies and to do television and to do a lot of other things that a lot of the country artists might not get a chance to do. I was very honored and very humbled by it." She's a national treasure. Dolly continued by saying she was very grateful to hold the title of "Number One Country Artist of All Time." However, there are some days where she questions if she's even still considered a country music artist: "I do so many things, sometimes I wonder if I’m still considered a country artist. Although I’m a country girl, I’ve had the chance to do things like my rock album and movies and things I've done. I wasn't sure, and I didn't even know there was such a category or that I was going to be voted for it, but I was very proud and honored more than anything." If Dolly Parton isn't country, then up is down and left is right. The 78-year-old living legend is country music personified if you ask me, and I think most people would be in agreement with me on that one. As she conceded herself, Dolly has tested out the waters of other genres, as she did in her latest Rockstar album. Bringing that up also summoned the tried-and-true question about other artists coming into country music, like how Beyonce did with Cowboy Carter (which included a modified version of Parton's "Jolene"). A lot of country music artists have been asked a variation of that question, but let's see what the "Number One Country Artist of All Time" had to say about it: "Well, I figured if I can do a rock album… others can do country music. I think if you’re an artist, and you have a desire to cover… the whole spectrum of music and art, I really think you should have the opportunity to do that. I’m always welcoming any of the people that want to be country, and I take it as a great compliment to those people who want to be a part of our world. I know I want to be part of their world at times… I think it should be accepted as that."

Dolly Parton has spoken.

I think it's safe to say that Dolly Parton is a country music artist, but it is interesting to hear how she views herself and her career as, "Am I still country?" You can hear more from the incomparable Dolly Parton in the interview below: https://twitter.com/CBSMornings/status/1864312576512774285

Founding Member Of The Village People Says He’s Open To Performing “YMCA” At Donald Trump’s Inauguration

This has to happen now, right? Donald Trump made the 1970s hit "YMCA" by the Village People one of the theme songs of his 2024 presidential campaign, with the Republican presidential candidate ending each rally by doing his signature dance to the song. You've no doubt seen the "Trump dance," which he actually started doing during his 2020 campaign, by now: https://twitter.com/CalebJHull/status/1316183819356123136 Is it the only dance Trump knows, or is at least willing to do publicly? Apparently. Is it pretty simple? Sure. But after Trump's win over Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2o24 presidential election, it's become a cultural phenomenon. Trump supporters in the NFL have started doing the Trump dance in celebration, a move that the league was questioned about and confirmed would not draw a penalty for being a "political statement." And UFC champ Jon Jones even did the Trump dance in front of the man himself after his win at UFC 309. https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1858267401533714552 Back in 2020, Victor Willis, the lead singer of the Village People and the co-writer of YMCA actually asked the Trump campaign to stop using the song at their rallies, but changed his tune after he saw the popularity of the tune thanks to the new attention put it on by the presidential candidate. And it seems that Willis has now fully embraced the phenomenon that it's become. During an interview with Fox News, Willis explained his about-face on Trump's use of the song: "I decided to allow the President-Elect's continued use of YMCA because he seems to genuinely like the song... He seemed to be bringing so much joy to the American people with his use of YMCA." And Willis even said that he was open to performing the song for Trump's inauguration - though he's previously admitted that he supported Kamala Harris during the election: "Because the President-Elect has done so much for YMCA, and brought so much joy to so many people - the song has actually gone back to #1 and it's still #1 today - so if he were to ask Village People to perform the song live for him, we'd have to seriously consider it." Of course Trump has put his own spin on the dance that was made so famous by the band, but Willis says he doesn't mind that either: "That's the Trump thing. When we do the show we spell out the letters, but when he does it he just does his little move and that's his move. And it works for him and that's what's important." Honestly, it's kind of refreshing to hear an artist who admitted that he doesn't support Trump politically take the position that Willis has. So many artists get upset when a political candidate or someone they don't agree with uses their music, but does anybody really think the Village People are endorsing Trump by letting him use YMCA? Of course not. It's a fun song, it's a song everybody knows, and Trump made the song and dance his thing. It's not any deeper than that - and it sounds like Willis is just fine with that. Though I'm sure the bigger royalty checks rolling in haven't hurt either... https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1864734930095476944

Anyone Else Love The Trend Of Kids Pranking Their Parents By Sending Them Christmas Cards From Families They’ve Never Met?

Gotta keep mom and dad on their toes. Nothing beats "the most wonderful time of the year." The holiday season is all about giving gifts, spending time with friends and family, and eating inordinate amounts of food (and drinking an equal amount of alcohol if you are into that). And while you are spending time with family, it never hurts to pull a little prank every once in a while. Obviously the saying is "respect your elders," but occasionally you have to change that around to "confuse the hell out of your elders." For the sake of the meme, of course. Which brings us to the trend that has really taken off over the past couple of years of kids pulling a fast one on their parents by sending them a Christmas card from a family that either a) doesn't exist or b) the parents have never met. It has quickly become my favorite thing on the internet, and there's a multitude of hilarious examples. Christmas cards are a bit of a dying breed, are they not? I feel like the younger generation just posts a picture on Instagram and/or Facebook and calls it good. I remember how big of a deal they used to be back in the day though. Posing for a family picture in Christmas garb - usually in July - so you could have the cards ready to roll by the Holidays was a right of passage. Though it was definitely something valued more by the older generation, which is why I think this pranking trend has such a high success rate. If someone is going to take the time to put together a card, write a personal note in it, include a gift card, and send it your way... you should probably know who it's from. Here's one variation that I saw pop up on my social media feed: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCTKb4YO_ib/ I think including the gift card is really what sends the parents into a tizzy. Because like I said, you don't just get a gift card for everyone around the holidays. There's a fine line somewhere amongst the people that you know that categorizes them as either "gift worthy" or "Christmas card worthy." If someone gives you a $50 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory, you should probably know that someone. That's the beauty of the prank though. It's relatively harmless, the people being pranked come out ahead since they get a gift card, and the prankster can keep the prank-ees on the line for as long as you want them to suffer in confusion. And there's easy access to the joke. All you have to do is find a Christmas card filled with strangers out on the internet, print it out, and stick it in a believable envelope. Like these people did:

@uptin♬ original sound - Uptin

@maryclarelacke they were at this for 18 minutes but edited down to 5 😭 i’m still crying #fakechristmascard #fakechristmascardprank #prankonparents #funny #comedy #christmas ♬ original sound - maryclarelacke

@julahaus IM CRYING #prank #parents #fyp #holidaycard #christmascard #CapCut ♬ original sound - Julia

I simply love everything about these pranks, and I hope this trend continues. Is it mean? Yes, a little. But is it damn funny? You bet your ass it is. Never hurts to mix a little Christmas mischief into the holiday season...

Country Artists Share Their Spotify Wrapped Stats From 2024 – And Some Of Them Are Surprising

How's everybody feel about their Spotify Wrapped this year? The streaming giant dropped their annual year in review last year, giving listeners a recap of their listening habits from the past year. (And also inventing some new genres in process...apparently one of my top genres was "Sweater Weather Tavern Country Folk," whatever that means). But anyway, with the annual drop of Spotify Wrapped naturally comes listeners sharing their own stats, and others judging people for how bad (or good) their music taste is. Naturally, Taylor Swift was the most streamed artist of the year - and surprisingly, there weren't any country artists in the top 10, which included pop artists like The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, Drake and Billie Eilish. But honestly, that's not what's interesting to me anyway. What I wait for every year is for artists to post their own year-end stats showing just how much their music was streamed. The reason I find it so interesting is because this data generally isn't made available to the public, so it's one of the rare glimpses behind the scenes that we get into just who people are listening to, and how much they're listening. It's an interesting way to gauge whether an artist really is as big as you thought they were, whether there's somebody that you may have missed, and just get a peek behind the curtain into how many streams these artists really get. I love to see who's being streamed more than I expected, or whose streams are low for an artist of their size. What can I say, I'm a numbers nerd. So as usual, I tried to catch all of the artists who have shared their Spotify Wrapped for Artists stats this year so we could take a look at the numbers and see if anything stands out. Of course, there are some things to keep in mind when we look at these numbers. First, an artist's streams are obviously going to be heavily dependant on whether they released new music that year or not. So a guy like Zach Bryan who drops new music every other week is obviously going to get a boost in streams when he releases new music versus an artist like Morgan Wallen who didn't drop a new album this year (though he did release a couple songs). These are also only stats from a single streaming platform, so we have no idea how much an artist is streamed on other platforms like Apple Music, Pandora, YouTube, or any of the other dozens of platforms out there. (Drop those Amazon Music stats, Garth). And we also obviously have an incomplete data set here, because not all artists share their stats publicly, so we can only work off those who do. But keeping all that in mind, there were still some numbers in the data that we have that I found surprising. Let's start with one of the most-streamed country artists of the year: Lainey Wilson. Obviously Lainey had one of the biggest years of anybody in country music, headlining her Country's Cool Again tour and dropping her album "Whirlwind" back in August. She was also the reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year coming into 2024, so Lainey is no doubt one of the hottest names in country music right now. Just how hot? Well she outstreamed names like George Strait and Eric Church. Lainey finished the year with 613 MILLION streams, while King George had a (still incredible) 608 million despite releasing an album of his own earlier this year. And Church, who hasn't released an album since 2021 but is still a staple of playlists with songs like "Springsteen" and "Drink In My Hand," had 536 million streams. Meanwhile, one of the hottest new acts of the year was the Red Clay Strays, who not only gave us their stats from the year but also shared that their streams had gone up an insane TWO THOUSAND PERCENT over last year. And Zach Top also had quite the increase in streams, more than doubling his listenership from the past year and racking up nearly 200 million streams thanks to viral hits like "I Never Lie" and "Sounds Like The Radio." Parker McCollum's numbers also surprised me - not because of the numbers themselves, but seeing that he managed to rack up nearly half as many streams as George Strait, despite being (to state the obvious) significantly newer and with a much smaller catalog to stream. Now, my guess is that's due in large part to the difference in audiences. Strait naturally has an older crowd that probably doesn't stream music as much, while Parker has a much younger crowd who grew up only listening to music on streaming. But still, I expected the gap between a legend like George Strait and a relative newcomer like Parker to be higher. (I'd say Parker would still prefer to have the King's 60 number one hits though). It was also nice to see that one of my favorite artists, Charles Wesley Godwin, managed to double his streams from 2023 - despite his most recent album coming in September of last year. Nice to know that people have good taste in music and are finally discovering CWG. Obviously those are just a few of the interesting things that I saw in the numbers that were posted this year. I'm sure we could go through and make plenty of assumptions about what the data tells us, but in reality, it's just a cool little peak behind the curtain and a small piece of a much bigger puzzle. Ultimately, these may not tell us much, but if you're like me and enjoy looking through the numbers, we can thank these artists who share their stats for giving us something to talk about. Here are a few more from country artists who shared their Wrapped for Artists:

Kaitlin Butts

Jake Worthington

(This number should be a lot higher, by the way. This guy is incredible).

Vincent Mason

Randall King

49 Winchester

Josh Meloy

Muscadine Bloodine

It's pretty cool to see these kinds of numbers from an independent artist - and I'm sure being on tour with Post Malone led a lot of people to check them out, which is well-deserved for the boys from Alabama.

Craig Morgan

Evan Honer

Travis Tritt

Jesse Daniel

(This is another one that should be a lot higher. Need people to wake up to Jesse Daniel, because for my money he's one of the best out there doing it right now).

Josiah and the Bonnevilles

Drayton Farley

Mason Ramsey

Shoutout to all 6.5 million of you out there still listening to the Yodel Kid.