Luke Bryan: ‘I Take a Little Offense’ to Bro-Country Label

Luke Bryan has sometimes been labeled one of the kings of bro-country, but you might not want to point that out to him.

"I take a little offense," Bryan tells Cleveland.com. "I feel the initial term 'bro-country' was created to be kind of a little degrading to what's popular, to what country artists are doing right now."

"It's frustrating because whichever artists may or may not get labeled as that, they're well beyond that,'' he adds. "For people to call me the father of it, well, whatever. It just seems like a term that was invented to cheapen me as an artist."

The so-called bro-country movement includes a number of songs with many of the same lyrical themes, often touching on trucks, moonlight, women in short shorts and drinking, especially in a field or by a body of water. It became so commercially successful that the Cambridge Dictionary offered an official definition in 2014, calling it "a sub-genre of country music sung by young white men, featuring songs with macho themes such as trucks, drinking and partying,” and adding that it is “[a] celebration of … life that features trucks, beer and scantily clad women as the must-have accessories.”

Critics have pointed to songs like Bryan's "That's My Kind of Night" and "Kick the Dust Up" as some of the ultimate examples of the genre, but the superstar particularly objects to the way that characterizes his fans.

"My fans are there because my version of music is what they love, and that's what I'm all about," he points out. "When people say, 'Luke Bryan fans are nothing but beer drinkers,' that makes me mad because I know they're more than that. They are the people who make this country go 'round and 'round."

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