By Kelly T. O'Connor on November 24, 2022 Country music
photo: John Russo
It's a tradition as time-tested as grandma's pumpkin pie. Every year on Thanksgiving Day, a football team has to make the worst possible choice for a halftime performer of country pop dregs and embarrass country music on a national stage like your drunken uncle making a racist tirade in front of your fiancé.
This year, after their disgraceful 40-3 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, the Minnesota Vikings chose Florida Georgia Line's Tyler Hubbard to be the halftime interpreter for the NFL's primetime Thanksgiving Day game. listen.
The only thing cheaper than booking Florida Georgia Line for your halftime show is booking half Florida Georgia Line for your halftime show. But of course the Vikings had no other choice if they wanted to book Florida Georgia Line since the duo officially broken up earlier this year amid plummeting interest in their tired Bro-Country shtick.
Minnesota Vikings fans have taken to social media to blow raspberries at the decision of course, because it's not 2013 anymore, and most people have woken up to how awful Bro-Country is, while that a lot of fans were left baffled because hardly anyone knew the specific names for the Florida Georgia Line dudes anyway. "Is he in Florida or Georgia?" was a common refrain. Tyler Hubbard is Georgia, by the way.
The truth is, Tyler Hubbard's solo probably isn't as terrible as Florida Georgia Line was, but when you're down, it's not hard to improve. Still, couldn't they find a better performer than the remnants of country music's Bro phase? Here in 2022 you have a bunch of newer country artists who are way more popular than half of Florida Georgia Line. One look at the charts, and you can see that even more independent artists like Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers are surpassing the popularity of Tyler Hubbard.
Don't be surprised if in the years to come we don't see artists like Tyler Childers, Zach Bryan, the Turnpike Troubadours, Billy Strings, Cody Jinks, and others performing these kinds of performances. After all, they're all reaching local popularity, while Tyler Hubbard is over there opening for Keith Urban.
It's a new day in country music, and institutions like the NFL should take notice. It's time to start giving artists from the more independent side of country music a fair chance to take advantage of these opportunities. After all, don't you think fans might dig something they might not know more than something they already know sucks?
Kelly T. O'Connor