Being a pop star is pretty much every child’s dream job (that is, until they grow up and realize they’ll have to get really good at TikTok dances), but for some, it’s just a layover on the way to their final destination: country-music fame.
Some singers do things the other way around—yes, Taylor Swift, we remember your Nashville era; and yes, we all want you to make another country album, ideally one with Kacey Musgraves—but Lana Del Rey’s recent announcement that her next album, Lasso, would be country, and then Beyoncé’s surprise drop of two twangy singles, “Texas Hold ’Em†and “16 Carriages,†ahead of her new country album, Cowboy Carter, has me reminiscing about other major pop stars who’ve gotten a li’l Southern with it. Below, find six of the greatest pop-to-country pivots in music history.
Cyndi Lauper
This ’80s phenom might be best known for crooning about how girls just want to have fun (that’s all we really want! Some fun!), but she released her first country album, Detour, in 2016, featuring everyone from Vince Gill to Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson. “When I was a really young kid, country music was pop music, so this is what we grew up listening to,†Lauper said at the time.
Tina Turner
Realistically, there was probably no genre that Turner couldn’t crush, but the late singer’s debut solo studio album, Tina Turns the Country On!, made it abundantly clear that country was well within her wheelhouse. (In fact, she’d follow that record up with the aptly titled Tina Turner Sings Country in 1999.)
Michelle Branch
Even as a tried-and-true Branch stan who played “Everywhere†on a loop throughout third grade, I had no idea that the singer formed a country-music duo called The Wreckers with fellow musician Jessica Harp in 2005. The group lasted only a few years, but it gave us the single “My Oh My,†so it's most definitely worth it.Â
Jewel
This pop singer’s country-heavy seventh studio album, Perfectly Clear, debuted at #1 on the Billboard country charts, making hits of twangy tracks like “Stronger Woman,†“I Do,†and “Till It Feels Like Cheating.†Not too shabby!
Jessica SimpsonÂ
Anyone who’s read her 2020 memoir, Open Book, knows that Simpson is a born-and-bred Texas gal, but after starting out in pop, she didn’t release a country album until 2008’s Do You Know. With it, however, came the boot-stomping lead single “Come on Over,†as well as the lovely title track a duet with the queen of country herself, Ms. Dolly Parton.
Lady Gaga
Gaga’s army of Little Monsters have always believed that she could do anything, but Gaga convinced the rest of the world, too, with her signature high-camp take on country music in 2018’s A Star Is Born. (That Arizona sky, burning in your eyes…) Yet her 2016 album Joanne—the cover of which featured Gaga in a cotton candy-pink cowboy hat—also got a little country; just see “Million Reasons,†“A-Yo,†and the titular piano ballad.
