Miranda Lambert Says She and Carrie Underwood Deserve a "Ribbon for Surviving" Country Music's Male-Dominated 2010s

Miranda Lambert is reflecting on one of the toughest stretches of her career, and she’s giving credit where it’s due. On The New York Times’Popcast, Lambert said she and Carrie Underwood deserve“a ribbon for surviving”the 2010s, a period when country music was so dominated by male artists that the two of them were practically the only women breaking through.“Carrie Underwood and I made it through pretty much a solid, at least, seven years of only guy artists coming out of country music,”she said.

Lambert also looked further back, recalling that when she first broke into the genre in the early 2000s, women were pushed to be sexy rather than known for their songs. That pressure eventually gave way to an era where women were barely played at all. Despite years of never sharing a stage, Lambert and Underwood have since bonded over their Las Vegas residencies, visiting each other’s shows in a full-circle moment fans have been waiting on for years.

These days, the genre looks a lot different. Kacey Musgraves, Megan Moroney, Lainey Wilson, and Ella Langley are all over the charts, and Lambert co-wrote Langley’s“Choosin’Texas,”which just set a record with 24 weeks at number one on the Hot 100. The women aren’t just surviving country music anymore. They’re defining it.

Which female country artist do you think is carrying the genre right now? Sound off in the comments.