A Little Bit Rock 'n' Roll

HARDY brings fresh energy to an unfashionable genre.

- By Kelefa Sanneh

It is no longer unusual to encounter a song by a mainstream country star that requires an “explicit lyrics” tag. But it is unusual to encounter one that requires a spoiler alert. The song, if you would like to encounter it unspoiled, is called “the mockingbird & THE CROW,” and it appears at the midpoint of an album with the same title, which was recently released by a singer and songwriter from Philadelphia, Mississippi, named Michael Hardy, who has dropped his first name and capitalized all the letters in his last one. The song starts, as so many country songs do, by conjuring small-town life, and it culminates, at first, in a wry chorus that’s surprisingly forthright about the nature of country stardom: “I’m a mockingbird/ Singin’ songs that sound like other songs you’ve heard.”

HARDY made his mark as a high-concept craftsman, finding new ways to give country listeners what they wanted. His breakthrough single, “ONE BEER,” from 2019, began with a startling evocation of kids worrying about an unexpected pregnancy (“Seventeen in a small town, weak knees in a CVS”), but it turned out to be both a drinking song and an ode to settling down: “Ain’t it funny what one beer can turn into?” And he helped write Blake Shelton’s No. 1 country hit “God’s Country,” which converted the treacly term into a truculent declaration of regional pride. “The Devil went down to Georgia, but he didn’t stick around— this is God’s country,” Shelton snarled.