The bro-country movement has been criticized by listeners and music reviewers for its repetitive subject matter, namely lyrical themes of partying associated with Friday nights, alcoholic beverages, euphemistic references to sex, and trucks, as well as its lack of female country artists. Traditional country fans and artists have expressed the sentiment that bro-country music is a poor representation of country music. One critic who spoke favorably about bro-country was David Horsey of the
Los Angeles Times, who wrote: "But this music has an appeal not unlike the teen surfing songs of
the Beach Boys or the screaming guitar, take-everything-too-far anthems of
Bon Jovi and
Sammy Hagar... For a young man, the allure of reckless freedom is forever strong. And it's not just young men. I know I've got a 25-year-old bottled up inside my decidedly not young self who still longs for the fantasy." The genre was also criticized for being formulaic. Throughout 2014, radio station
KTCK had a regular segment called "Fun With Country Music" hosted by
Corby Davidson, criticizing the new form of country music, and produced a checklist of specific items that would be found in these songs: boots, alcohol, jeans, trucks, guns, farm equipment, the word "girl", and rural settings. A video by Greg Todd, an aspiring songwriter, which highlighted the similarities between bro-country songs went viral after being featured by
Time in January 2015. The video combined six songs released between 2012 and 2014: Shelton's "
Sure Be Cool If You Did", Bryan's "
Drunk on You", Florida Georgia Line's "
This Is How We Roll",
Cole Swindell's "
Chillin' It",
Parmalee's "
Close Your Eyes" and
Chase Rice's "
Ready Set Roll". Todd noted the formula as "a tight, mid-tempo backbeat; a quick, two-verse set-up, often laced with clever wordplay and bouncy, lyrical melody; and—bam—the power chorus to bring it all home and keep them coming back." In November 2014, country artist
Kenny Chesney, interviewed by
Billboard, opined about bro-country: "over the last several years, it seems like anytime anybody sings about a woman, she's in cutoff jeans, drinking and on a tailgate ... they objectify the hell out of them." In December 2014,
Brad Paisley spoke out against bro-country and the lack of women on country radio: "one of my frustrations with radio now is lyrics: [...] there's a lot of stuff on the radio about, you know, put your tan legs on the dashboard and we'll roll around in the truck and go party. It's like, 'Guys, come on!' – and specifically, yes, guys, 'cause there are no girls! We can say something, too. There are phrases that are totally cliché that we as songwriters owe it to ourselves to not use again." In 2017,
Steve Earle noted that the genre was, in some ways, a watered-down form of hip hop, stating that "The guys just wanna sing about getting fucked up. They're just doing hip-hop for people who are afraid of black people. I like the
new Kendrick Lamar record, so I'll just listen to that."
Response In response to the criticisms, Blake Shelton said in January 2013 that he did not care about the "old farts" who complained about their songs: "Well that's because you don't buy records anymore, jackass. The kids do, and they don't want to buy the music you were buying." On his song about drinking and trucks, he said: "Yeah, we've had some songs that talk about that stuff. But that's also what we really grew up doing. A lot of us grew up in these little towns where there wasn't a whole lot to do, and we were entertaining ourselves. I can't sing you a song about being a stockbroker on
Wall Street, because I don't even know
where the hell Wall Street's at." Rosen himself was unhappy the way the term bro-country had been used by some as an insult and felt that some criticisms of the genre came from class and regional prejudices and snobbery. He thought that artists such as
Jake Owen and
Thomas Rhett made music that pushed the genre into "exciting new territory" and said: "All the ways country is flirting with R&B and hip hop, production-wise and otherwise, I think it's really cool." To Rosen, bro-country has changed country in a positive way, producing an increasing diversity of sound and subject matter on country radio. ==Reactions in music==