It’s funny how when you think of country music, you think of the bible belt. Obviously, Nashville is in Tennessee; some of the top dogs in the game are from Georgia, Kentucky produced Carly Pearce and Chris Stapleton, Justin Moore is from Arkansas. Texas is another massive player in the game, as artists like Cody Johnson and Granger Smith are based out of Austin instead of Nashville. What if I introduced you to another player in the game, a widely underrated one. Canada has produced and is currently producing some megastars. For anyone who has ever felt like a women, Shania Twain came out of Ontario. Hank Snow is a country music legend, and he came out of Nova Scotia. Terri Clark has made a name for herself as well.
Women of Canadian Country
Currently, Canada has some crazy talented artists on the rise. Tenielle Towns hasn’t been higher than 25 on the country airplay charts, but she has multiple top five hits in Canada. She deserves to have a hit in America; her voice is so unique that it would surely stand out. Lindsey Ell is another name that you might have heard. Ell has a #1 radio hit with Brantley Gilbert with “What Happens in a Small Town,” but solo, she hasn’t gotten higher than #19. In Canada, she has multiple number one hit and more top-fives.
Dallas Smith
The biggest name in the industry is Dallas Smith. Smith tried and failed in America, but I don’t think he cares because he is the Luke Bryan of Canada. He has 24 top ten songs, and eleven of those went number one. He is a massive star, but most Americans haven’t heard of him. This is definitely an untapped industry, and I think that might be changing soon.
Jade Eagleson
Out of all of these artists, I haven’t even mentioned my personal favorite Canadian star. Jade Eagleson has one of the most extraordinary voices, and he gets good music. The first time I ever heard him, it was on his song “Got Your Name on It,” which stalled out at #8 on the Canada chart. He followed that up with “Count the Ways,” a petty breakup song that was another great jam. This song reached number four. Eagleson finally topped the Canadian charts with “Lucky” a few years ago. Ironically, the only single that did go number one on the radio was the only song that wasn’t certified “Gold” from Eagleson’s debut album.
The album, a self-titled project, was released last year, but not to be content with just ten songs, Eagleson already released a new single, “All Night to Figure it Out.” This song had a music video, which you can watch below. Although I’m not an avid Canadian country chart watcher, I expect this song to follow his other song’s trends and be at least a top five.
Canada has like five hundred different award shows for country. All of them are only open to Canadian artists, so I’m not sure how much each award show matters. Still, Jade was the 2019 Canadian Country Music Association Rising Star award winner. Since then, he has been nominated for multiple male artists of the year awards and will probably breakthrough and win them soon. Hopefully, Jade is building up to a new album this year. If he is, hopefully, he slides into my DM’s about releasing it early to us. Go listen to Jade Eagleson though, in all seriousness, you won’t be disappointed.
On top of being a badass singer, Jade Eagleson is also a total savage. In the music video for “Got Your Name on It” and the following singles, Eagleson has a smoke show of a girl in the video. Apparently, he agreed with me because he started dating her and then married her, and they now have a child. This was all within a few years, which is the definition of putting a ring on it. The other reason he is a badass is his beautiful mullet. In one of his live streams, I told him that his mullet makes Morgan Wallen’s look weak, to which he responded that he had a mullet long before Wallen made it cool. In the following Livestream, I again complimented the flow. He responded that it needed to be trimmed up, but he loves it.
I love Jade Eagleson. I think that he is the most underrated artist that I know of right now. I’ve had the chance to interact with many artists beginning their careers, and I think that Jade has the best voice out of any of them. I hope that he makes the jump to American radio, but he probably won’t, unfortunately, and I don’t really blame him. He has a chance to pull a Dallas Smith, become a massive artist in Canada, and stick to that niche. I don’t blame him for doing that, it’s just a shame that America won’t get to hear him.