10 country singers to keep you going until Taylor Swift makes a country record again

So, here’s the thing: rumour has it that Liz Rose, who co-wrote like 20 of Taylor Swift’s biggest songs, including “You Belong With Me”, “Teardrops On My Guitar”, and “All Too Well”, isn’t even on speaking terms with Swift at the moment, which obviously just makes us all worry even more about Swift's mindspace and emotional wellbeing right now, but the flip side of that is that Rose has a little bit of spare time kicking around for every other country singer currently panning for country gold and she seems only too happy to throw a few nuggets their way. Catherine McGrath ended up co-writing “Cinderella” with her and if you close your eyes it’s like listening to a Taylor Swift deep cut from 2005.

The BeyHive might have had a conniption fit when Taylor turned up with a baseball bat in the video for "Look What You Made Me Do", but twelve years before Beyoncé was swinging hot sauce around in the "Hold Up" video Carrie Underwood was taking her Louisville slugger to the headlights of her duplicitous boyfriend’s four-wheel drive in the video for "Before He Cheats". She’s the reigning queen of country vengeance, switching seamlessly between goofy girl-next-door and imperious Las Vegas diva. Swift might think she invented the stylised revenge fantasy video, but Carrie Underwood makes the "Bad Blood" video look like that episode of Father Ted where all the priests dress up as the ’68 Comeback Special Elvis.

Unlike its UK equivalent something actually happens to the contestants on the American version of The Voice after they’ve been on the show. RaeLynn didn’t even make it past the quarter finals and five years later she was sitting on top of the Billboard Country Albums chart! The 24-year-old with the squeaky Texan lilt might take her country cues more from Miranda Lambert – she auditioned on The Voice with a rendition of Pistol Annies’ “Hell On Heels” - than she does Taylor Swift, but her album, WildHorse is set firmly in Swift’s backyard. “Love Triangle” - a belting heartbreaker about divorce told from the perspective of a child growing up stuck in the middle of it - is the best pop country ballad since “Begin Again”.

26-year-old Maren Morris might be a year younger than Swift, but there’s a definite world-weariness to her songs that belies her age. After building her reputation as a songwriter in Nashville for the last few years - writing songs for Tim McGraw, Kelly Clarkson and the Nashville TV series among others - she finally broke through with her major label debut Hero when its lead single “My Church” unexpectedly blew up in everyone’s faces last year. She’s a pint-sized pop country badass cussing and cruising round town in her '80s Mercedes and bumming cigarettes off all the wrong guys, who seems to be taking Nora Ephron’s advice to young people to “put on a bikini, and don't take it off until you're 34” and just running with it.

If no one else can keep you going until Taylor Swift makes another country record then at least you can always turn to Little Big Town. Not only did Swift write their hit “Better Man”, which has earned her a nomination for Song Of The Year and Single Of The Year at the CMA awards next month, but she even performs it herself at her own shows. It’s the closest thing we’re going to get to a new Taylor Swift country song for a while. Recently Swift’s ex-boyfriend Harry Styles completely exploded the met-anarrative when he covered Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” at The Ryman in Nashville, which was co-written by Liz Rose, who if you remember is reportedly not on speaking terms with Taylor at the moment (keep up!). Listening to “Better Man” again now it’s easy to see how we all got carried away thinking Swift was about to make a country record. It’s a quintessential Taylor Swift country breakup song. 'Only a matter of time', we all thought. 'Just wait until November', we all said. Dust down the porch swing and put the Prosecco on ice. How wrong we were. Oh well, maybe next time.

Little Big Town, Jillian Jacqueline, Midland, and Kelsea Ballerini are among the acts confirmed to play Country To Country in March 2018 at London's O2. Find out more.