Megan Moroney is deep in her feels on her new album Am I Okay?, the follow-up to her breakthrough debut, Lucky, which Rolling Stone named the best country album of 2023. While that album arrived on the strength of the college-football-as-meet-cute anthem “Tennessee Orange,” Am I Okay? dispenses with any such novelties and immediately leans into 21st century angst.
Moroney has been describing herself as the “Emo Cowgirl,” lassoing a musical trend that’s been picking up steam over the last year or so. But until now, the bulk of the emo-country success has been mostly reserved for the dudes: Zach Bryan, Charles Wesley Godwin, and Wyatt Flores have all seen their stars rise by laying their emotions bare. Moroney is happy to lead the charge for the women, with the “sad yeehaw vibes” of Kaitlin Butts and the punk country of Avery Anna right behind her.
This is an album full of references to therapy (“No Caller ID”), fears of dying alone (“Third Time’s the Charm”), and blasé resignation (“Indifferent”). There’s even a mournful goodbye ballad — the devastating “Heaven By Noon” — inspired by the death of Moroney’s uncle during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But despite its heavy heart, Am I Okay? isn’t a dour project. Moroney’s deft way around a lyric and producer Kristian Bush’s radio-ready touch combine to make this one of the most enjoyable listening experiences of the year.
Check out “Man on the Moon,” an upbeat rocker that finds Moroney wishing she could jettison an annoying suitor off into deep space. “Houston he’s a problem/He’s leaving, then he’s calling,” Moroney sings in the first line, allowing herself to mine the humor in the obstacle course that is twentysomething dating. In “Miss Universe,” which opens with shimmering “ahh-ahh” vocals reminiscent of Queen, she laments being dumped by a guy who traded up. But even that deflating loss is viewed through a prism of self-awareness: “Hell, it could’ve been worse/at least my whole world left me for Miss Universe,” Moroney shrugs, delivering the Gen Z country inverse of “You ain’t a beauty/but hey you’re alright.”
But the Georgia native isn’t entirely avoiding heartbreak on Am I Okay?. In her cheating song “I Know You,” Moroney accepts her role as the fool of an unfaithful guy running around on her whenever she’s out of town. It’s a vicious cycle and she knows it. “You’re lyin’, I’m cryin’/we do this time after time,” she sings. In another verse, she lays bare the cheater’s favorite ploy — “you say that your phone’s gonna die/then you just go put it on silent” — in a callback to the tech tricks she first shouted out in Lucky’s “I’m Not Pretty.”
The brief but powerful “Hell of a Show” closes the album by shining a light on the pain she sometimes has to hide, as Moroney details her struggle to get through a sold-out show after a man decimated her with meanness just 20 minutes prior. Even with her name up in lights, she’s destined to “cry myself to sleep” that night.
So, is Moroney ok? As her new record suggests, it depends on the moment.
Ken Casey stuck around after the show in San Diego, California, talking to members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Some of the challenge-coin haul.
The band started as a bet. “My band has a show in three weeks,” Casey’s coworker told him in 1996. “I dare you to open for us.”John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Dropkick Murphys (from left): Casey, DaRosa, Webster, Kelly, Rheault, Brennan, and Lynch John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Casey is largely the voice of the band, but the other members back him up. “We’re so lucky he’s the mouthpiece,” says Brennan, left. John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
“Only the Irish can take a song about death and destruction, famine, alcoholism, and raise a glass like it’s an anthem,” says Casey. John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
“Anytime it feels like things are about to plateau for us, something gives us a little bump,” says guitarist Lynch. “It feels exciting. It feels dangerous. It feels like doing something.” John Francis Peters for Rolling Stone
Jay-Z performing at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis in Paris.
Jay-Z Deserves the Super Bowl Halftime Gig
Where’s the love? Jay-Z asked that question 25 years ago, in the chorus of one of many songs in his catalog that still move audiences today. If he performs “Heart of the City” as part of his Super Bowl halftime show next February, those indignant bars are sure to be a highlight: “First the Fat Boys break up, now every day I wake up, somebody got a problem with Hov…” It would be an appropriate choice, too — because then as now, any time Jay-Z notches a new achievement, people find a way to complain.
The jokes and nonsense started almost as soon as the first rumors trickled out that Jay, whose company Roc Nation has executive-produced the Super Bowl halftime show since 2019, might be choosing himself to headline next year’s show. “Jay-Z just Dick Cheney’d himself for the Super Bowl,” Puck‘s Matthew Belloni quipped on X last week, alluding to the time that the late prince of darkness, who’d been asked to run the vice-presidential search committee for George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, put himself on the ticket. (Super hip and current reference, and not at all apples-and-oranges.) Others pointed to TMZ reports that pop stars like Harry Styles and Justin Bieber had been asked first. “How are they the frontrunners, and he end up in the front?” Cam’Ron, who’s delighted in trolling Jay for many years, wondered aloud on his podcast. “Out of all the people on the roster, they couldn’t pick nobody else?” asked Cam’Ron‘s co-host, Ma$e.
These critiques miss the point, which is that Jay-Z is one of the best choices for a high-profile gig like this. He’s a superstar with a comparable level of name recognition to any other A-lister in music. He has a deep stack of classic songs going back decades. And he’s a highly skillful live performer who knows his way around a stadium stage, as he’s spent this year reminding people on his Jay-Z 30 tour. He tore down Yankee Stadium three nights in a row this summer; just last week, he rocked SoFi Stadium, which happens to be the same place where the 2027 Super Bowl is being held. He held the crowd’s attention with ease at all of those shows, and though there were plenty of glittery guests — that’s a given at a Jay show, and it will surely be true at the Super Bowl, too — he did it mostly through the force of his own magnetic energy. Let’s state the obvious here: Jay-Z is really, really good at rapping. We’re talking about one of the slickest, sharpest talkers in the history of words, someone who made it to the top through a sustained act of myth-making, then kept going. Are we seriously asking whether he can handle a 15-minute televised performance?
And yeah, there’s a touch of self-congratulation in the way he appointed himself. So what? Praising his own gifts is arguably Jay-Z’s greatest talent of all. He made a fine art out of self-applause. He told his story again and again, retracing the steps from Marcy Projects to the corner suite, and he made us believe. It would almost be insulting to the audience if he didn’t give himself the gig at some point.
Pop culture observers in recent years surely remember the backlash to Super Bowl headliners like Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny — all of it at least culturally conservative, and much of it frankly just racist. The blowback to Jay’s announcement is mostly coming from other quarters, at least for now (let’s just wait to see what the right-wing swamps make of this one). But it’s disappointing in a different way. Jay-Z has spent his career expounding hip-hop as a mainstream commercial force. He’s not a businessman, he’s a business, man. But he’s also an artist. He’s made huge amounts of money, and gotten himself into the rarefied rooms where he even has the ability to give himself a gig like this, by spinning his experiences into compelling narrative art, one verse at a time. Let’s not lose sight of how impressive his life’s work really is. Jay-Z is not some random C-suite bro, and he’s definitely not Dick Cheney. He’s one of the greatest rappers of all time, by any measure. He’s earned that Super Bowl spot.