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Clay Walker Talks The Resurgence of '90s Country Sounds

Walker recently released his 12th album, 'Texas to Tennessee'

Clay Walker notched several country radio hits in the 1990s, including "Rumor Has It," and "If I Could Make a Living." This year, several '90s country hitmakers including Walker, Travis Tritt, Alan Jackson and more are releasing albums, while a new generation of artists including Lauren Alaina, Luke Combs, Cody Johnson, Randall King, Midland, Jon Pardi and Carly Pearce are incorporating '90s country sounds into their music.

However, Walker has a different take on the notion that '90s country music is making a "comeback."

“There’s this spot right now, I feel, that country has gone down a different path for quite a few years--maybe five, six, seven years,” Walker recently told Audacy.com. “They have forgotten some of the key elements that have always been there, in country music, especially. I feel like it’s coming back to that. Not going backward, but bringing some of those elements forward that are so valuable. A lot of that’s melody, really great melodies and some diverse lyrics.

“You hear people say, ‘Oh the '90s are hot.' No, it’s not ‘90s,” Walker asserts. “It’s just some of the elements that used to be there, that disappeared for a while and I think we’re going to see them come back and I’m glad to be at the forefront of that.”

Walker recently released his 12th album Texas to Tennessee, marking his first project since 2019's Long Live the Cowboy. Over the past few years, Walker has heavily embraced social media to promote his music--particularly TikTok, where fans can find Walker singing duets with other TikTok users.

“I love TikTok more than any of those other formats,” Walker said. “I love Instagram and having all the information out there and fun stuff so people see content, but TikTok is really about engaging straight-up with those fans and it is crazy, it is wild how much it’s grown and I think a lot of it is because I started doing duets.”

One of those recent collaborations also happened to be with fellow artist Randall King, as the two performed an acoustic take on Walker's hit "She Won't Be Lonely Long."

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