Everyone has their guilty pleasure. For country music haters and honky tonk traditionalists alike, the following six songs are likely ones that get scoffed at regularly. However, we bet even the most egregious country haters and purists can’t stop singing these songs. They’re just so addictive!
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1. “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen
“I Had Some Help” is one of the first singles from Post Malone’s 2024 country venture F-1 Trillion. It’s quite a polarizing song. Post Malone started his career as a rapper before getting into country, which country purists might find a little annoying. Some Post Malone fans didn’t particularly like the singer’s switch to a whole new genre. The feature credit of Morgan Wallen was also a little controversial.
However, none of those things have anything to do with this specific song in question. It’s a delightful country-pop banger and definitely a guilty pleasure for some.
2. “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” by Trace Adkins
The mid-2000s was a gold mine for campy bro-country hits. “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” was just one of them, and it was a massively successful country song about butts. It hit no. 2 on the Hot Country Songs chart and even made it to the Top 30 of the Hot 100 and Pop 100 charts. It was a huge career-defining hit for Adkins.
3. “Elvira” by Oak Ridge Boys
The 1981 Oak Ridge Boys song “Elvira” is one of the group’s most addictive and outright silly songs to date. Country purists would scoff at Richard Sterban’s iconic “baoom papa oom papa mow-mow” line, which hails back to an old doo-wop song from the 1960s. However… if it comes on the radio, we doubt most people would turn it off. The Oak Ridge Boys really knew how to put on a delightful performance.
4. “Man! I Feel Like A Woman” by Shania Twain
“Man! I Feel Like A Woman” is Shania Twain’s biggest hit of her career, and it was a little controversial among country traditionalists. Twain put country-pop on the map and did so with flying colors. Traditionalists weren’t happy, and non-country fans of the male variety likely avoided singing this song out loud. Unless, of course, they were alone in their cars and felt free enough to belt out the catchy chorus.
5. “Truck Yeah” by Tim McGraw
Tim McGraw has produced quite a few hit tracks through the years. The 2011 hit “Truck Yeah” wasn’t exactly the most poetic example of his songwriting. It’s a call-and-response song that poses a number of poor, ill-advised choices one could make with the response “truck yeah!” You can’t deny that it’s kind of fun, especially because it depicts a stereotype of the typical country music fan.
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6. “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus
When it comes to country songs that haters and traditionalists alike can’t stop singing, it’s hard to beat the 1992 Billy Ray Cyrus hit “Achy Breaky Heart”. This one-hit wonder is still a go-to at karaoke bars around the country, and it captured the essence of how campy country music could be while still being a major earworm.
Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns
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