Irony had become sincerity. I hung up a good thirty posters of his EP cover. I was forcing the rest of the Wingspan Staff to hear his ballads of trucks he cannot legally drive yet. I went to a Bass Pro Shop, I scheduled a fishing trip, I tried to become an ordained minister, and I hung my American flag on my window. I became a Maddox Batson fan.
*
It was sometime late April. Mr Eisen, our advisor, had received a big package from MOXIE, a music distribution company, containing thirty Maddox Batson posters in honor of his upcoming deluxe EP, First Dance (The After Party)
The class unanimously decided he was silly. Batson was holding his hand out for a school dance while staring into the souls of the class. He almost looked too young to be there. He looked like he was supposed to be at a school ice cream social.
Maddox Batson is a fifteen-year-old, who is sometimes from Alabama and sometimes from Tennessee. His short discography is mostly a blend of country and pop. More pop than anything, honestly, just with a southern overlay. My personal favorite (and Batson’s) of his songs is “Tears In the River,” the most structurally country song he has. On the music video front, it’s a lot of random shots of horses and camo. Very country.
My classmates found his music corny, but I found that endearing. This spiraled into a mildly manic obsession with Maddox Batson. I read up on all the material I could find on him, I listened to all his music, and I got extremely fixated on southern-country culture. I was a fan girl. I also made it everyone’s problem.
I waited until midnight to get the deluxe EP as soon as it dropped. It was thirteen tracks, but it managed to be twenty-six minutes long. The songs all had this campy but earnest element that kept me invested. His songs are so heavily themed to southern imagery that they transcend the pessimistic feeling of being disingenuous. He isn’t trying to be authentic, which somehow makes him both less authentic and even more authentic than everyone else. Even the song titles are themed: he has two songs that have “south” in the name.
The EP itself left me wanting to hear more from him. The reasoning, though, is that this EP misuses his talents. The tracks are simultaneously too minimalistic and overproduced. One of the first flaws that stood out to me was the lack of overall production.
There’s no extra instruments other than the bare minimum of guitar, bass, and drums. It makes the tracks sound the same. It’s not like it’s a staple in country music either. Maddox Batson is not going up to the mic with an acoustic guitar, a dream, and a soulful ballad about horses in Alabama. The opposite goes for his vocals. The autotune is extremely noticeable. It’s like a shorthand because his producer didn’t want to put the effort into layering his vocals.
It feels like his label, Warner, isn’t investing in him. It sounds like Warner doesn’t want to put in any extra effort in his music.
First Dance (The After Party) was a good debut in the sense that it showed me who Maddox Batson is: a nice Christian southern country boy next door. He hits every country trope down to the red truck he can’t drive yet, trucker hat, and thin cross chain. Batson feels corporate. He sounds like he has a major label backing. He looks like he has a team behind him.
However, none of this bothers me. It’s a part of his charm. All the teen pop stars were like this, too. Children are inherently cringey. This is because they’re children. He kind of reminds me of the early aughts-early 10s teen Disney-esque stars. His team is absolutely aware of these comparisons too. In his “I Don’t Like You Anymore” video, he does his best attempt at a Troy Bolton tribute.
I was no girl in green, but I did get the chance to chat with Batson post EP drop. My dramatic southern school dance was replaced with a Zoom press conference with broken electronics. Meanwhile, Batson seemed to be hiding in a Homegoods in the middle of New York while his agent kept reminding him of the time.
In Batson’s case, Justin Bieber especially comes to mind. Even his Zac Efron tribute feels very young Bieber with age-appropriately stiff dance moves in a middle school setting. They have the same type of earnest, boyish middle school first date energy. Justin Bieber’s Universal Studios CityWalk is Batson’s basketball game.
“[Beiber.] He’s a goat. So as long as I can get like anywhere on his kind of like level, that’d be like, awesome,” he told me.
I don’t think my generation has a big teen pop star yet. A part of this can be attributed to the decline in the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. The early Gen Z-ers had One Direction, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Zac Efron and Jonas Brothers. The millennials had Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and other Disney alumni. Whether you listened to their music for so long you’re used to it, it was so bad it’s good, or it’s just good. You enjoy their music still.
Batson is in a weird place in that regard, though. He isn’t a bona fide pop star, with tight choreography, crazy outfits, and dance hits. He’s still in the country diaspora.
“I kind of want to stay in country music for as long as I can,” he commented. “I could try to make the switch over to like pop music or that kind of stuff, and just kind of, you know, I guess. Blur the lines a little bit in the best way possible. Just kind of do both a little bit, and it’s just, you know”
Taylor Swift also did that. As much as I hope for a new Justin Bieber, he’s more like Swift than anything. She started off as a young country star with her guitar and slowly added more and more pop elements.
Comparisons aside, I think the biggest strength going for Batson is his ability to stay himself through all of this. While his sound isn’t distinct yet, his image absolutely is. His theming is so over the top, it works. I wish his production leaned more into it. Right now, I think he has a good balance of being a regular teenager who sings and Maddox Batson, the professional singer.
When I talked to him, I was surprised by how normal he actually is. He’s humble. That’s something that I think the aughts stars lacked. It’s refreshing. Maddox Batson has the talent and charisma to become the next big thing. I genuinely believe in him. I think he will get his truck. It’s just a matter of how much his label believes.
