Let’s rewind about four months ago to the 2025 CMA Awards this past November; the stars were out for one of the most interesting country music award shows in recent memory. The Red Clay Strays won a major award, Lainey Wilson joined elite company as a multi-time entertainer and album-of-the-year winner, and Zach Top showed out with a massive main-stage performance. In many ways, it represented a paradigm shift in the genre’s insular mainstream.
Then there was an innocuous little performance of an innocuous little ditty performed by a tall, cowboy hat-wearing guy that most viewers probably couldn’t pick out of a lineup. Singing his #1 hit single “Wind Up Missin’ You,” Tucker Wetmore turned in the least talked about performance of the evening, despite building a quick reputation as a proven hitmaker and heartthrob.
Such has been his reputation in country music to this point. Like Dylan Scott and Cole Swindell before him, Tucker has the radio accolades to boast a promising career as a country star, but thus far, he has lacked the star power to back it up.
When he came on the scene, it was completely reasonable to peg Tucker Wetmore’s very presence in country music as a consequence of Wallen’s dominance in the format. From their sauntering stage walk to their laid-back drawls, it’s pretty obvious that the two were cut from the same cloth, to put it generously.
Sure, there were things about him that struck you as a bit different; his more polished public persona, his contentment in country music, where Wallen was already a bit restless in the format by this point, in his career. But even so, it feels like we don’t know the “real Tucker Wetmore” musically.
That is, until recently:
Much like Morgan Wallen, Tucker Wetmore is a nominally country artist, but has begun to find “it factor” by looking beyond the format for his influences. However, rather than hip-hop and pop, “Tuck” has broadened his horizons into 80s pop-R&B, somewhat in the vein of Billy Ocean and Hall & Oates.
The singles “Proving Me Right’ and the newly-released “Sunburn” bear this out extremely well; dreamy synths, funky triad guitar chords, and R&B drums mesh to separate these fairly pedestrian radio songs from their competition, and finally start to answer the year-long quandary, “Who is Tucker Wemore REALLY?”
Pop music is always a bit more interesting when you can retrace the artists’ influences, and Tucker should be commended for evading the formless, mono-genre soup that dominates so much of country radio. Ultimately, though the sample size is still very small, it feels like, even with Tucker’s musical niche, his identity in Nashville is still “just another pretty face.”
So in that case, what’s still missing?
From here, it makes some sense for Tucker Wetmore to continue deviating from the twang-pop formula that’s ruled country radio for a bit. It’s obvious that he’s born to be a pop star, but unlike Morgan Wallen, he presents more like The Weeknd than Drake, singles-driven, hooky, accessible, and unburdened by a messy, bloated discography.
Expectations for our resident Nashville pretty boys to impress us with the best songs around are extremely low. However, Tuck’s secret talent, which puts him in a great position to ascend to true pop stardom, is his undercover musical virtuosity, especially behind a keyboard. A quick YouTube search for his “Great Balls of Fire” cover should tell you that he’s made of the right stuff, and that his taste in music runs far deeper than early-2000s radio country. He hasn’t projected it often, but this guy has soul when he wants to show it off.
The summer-ready, pop-R&B sound that Tucker Wetmore is finding his footing in is both becoming and unique on country radio. That said, the two-song sample size we have, “Proving Me Right” and “Sunburn,” doesn’t really project “career-defining smash aura.”
Ultimately, things need to get a little more personal, much like Morgan Wallen did when he opened up his lyrical playbook after If I Know Me. Surface-level, spring break hook-up jams were the standard ten years ago, and even for an artist who makes his hay with groovy pop singles, we can expect a little more than “You’re leanin’ on his shoulder, but I see you lookin’ over at me” type songs.
Tucker Wetmore has what it takes to make fresh, interesting pop songs, something country music is largely lacking, outside of its two dominant female stars. More real-life narratives would be cool, but if he can show off his keyboard talents for a tight, 12-song project, Tuck may yet have something out of the box and unexpected to share. Finally armed with a style that’s all his own, the bones of an ascendant star are starting to take form; time will tell if he puts it all together.
