“The Other Nashville” Aims to Show That Music City Is More Than Country

Despite what you’ve heard, Nashville isn’t all about country—in fact, it has a blooming music scene that extends beyond the bounds of the city’s long tradition.

And a new group of music professionals wants to ensure that this part of Nashville gets its due. According to The Tennessean, The Other Nashville Society will debut this week  (opens in a new tab), inviting 150 industry figures in the city to join—including record labels, music publishers, artist managers, and others.

Cofounder Josh Collum, of the music-licensing firm Sorted Noise, told the newspaper that the new group  (opens in a new tab) hopes to solve a messaging problem that the non-country-music scene has had in Music City.

“The problem is that we haven’t done a good enough job telling our story, to be honest with you,” Collum said. “We want to have a group so that we can all be connected to each other, but also serve as an organization that can offer a perspective about Nashville that isn’t always out there right now.”

The Other Nashville Society will use an online forum and private events to help the non-country crowd connect.

Ultimately, the group hopes to help the industry create more success stories like Paramore, whose members grew up nearby, as well as Ben Folds and Jack White, artists who moved to Nashville after launching their careers elsewhere. These musicians have put a notable mark on the city: White launched a record label storefront downtown  (opens in a new tab), and Folds played an instrumental role in preventing the demolition of RCA Studio A  (opens in a new tab), a historic recording studio he rented for years, and led a Music Row preservation movement  (opens in a new tab).

Ally Venable, an artist manager, told The Tennessean that despite these successes—including more recent ones like pop star Meghan Trainor, who launched her career  (opens in a new tab) with a Nashville-based publishing company—the city has struggled to expand its musical brand.

“I think there’s a lot of conversation happening in this town already,” she told the newspaper. “But I think people still look at Nashville and call it the country music capital. I mean, I love country, and it’s a great infrastructure here. But the idea is to classify Nashville not just as country music, but as great music.”

The Other Nashville Society will be free to join, but the founders will decide who will be admitted as members, to ensure the right mix.

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