Why HARDY’s Next HIXTAPE Could Be the Perfect Launchpad for Florida Georgia Line and Sam Hunt’s 2027 Comebacks

With two ‘Bro-Country’ titans, Florida Georgia Line and Sam Hunt hinting at a momentous return to releasing music in 2027, it can feel a little difficult to envision how these two former chart-toppers will fit into the contemporary country landscape.

A lot has changed since FGL were winding down the windows on ‘Cruise’ while Sam Hunt was inviting everyone over to a ‘House Party’. They were the two main poster boys for the ‘Bro-Country’ era of the 2010's, which was defined by carefree party anthems.

The main criticism levelled at Bro-Country - and famously laid out in Maddie & Tae's ‘Girl in Your Country Song’, which supposedly heralded the end of the Bro-Country era - was its tendency to objectify women. Now, with women leading the country music scene and the likes of Ella Langley dominating the charts, you could argue that the timing couldn't be worse for Bro-Country to be attempting a comeback.

But this is precisely why, just because FGL and Hunt seem to be hinting at comebacks, it doesn't mean Bro-Country itself will be making a return along with them. FGL's last album before their hiatus was permeated by maturer themes of marriage and faith compared to their earlier, beer-drenched material, while Hunt has spent the past five years building an image of a reclusive, old-school family man. Both are a far-cry from their frat-boy, snapback-wearing aesthetic of the 2010's.

Which brings us to HARDY. HARDY started writing for FGL around 2017, with Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley utilising his versatility to help them transition into a more settled-down tone, without losing the fun and playfulness of their first albums.

HARDY was the songsmith behind the likes of ‘Simple’, ‘Y’all Boys’ and ‘Talk You Out Of It’, which felt like pivotal moments that bridged the gap between Bro-Country and the sweeter Boyfriend Country, which was quickly becoming the flavour of the day.

Both Florida Georgia Line and Hunt have been booked for an array of 2027 festivals. While the former have maintained that their focus is on their live shows rather than recording, it would be a huge missed opportunity if they don't accompany their tour with new FGL music. Similarly, Hunt hasn't released new material since 2024's ‘Liberty’, and we haven't had an album from him since 2020's SOUTHSIDE.

Which brings us to HARDY's beloved HIXTAPE series. HIXTAPE, Vol. 4 - in this writer's opinion - would be the perfect launchpad for both FGL and Hunt's respective comebacks.

HARDY notoriously released a duet with ERNEST on his latest album called ‘Bro-Country’, which was intended to be the nail in the Bro-Country coffin. But as he outlined in a 2026 interview with Holler, given the subsequent excitement around FGL's reunion, the message of that song was misplaced, “That song did not age well. Sometimes you make a statement and sometimes it doesn’t always pan out”.

He went on to pay tribute to the under-appreciated skill of Bro-Country songwriting, “You’d end the sentence with a noun, and it’d be like...She’s got on those colour of the sky, blah blah blah, knock you dead, something-something, jeans. There’s people that can fill up a line like that and do it so well…that was my favourite part of all that ‘thoughtless’ stuff. I can’t wait for it to come back”.

He then name-checked FGL specifically, “I am extremely excited for the return of FGL. I don’t even have to be a part of it, I just want it to happen…I think a lot of people do”.

The beauty of HARDY's HIXTAPE is found in the exaggerated characters and the tongue-in-cheek use of country tropes. The three HIXTAPE projects released so far have all simultaneously felt like celebrations of country music culture and history, while at the same time parodying and poking fun at the genre's stereotypes.

What better way, therefore, to reintroduce FGL and Hunt to the mainstream than through HIXTAPE, Vol. 4. It could be a Bro-Country extravaganza, led by the songwriter that helped craft so many hit songs towards the tail-end of the 2010's movement.

And what's more - there's already a perfect blueprint in place. Post Malone's first official country single wasn't ‘I Had Some Help’ with Morgan Wallen - it was his reimagined version of Joe Diffie's ‘Pick-Up Man’, which arrived on HIXTAPE, Vol. 3. His live-wire performance of that Diffie classic at the 2023 CMA Awards helped launch his country era, and laid the foundation for F-1Trillion the next summer.

Given the fact that Morgan Wallen's name keeps being thrown around in relation to FGL's reunion, too, with Wallen and FGL teaming up for the rowdy earworm, ‘Up Down’, in 2017, HARDY - who is best buddies with Wallen - feels like the ideal lynchpin to piece together a HIXTAPE project starring Florida Georgia Line and Hunt.

And if there are lingering concerns about the accusations that Bro-Country objectified women, and reduced them to Daisy Duke-wearing, Fireball-drinking conquests in their tailgate romances, then HARDY has the chance to do something very clever. The ‘TRUCK BED’ singer-songwriter has spoken in the past about how he'd love to put together a CHIXTAPE at some point, featuring only female artists.

How about a HIXTAPE double-album, with one side featuring Bro-Country-inspired anthems - with all the levity and nostalgia of the 2010's, but made for the 2026 landscape - and the other side being a CHIXTAPE project, featuring an all-female cast that includes more of HARDY's pals, like Ella Langley, Lainey Wilson and more.

Admittedly, this stage feels better set for Florida Georgia Line than Sam Hunt, with the latter seemingly teasing a more traditional-leaning chapter of music focussed on fatherhood. But surely he can throw his fans a bone and release one ‘House Party’-esque heater as part of a HIXTAPE project, before sharing his next solo album.

Few artists in the modern country world are as innovative and willing to colour outside the lines as HARDY, as he showcased once again with his wildly ambitious recent single, ‘Man In The Box’. A Bro-Country / CHIXTAPE double-album might sound like a fanciful, quixotic castle in the sky. But if anyone can build it, it's HARDY.

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