Lauren Weintraub's journey from 'Boston' to country music success

When Sudbury, Massachusetts native -- and the creator of November 4's "This Is Your Brain On Love" EP -- Lauren Weintraub was eight years old, Taylor Swift's "Our Song" was a top-selling country music chart-topper with crossover potential. The song also broke into the mainstream not just because of its popularity in the Midwest and South but also because of the impact of northeastern-based country radio stations like the ones closest to her -- the then-year-old Waltham, Massachusetts-based WKLB, Country 102.5.

Country radio's influence -- as well as her rural upbringing -- has the 24-year-old former Belmont University student based in Nashville. She tells The Tennessean that growing up in Sudbury makes her representative of "country" music because the town of fewer than 20,000 people is 30 minutes away from Boston and 10 minutes away from the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge -- essentially a 2,230-acre forest in Middlesex County, Massachusets.

"I grew up around a small town vibe where everyone knew everyone else, and I was a theater kid who loved hearing pop-friendly country songs with intricate stories," says Weintraub.

Fifteen years have elapsed since Swift's first big hit. In that time, female artists that the singer-songwriter has grown to respect, including Lori McKenna and Maren Morris, have represented some of the few female artists to achieve some manner of stardom via the format. These moments are notable when cast against moments like New York City's Country 94.7 music station abruptly switching formats in October 2021. However, for what northeastern cities are losing in an abundance of full-time programming catering to the genre, they've gained in country-popular female artists and creators like Ingrid Andress and Kane Brown's wife, Katelyn, being educated at Boston's Berklee College of Music. Westerly, Rhode Island, also claims Taylor Swift as a resident.

Though potentially seen as benign, the impact of country musicians not being geo-specific to rural towns or southern metropolises is slowly integrating itself into the genre's most chart-impacting and influential sectors.

Weintraub is cresting the wave of viral and real-time popularity surrounding "Boston." Her latest single, co-written by Swift's longtime collaborator/producer, Nathan Chapman (on her first five albums, "Taylor Swift," "Fearless," "Speak Now," "Red" and "1989"), is unlikely popular not so much because of Weintraub's hometown, as much as because it namedrops Beantown landmarks Back Bay, Fenway Park, Harvard Square, the "T" subway service, Washington Street and area-specific slang like "wicked."

It's continuing a trend.

Weintraub's "Boston" evokes how May-to-December romances gone awry conjure more longing heartache about the possible moments missed than manic anger about imminent heartbreak.

"My genre's country -- but it's also non-fiction," she says with a cautionary tone.

These relationships occurring for fans mainly in country music's teen-to-post-teen female fanbase is key. Not since 19-year-olds Taylor Swift or Maddie and Tae achieved chart-topping country stardom has the uppermost tier of work in a ten-year town that ages women past their twenties on the path to "overnight" success has unrepentant youth been so significantly represented in the genre.

32-year-old Carly Pearce is at the top of the genre due to an album highlighting the devastation she endured at 29. However, that album's emotions aren't yet written in stone for a younger demographic.

"I'm lucky to be able to capitalize on my youth to write songs for people who want to be emotionally seen and heard," she says.

To that end, concerning her half-million TikTok followers that have aided her climb, she adds the note that she's grateful for having them around during the pandemic when she was unable to reach them via live concerts. However, she adds that she "loves" engaging with the platform but does not wish to have the platform entirely define her art.

The rising singer/songwriter notes that her fondest memories are of Boston in the fall, which she describes as "beautiful," but also a time when the loneliness after a spring of skipping classes for Dunkin Donuts runs along Interstate 90 (Weintraub preferred a location in Sudbury's neighboring town of Concord) settles in and the pain of having to return an ex-boyfriend's beloved baseball cap persists.

Comparatively, the EP's closer "Not Like I'm In Love With You" has gaggles of young women aged 16-plus at her live shows screaming, "I ain't been staying up overthinking us / tripping all over these feelings, naw that'd be dumb / it's fine, yeah it's cool / not like I wanna make a move / it's fine, yeah it's cool / it's not like I'm in love with you." The kicker? When they pause, as Weintraub does in the song, it's before letting out a bittersweet concession to the love they know they're in:

"S***!"

It's evident that alongside material by Lori McKenna, Weintraub counts Brandy Clark's Grammy-nominated 2016 single "Love Can Go To Hell" as an important inspiration.

Weintraub's one of four children (a triplet with two brothers and another brother) and her desire to "flee the nest" also led her to Nashville and to Belmont University. The vibrancy of the city's songwriting community -- especially given that many country stars do not write their material. She recalls her "jaw [being] on the floor" when attending shows at venues like the Bluebird Cafe and Listening Room, "[hoping] to write songs of the caliber [of what she was hearing] someday."

Her focus on achieving success led to her being the first songwriter signed to a joint venture between the previously mentioned Clark's All BC Music and Big Machine Music in 2019.

Weintraub feels that she's Clark's "adopted song-daughter," highlighting her humor, kindness and song-crafting as leading to an "invaluable learning experience so far."

When asked to sum up the past five years of her life, Weintraub's face is serious but smiling.

"I used to have imposter syndrome, but I'm now settling into the fact that I worked my ass off on so many 19-hour days to get where I am. Yes, I'm still shocked that it's all happening, but as long as the universe keeps bringing the right people to me, I'll keep soaking up these moments."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Lauren Weintraub's journey from 'Boston' to country music success