Before a surprise August 2023 buzz cut, Morgan Wallen was synonymous with a hairstyle that pointed back to his country radio predecessors. We're talking about that majestic mullet: a tribute to '90s Nashville's "Music Row in the front, tailgate party in the back" mindset that's as retro as any new song borrowing cues from Travis Tritt or Brooks & Dunn.
Before further discussing Wallen's 'do, let's consider the surprisingly lengthy (on the back end, at least) history of a style that's become a punchline in the 21st century.
What's the History of the Mullet?
In Homer's The Iliad, he describes soldiers wearing "their forelocks cropped, hair grown long at the backs." In centuries to come, troops and warriors in different cultures adopted practical hairstyles to keep the backs of their necks warm and their bangs out of their eyes.
When the mullet reached the States, it became a preferred look for more than front-line soldiers. Ever notice that Benjamin Franklin is depicted with a Hulk Hogan-caliber "skullet" (mullets for those who've been leg-dropped by a receding hairline)? Franklin's hairstyle convinced the French that he was less of a highfalutin noble than his powdered wig-wearing peers in the New World. The wigs of George Washington and other Founding Fathers gave way to Franklin's look when James K. Polk became the nation's 11th president in 1845.
Fast-forward to the '70s, and David Bowie's bright-orange version of what's now called the mullet made the hairstyle A-OK for not just Ziggy Stardust-crazed glam rockers but also punks and metalheads to come. By the '80s, popular music acts, star athletes and pro wrestlers alike made their own takes on Wallen's prior look as prominent as spandex and neon.
The hairstyle took Nashville by storm in the '90s as country music went uptown. Billy Ray Cyrus' "Kentucky waterfall" look made him the undisputed mullet king, and he was far from alone. Other '90s country luminaries with mullets include Toby Keith and Tracy Lawrence. Before those stars changed the accepted look of long-haired men in country music, the most daring 'dos in country-adjacent music were limited to Ricky Skaggs' blow-dried big hair and that stretch when New Grass Revival's John Cowan looked like a Stranger Things character.
The trend, given a name by the Beastie Boys' 1994 song "Mullet Head," didn't suddenly taper off right before the new millennium. When Blake Shelton's debut album arrived in 2001, his curly locks raised few eyebrows.
Somewhere along the way, what once passed for fashion morphed into an easy target for anyone wanting to label the long-haired heavy metal fan in their neighborhood a "hesher." There's probably nothing deep to pick apart about the changing look of long hair on masculine-presenting people. Times change, and formerly acceptable haircuts give way to Joe Dirt jokes.
Wallen, a songwriter for Kane Brown and Florida Georgia Line before becoming a solo star for Big Loud Records, wasn't just going all in on irony. Like many of his peers, the Sneedville, Tenn., native simply appreciates the looks and sounds he associates with a small-town childhood.
"Whenever my parents got married, my dad had a mullet," Wallen told The Associated Press. "Me and my dad are very similar-type people with the way we look and the way we act, and I figured if he could get away with it when he was around 25, then I could try to do the same thing."
As Wallen proved to be more than a flash in the pan, family and fans showed more love for his trademark locks.
"I think my mom is coming around with the mullet," Wallen told People in 2019. "There were a lot of people not crazy about the mullet, but I mean, I like it. I'm not getting a haircut anytime soon. It was never intended to be a part of my brand or anything, but now it is. And when I look in the crowd and see these young guys with mullets and shorts on, that's cool. I can relate to them and they can relate to me."
Nowadays, it's not unusual for a rising artist to sport a mullet. Indeed, reports of the mullet's death at the hands of Wallen's barber are exaggerated, with the likes of Hardy rocking their own version of the look. And, of course, you can't go to Lower Broadway in Nashville or a country music festival anywhere in the nation without seeing a teenager or twenty-something keeping the mullet circle unbroken. Even if the fad fades, clearly it's a cyclical fashion that'll surely have its moment again.
Here's a quick look at some of country music's best mullets from the '90s and early aughts.
Rick Diamond/Getty Images There's a completely absurd yet harmlessly fun debate to be had over whether Morgan Wallen's locks surpassed those of "Achy Breaky Heart"-era Billy Ray Cyrus. After all, Cyrus is probably the first name that came to mind once our mullet timeline reached the '90s. Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images Here's another debate prompt: Did the now-late Joe Diffie grow and maintain the most glorious country music mullet of the '90s and beyond? Beth Gwinn/Redferns A less-obvious pick, Tracy Lawrence joined Toby Keith in setting the bar high for Wallen and his contemporaries when it came to curly-haired mullets on country stars. Sylvain Gaboury/FilmMagic Like Cyrus before him, Toby Keith grabbed enough headlines in his prime to paint an accurate picture of Nashville star aesthetics to the mainstream. Paul Natkin/Getty Images Blake Shelton kept the spirit of '90s country alive in the new century through more than his debut album. He's good-naturedly teased to this day for a look that went out of style before Wallen led an ongoing mullet comeback.Billy Ray Cyrus
Joe Diffie
Tracy Lawrence
Toby Keith
Blake Shelton
This story originally ran on Dec. 1, 2020. It was updated on Aug. 14, 2023.
