Unless I missed something in both the Rolling Stone and TeamRock articles, it was the writers who said the album would have country songs or 'songs with a country feel', not Ori.

All she said was that she liked country songs because they tell stories, they are moving and well-crafted, and it was something she and Richie "wanted to explore."

Also considering that her comments were made during an interview with Rolling Stone Country in Nashville, it's not surprising that she would be complimentary about country music.

All that aside, Richie's music (as well as Bon Jovi's and Jon's solo stuff) has often crossed genre boundaries, which is not a bad thing, IMO. Lost Highway is a prime example. I'm still convinced that a lot of people were predisposed to dislike that album before it was even released, primarily because of a knee-jerk reaction to the "Nashville influence" label that was slapped on it. When some people hear the term "country" all they think of is twangy singing and songs about beer-drinkin', deer-huntin', backwoods rednecks who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag bumper stickers. (People tend to forget, btw, that the main difference between a country redneck, a Joisey boy, and a member of mafia is usually just the accent of their "Fvck you".)

Maybe I'm desensitized by my long-standing love affair with Southern rock and crossovers in general, but to me the lines between some rock and country music is so blurred these days that, without the arbitrary labels, we wouldn't be able to categorize some of the songs anyway. So I don't think it will be that big a deal even if that is what they're doing.

But I honestly think it was a just a conclusion that was drawn by the reporters, because I didn't see anything in the quotes from Ori to indicate they were doing country songs.