Country band abandons song about smears (7)
I believe the answer is:
maligns
'smears' is the definition.
(maligning is a kind of smearing)
'country band abandons song' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'country' could be 'mali' (Mali is an example) and 'mali' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'about' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for maligns that I've seen before include "Badmouths" , "Defames" , "Says unpleasant and untrue things about" .)