What’s going on? One common theory from inside and outside the industry is that Wallen’s continued popularity is a referendum on “cancel culture,” that poorly defined but ubiquitous topic of argument.
In the nine days after TMZ published the video of Wallen, his music brought in more than $2 million. 1 album for a male artist since Drake’s Views in 201 6. With six weeks in the country’s top spot, Dangerous is the longest-running No. The listenership boost more than offset Wallen’s loss of radio spins, major-label marketing, and streaming-service support.
Streams of Wallen’s music videos shot up as well. Sales of Dangerous: The Double Album tripled in the days after the TMZ video was posted. Wallen’s fans appeared to want to send a different message. Read: Country music can no longer hide its problems A press release from the Black Music Action Coalition praised the industry’s expulsion of Wallen, saying, “The message was loud and it was clear: racism will no longer go without consequences.” The singer-songwriter Luke Combs apologized for previously featuring the Confederate flag in performances stars such as Maren Morris began saying that Wallen’s offense was a sign of a racist status quo that needed to end. In a five-minute Instagram apology posted February 10, Wallen said that he accepted whatever “penalties” his deeds merited and asked that fans not defend him.Ĭoming after a year in which country music’s-and America’s-racist history was under a microscope, the industry’s disavowal of Wallen seemed intended to send a message that times are changing. His booking agent quit, and his record label, Big Loud, suspended his contract. The Academy of Country Music disqualified him from this year’s awards consideration. Streaming services took him off their official playlists. Major radio networks stopped playing his songs. He apologized for those incidents and continued on his ascent, but when he was caught shouting slurs after a night of partying, the music industry’s reaction was swift and decisive. In May, police arrested him for alleged drunk and disorderly conduct, and in October, Saturday Night Live disinvited him for violating the show’s COVID-19 safety rules. Thousands of people are, at this moment, streaming Wallen’s songs, buying his records, and watching his music videos-putting money in the pockets of someone who has admitted to saying one of the most noxious things imaginable.Ī former Voice contestant with a broadly appealing sound, Wallen had only recently achieved superstardom when, on February 2, TMZ posted a video of him yelling the N-word to a friend outside his house two days earlier. Billboard’s ranking of the most popular artists in the United States had him in the top spot for five straight weeks. His singles have been bobbing in the country-music top 10 and the cross-genre Hot 100. Three weeks after the 27-year-old country singer Morgan Wallen said a racial slur on camera, his second studio album, Dangerous: The Double Album, is at No.
It’s no exaggeration to say that one of the biggest artists in American music right now is a disgrace.