When Morgan Wallen drunkenly uttered the “n” word at one of his friends after a night of hard partying in Nashville, many thought his budding career was over. Wallen subsequently attempted to apologize to appease the woke mafia, and took some time off from music.
Of course, his record label and country music radio cowardly did what the left demanded and suspended all of Wallen’s music and dropped him from touring. It didn’t matter that Wallen was talking to his white friend at the time, the damage was done.
Or maybe not. Country music fans like what they like, and they liked Morgan Wallen. His sales went through the roof, and since ultimately it’s all about the money and not really the virtue, his label and country radio took him back with open arms, much to the pearl-clutching and salty tears of leftists everywhere.
Now, with his latest album being a gargantuan, 36-song success, his latest number one, “Last Night” has prompted lefties in the media to take aim once again and attempt to downplay Wallen’s success. Fox News reports:
Country music star Morgan Wallen’s number one hit “Last Night” has the liberal media up in arms about the singer’s past, pointing to attempts to cancel him in 2021 after video surfaced of him drunkenly using the N-word shortly after nationwide Black Lives Matter protests dominated headlines.
“Numerically speaking, this new song is not topping the charts by uniting disparate audiences. It’s not (yet, maybe ever) a song for everybody,” Slate Magazine’s Chris Molanphy wrote of the hit last Friday.
“And whatever its musical merits, you get the sinking feeling it’s being boosted by an audience that’s trying to prove a point, and maybe even … own the libs?” he wrote.
And that wasn’t all. Woke media continued to melt down and shed tears over the idea that someone they tried to cancel wasn’t disappeared for good, as shown by what Fox News Digital reported:
“Is the ascension of “Last Night” a sign of Wallen’s wholesale acceptance by music listeners nationwide? Or is it a kind of niche-driven data activism, by the sort of reactionary fan who chants “Let’s go Brandon” at a Wallen concert?” he later added.
In the piece, he alleged Wallen’s fanbase doesn’t spread to others invested in other genres as other artists might, concluding by saying, “He’s [Wallen] not a uniter, he’s a triangulator—and when you zoom out, his seemingly crowded tent still looks awfully small.”
The Guardian labeled him “America’s controversial country star,” pointing to previous criticism from New York Times music writer Jon Caramanica, who critiqued Wallen’s “vague atonement” for his sins, “no mention of racial justice or change” and “no stopping his audience members from turning his success into a political weapon” by shouting remarks about President Biden during his shows after returning to the stage.
In other words, the left tried canceling Wallen, failed, and is now very unhappy about that. This isn’t the first time they’ve had to admit their failure. The New York Times had to admit that county fans love Wallen despite the cancellation attempt in September of 2022, saying:
Nineteen months ago, it seemed that the music career of Morgan Wallen — primed as Nashville’s next crossover star — might be dead. Instead, he is now playing to sold-out arenas and has broken chart records set by the likes of Adele and Bruce Springsteen, in a success story that highlights the power of fan loyalty and the challenges of cancel culture.
“Dangerous: The Double Album,” Wallen’s second LP, came out at the beginning of 2021 and shot to No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart, with big streaming numbers that demonstrated his power among a new generation of country performers. The album was in its third week at the top when TMZ published a video of Wallen using a racial slur. The rebuke was immediate and strong, with Wallen’s songs removed from radio and streaming playlists, and Wallen’s label, Big Loud, saying it would “suspend” his recording contract “indefinitely.”
Yet “Dangerous” would hold at No. 1 for a further seven weeks, and since then it has become an unusually enduring hit. The album has now spent 86 weeks in the Top 10 of Billboard’s chart — dipping to No. 12 only once, when it was pushed out by holiday albums last December — and has been in the Top 5 for 65 of those times.
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