morgan wallen

I dgaf about this stupid Morgan Waller guy but when Isbell inevitably has his own caught-on-tape moment I'm gonna laugh so hard

really

Wtf

fuck off

BMI apparently thinks BeBe Winans has nothing more important to do than go counsel this shit-kicking hick about his public image.

BMI, the music rights management organization, says it can’t kick Morgan Wallen from its ranks, but has asked the iconic gospel singer BeBe Winans to educate the disgraced country music singer-songwriter about being a more “empathetic person” https://t.co/vgRbq4mkO1

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) February 4, 2021

i was worried things like that were gonna happen but i figured it'd be one of the small number of black stars in contemporary country who'd be enlisted

BMI also removed Wallen’s photo from its Twitter page this afternoon, going from this…

…to this:

The artists got whiter tho(?!)

I don't believe there's any precedent for revoking someone's membership in a performing rights organization for something like this. I mean Phil Spector and Jim Gordon were/are both still BMI members.

Is this the first time someone was cancelled while they had the number one album?

Billboard reports that his latest album sold 25,000 copies during the week ending Feb. 4, an increase of 102%, according to MRC Data. Billboard reported that that the album’s streaming numbers slightly increased by 3%, representing roughly 160 million on-demand streams. Song downloads from the album also went up by 67%.

From an AP news article. His sales and streams increased when this news came out

if this nips his career in the bud, i don't think it will hurt the label system much. some fans will be spurred to defend him or clamor for some kind of reconciliation, but many are already repulsed. the country audience isn't quite as hard-right as people sometimes presume.

― dyl, Thursday, February 4, 2021 12:16 AM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

keep trying to square this with all the country music fans i grew up with and what they post on facebook, but the numbers seem to back up my instincts

I would wager that the great, great majority of people on both the left and the right don't even have the "can I still support this artist" argument with themselves and just like what they like

^^^ largely OTM

So... A portion of this money goes to me, since I wrote ‘Cover Me Up.’ I’ve decided to donate everything I’ve made so far from this album to the Nashville chapter of the @NAACP. Thanks for helping out a good cause, folks. https://t.co/Ch3FlDBmJf

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) February 10, 2021

Good on Isbell, seems like the right thing to do in this case. Just don’t tell Paul Ponzi.

Pledged to donate $500,000 but Rolling Stone can’t find evidence he donated that much:

Nearly eight weeks after making these comments, however, it remains unclear if Wallen actually donated the entire amount he said he would. In a statement to Rolling Stone, BMAC — the only organization Wallen mentioned by name in his GMA interview — criticized the singer, saying they were “disappointed that Morgan has not used his platform to support any anti-racism endeavors.” While the group received some money from Wallen, they said the $500,000 number “seems exceptionally misleading.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/morgan-wallen-charity-1209084/

Yikes:

Lil Durk releases the video to his single “Broadway Girls” featuring Morgan Wallen.
pic.twitter.com/w6P0d7uZKc

— Rap Alert (@rapalert4) December 20, 2021

"Eminem featuring Elton John" - 2021

It's got the same ominous trap/twang as "Old Town Road" and unfortunately is stuck in my head after a few listens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpz4Ro5iD1Q

Billboard Hot 100: #14(new) Broadway Girls, @lildurk Feat. @MorganWallen.

— chart data (@chartdata) December 28, 2021

Last night @opry you had a choice- either upset one guy and his “team,” or break the hearts of a legion of aspiring Black country artists. You chose wrong and I’m real sad for a lot of my friends today. Not surprised though. Just sad.

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) January 9, 2022

Wait so looking through the replies on that, someone is saying that "all about the Benjamins" is an anti-Semitic slur?

Has that always been a thing or is this new? I don't remember ever hearing or seeing anything tied to that phrase that was claimed to be anti-Semitic (aside from recent political posturing against Ilhan Omar but I tied that to her criticizing Israel by invoking a money stereotype rather than the specifics of using the term "Benjamins" to reference $100 bills)

I genuinely haven't heard that take until just now, be curious to know if this was a more widespread reading.

It does seem sprung from the Fox/etc coverage of Omar's tweet. Otherwise it's Ben Franklin 100%.

Never thought about it at all, but don't know the lyrics so looked it up and there's a line "You should do what we do, stack chips like Hebrews." Maybe that's what people mean? Apparently "Hebrews" has been (or is often?) edited out of the song?

Indeed, "Hebrews" is cut out here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c58ppLPJcQ

(lol of course "all about the Benjamins" exists outside of the Puffy song, that's just where my mind first went to, so it's a weird coincidence that there is an anti-semitic connection!)

morgan wallen’s thoughtless redemption tour is the nail in the coffin of me realizing these systems, and this town is really not for us.

imma keep making my lil music in my attic, y’all can listen if you want. i don’t know that i’ll do this work forever.

— Joy Oladokun (@joyoladokun) January 9, 2022

no thanks! @PLPMngnt pic.twitter.com/FqafaC7XgE

— The Black Opry (@BlackOpry) January 10, 2022

I finally heard a Morgan Wallen song, ama

have you seen his hair

are you safe?

I have not seen his hair lately.

I am safe and extremely bemused.

how bad was it?

was it about drinking?

The worst thing about it was how anonymous it was. I am admittedly not a pop country person but I didn’t identify anything about it that would merit Wallen’s elevation above every other semi-talented hack half-assembly churning out pop country bullshit. There was absolutely nothing remotely like the turns of phrase or presentation of the confessional that Taylor Swift brings to the table, for example; it was just country brostep nonsense that I’m struggling to actually remember because it was so aggressively uninteresting to me.

I am embarrassed and sorry that I was captured on tape.

What if everytime a musician committed any infraction, their punishment was to have the Engineer pretend to hit record, and then release a blank CD on release day

In Wallen's case it would go platinum

Pretty sure I've still never heard a Morgan Wallen song but perhaps the worst part of this, the worst song I've ever been subjected to, was making sure to name check the racist country bro in the country bro rap track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnujskEgHnY

pull up
hop out
Walmart
late night

Christ, 31 of the top 50 songs on Spotify are by MW

Makes sense, probably a similar percentage of the rest of the internet is racist, too.

another victim of cancel culture

better not to look at this week’s Billboard Hot 100

Miranda Lambert's first co-write credit on a pop top ten single fwiw

I heard a Morgan Wallen song on a pop radio station this morning. I don't think I've ever heard them play a country song before.

still waiting on j0rdan's thoughts on the new album

where i will defend the previous album as a more or less front to back classic, this one is overly long, to put it mildly. i'm completely baffled by i.e. how there is a song that references keith whitley, and then another song, and then after that a song called "keith whitley" that doesn't seem to be in conversation at all w/ the song that 4 mins previously was referencing keith whitley over and over. just blatant stuff like that where i'm like, c'mon now. but i guess as a commerce play it's working for them. all that being said there's still a group of 15-18 songs that, as compiled into a playlist, is one of the best albums of the year for me.

i find him uniquely believable even w/in country as a deliverer of songs about substance abuse, and basically every song on this album is about substance abuse. idk that's been resonating w/ me this year, i won't get too much into it. but he's got people writing a lot of really great songs for him & he is a masterful performer of a lot of that work... even down to something as granular as the way he sings the word "jack" on "you proof." songs like "one thing at a time," "tennessee numbers," "keith whitley," "neon star," "98 braves" ... not a lot of stuff out there in any genre hitting for me like that. i guess i've made peace w/ who he is as a person, we'll see how it plays out