“No consequences!” Morgan Wallen said during an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in December, lifting a bottle of beer in a skit about receiving a warning of her own future, courtesy of host Jason Bateman. The joke was that Wallen, the fastest rising star in country music, was asked to return after being kicked out of a previous episode for violating the COVID protocol – that is, kissing girls in a bar without a mask and getting caught by the camera doing this. Here he was, in the most coveted spot on television, having a second chance.
Last weekend, Wallen was filmed again, this time by a neighbor’s ring camera, using a racial slur outside his home in the Berry Hill area of Nashville. And this time, he woke up to the consequences: the video leaked to TMZ and, in less than 24 hours, Wallen’s music was taken out of rotation by radio conglomerates iHeartMedia, Cumulus, Cox Media Group, Entercom and Beasley Broadcasting – a big blow for any artist, but mainly for country artists, who depend on the support of country radio stations. His record label, Big Loud, has suspended his recording contract. The cable network CMT is “in the process of removing its appearances from all of our platforms”, as is Country Music Assn. Your music has been removed from selected streaming playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, although your music remains available on the platforms. The Academy of Country Music has suspended its eligibility for awards and “will accelerate the offering of long-planned diversity training resources.” And Billboard reports that its booking agent, WME, has removed it from its list.
“His recent behavior is not up to the standards expected in society,” said Nate Deaton, general manager of KRTY-FM (95.3) San Jose. “We are suspending all games in the air right now.”
It is a remarkable and rapid change for an industry that, just a day earlier, had elevated it to the top of the Music Row pyramid. Wallen, 27, was breaking records with his “Dangerous: The Double Album”, with three consecutive weeks in first place on the Billboard 200 chart of all genres and 240 million streams in its first week. It was organic to some extent, but it also came with unparalleled support: it had the strength of a partnership between its Nashville label, Big Loud, and Taylor Swift’s home, Republic Records, based in New York, as well as almost universal coverage from the media – everything from Pitchfork to that appearance on “SNL. “
For many in Nashville, his rise to the superstar was both perplexing and not: he is a great singer and a good writer within a specific canon, but he also fits perfectly into the star mold that Music Row has been producing and supporting almost from the beginning, but doubled in the last 20 years. And this is a formula of white men in jeans – Luke Bryan to Luke Combs and now Morgan Wallen – singing about life in a small town, a formula that leaves out black artists, women and even left-wing musicians like Tyler Childers .
“I am ashamed and sorry,” Wallen said in a statement after the video was posted. “I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slander that I wish I could remove.” Wallen was used to apologizing now – even before Tuesday, and before “SNL”, he had been arrested for public intoxication and disorderly conduct.
“I think he got away with it more than any artist who was not a heterosexual white man,” says singer-songwriter Kalie Shorr. “Careers are on fire for much less.”
Wallen’s career is certainly on fire, but “suspended” from his label has not been “dropped,” noted a former music industry executive. “Proudly declaring that you ‘suspended’ someone ‘indefinitely’ from your recording contract is not exactly the powerful statement that Big Loud thinks it is,” said the executive, who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely. “There’s nothing Nashville loves more than a dairy cow, so I’m totally looking forward to seeing Big Loud artist Morgan Wallen performing a tearful comeback single at the 2022 CMA Awards. There won’t be a dry eye in the house, and everyone will pat themselves on the back for directing their redemption. “
In fact, “suspended” leaves a lot of room for a redemption tour, which country music men have often managed without any effort to appeal: Jason Aldean was caught cheating on his wife and wearing a black face and is still one of the biggest stars in the genre. When composer Dallas Davidson said similar slanders on camera in 2014, he found himself back on Luke Bryan’s – and Wallen’s – records almost without discussion. Abe Stoklasa, a songwriter, says that he once heard another male artist casually launch the word with N in the studio while “banging the microphone like a joke and loosening the word like it was nothing”. For Stoklasa, and for black artists like Grammy nominee Mickey Guyton, who only needs to look at his mentions online to see similar language, the shocking part is that none of this was shocking.
“I was more irritated by the conversation ‘That’s not us’ than when he said the word,” says singer-songwriter Rissi Palmer. Palmer, who is black, is referring to a social media post by country star Kelsea Ballerini who defended Music Row: “The Nashville news tonight does not represent country music,” she wrote.
“I’m used to that, unfortunately,” adds Palmer. “Systematic racism is what keeps black artists out. This is what allows behaviors such as Wallen’s past and present actions. Of course, Wallen has been eliminated for now, what about the heads of record labels who don’t hire color artists or LGBTQ + artists? What about radio stations that play only a limited amount of music and all of these ads go to white men? This is the biggest job. That’s the bigger picture. “
Non-male and non-white artists rarely receive the grace that Wallen received in his short career. Mindy McCready was released (not “suspended”) after a series of public struggles with alcohol and drugs; LeAnn Rimes was expelled from the genre for committing the same extramarital “sin” as Aldean; Palmer lost his record label for failing to sell the same number of records as white artists who come in with a huge advantage. The Chicks, perhaps the most famous, were expelled from the air for expressing their views on George W. Bush.
“Unfortunately, [men] they fail or are rewarded for bad behavior, because it has always been that way, ”says Charese Fruge, owner of MC Media Consulting. “White men in trouble become thugs. All others are blacklisted, ”said a spokeswoman for the anonymous defense collective WOMAN Nashville.
“The problem is programmers who claim that racism has no place at their stations, but they still won’t add Mickey Guyton,” said former national program director Christal Blue. “If a programmer quietly pulls Morgan Wallen today, but makes no public statement about his station not tolerating the behavior, they remain complicit. There are many country radio stations that are afraid to irritate GM, concert promoters, record label representatives, their audience and, especially, their advertising clients. Guyton, who has been in Nashville for a decade and is running for the Grammy in March, released just one EP, while Wallen’s second album contained almost 30 songs.
Randy Brooks, a KIX 102.5 programmer from Missouri, still doesn’t play Chicks. He’s not spinning Wallen now either, although that guideline comes from above. When he did a survey with his listeners on the air, he said that “the prevailing opinion was that no one should be judged for youthful indiscretions”. Wallen is 27 years old.
Still, the penalty Wallen is facing – permanent or not – is notable for a genre that prefers to adhere to a “no policy” mantra when it comes to everything from #MeToo to COVID-19 to Black Lives Matter. “This incident demonstrates the importance of speaking out against incidents and racist systems,” said Charles Hughes, author of “Country Soul: making music and running in the southern United States.” “The claim that we all just need to come together and get along, or that country artists shouldn’t be politicians, is simply not good enough.”
Some city executives, like publisher and entertainment consultant Tracy Gershon, are ready to break that pattern. “[Music Row] he always says, ‘Oh, this is bad, but it will go away in a few weeks,’ ”says Gershson. “This is the day that we don’t talk anymore. Never again, never again. I have respect for many members of [Wallen’s] team, but they have to look at themselves. It is difficult to give up the payment, but something has to give. ”
Even those outside the country music community are fed up. “Let’s be clear,” says the singer and songwriter for “A Thousand Miles”
Vanessa Carlton, who, until recently, lived in Nashville. “It is all whites who have run these radio stations and record labels for a long, long time. They protect cancer because they are cancer. “
This does not mean that it cannot be cured: country music has a whole subgenre of songs about redemption. But it means facing racism deeply rooted in its institutions head-on. “Time will tell in his actions if he has grown up,” says Palmer, who expects Wallen to be seeking advice or rehabilitation. “He was not sentenced to death. He can still make music. He can still go out and play if he wants to. He received the Chicks treatment. They survived and came back stronger than ever. Wallen can choose how he gets out of it. “
Wallen hasn’t completely disappeared – on Thursday, “More Than My Hometown” topped the list of the 10 most popular songs on iTunes, followed by six other versions of Wallen. He also occupied several places on the album chart, with his new release, “Dangerous: The Double Album”, leading the way. Some in the conservative media have even gathered around him: Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren asked if “this is just another cheap thrill for the awake keyboard crowd”.
But most Nashville observers support Wallen’s punishment. “I haven’t heard a single person who thinks this is excessive,” says a radio programmer. “I am betting that spins will be at zero or close to zero at the end of the week.”
Although many women of the genre and black artists, including Guyton, Palmer, Maren Morris and Cassadee Pope, have condemned Wallen’s actions, so far, only a few male country artists from major labels have done the same, including Old Dominion and the group singer and songwriter Charlie Worsham.
“What happened is inexcusable, horrible, wrong on many levels,” Worsham told The Times. “But we already know that, and there is no amount of embarrassed tweets, public relations apologies or industry self-correction that will solve the root of the problem. The root of the problem is that racism operates in deep and complex ways, and if we want to make things better, we – specifically whites and especially whites – must be willing to act on a personal level. I’m a white guy from Deep South and I’m here to say that change is possible. “
Another episode that made headlines proves, in a way, that this is true. TJ Osborne, of the Grammy-nominated duo Osborne, came out as gay on Time magazine on Wednesday. He is the first male country star on a major label to do this, and is an important step for an industry that still faces a reckoning with race and inclusion.
“I am so happy and proud to [T.J.], ”Says singer-songwriter Miko Marks. “We are living in the best and worst times.”
As Kacey Musgraves, a friend of Osborne and a longtime advocate for equal rights, said at Time: “Country music deserves an even more honest future than the past.”