People like to pretend that country music isn’t racist, but country music fans sure are making it a hard sell.
Country music star Morgan Wallen was caught on video hurling the N-word at someone — and now his sales are skyrocketing.
via NYDN:
Wallen’s songs were dropped from many radio stations, and his label suspended him indefinitely following the incident. But listeners have gone a different direction.
People bought 8,000 Wallen albums and downloaded 14,000 copies of his songs Wednesday, the day after the video dropped, according to Billboard data. On Tuesday, he sold 1,000 album copies and got 4,000 downloads.
On streaming services, Wallen’s on-demand streams were up 6% on Wednesday, and his programmed streams jumped 16%, according to Rolling Stone data.
Wallen, 27, was already dominating the charts with his newest release, “Dangerous: The Double Album.”
TMZ published video Tuesday of Wallen saying, “taking care of this p–sy-ass [N-word.]” Major radio stations quickly pulled Wallen’s songs from their rotation, and his airplay was down about 70% on Wednesday, according to Billboard.
“I’m embarrassed and sorry,” Wallen said. “I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back. There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever.”
The Sneedville, Tenn., native previously landed in hot water after ignoring COVID guidelines prior to a December appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”
To be quite honest — we wouldn’t expect anything less. It’s shameful.
