![]() ![]() When he does stick with social issues, he doesn’t seem like a political scientist, exactly: The only three “issues” he addresses in his plaints against politicians are high taxes, welfare queens and child trafficking. (Sample lyrics: “Ain’t gotta dollar / And when the sun goes down / On this itty bitty town / We can light up a bowl n’ pass it around.” And: “Well the liquor and the bowl / They’vе been saving my soul / From the pain that the world’s put on me.”) He has several other songs up on YouTube or TikTok, and he refers to pot a lot more than he does politics. Whether Anthony really is an ideologue in good old boy’s clothing remains to be seen. Thank you, for writing the anthem of this moment in American history. It's raw, it's true, & it's touching the hearts of men & women across this great nation. I can’t listen to Oliver Anthony's “Rich Men North of Richmond” without getting chills. And while paid downloads are hardly a solid measure of broad success nowadays, Anthony’s breakout tune has cracked the top 10 on a much more indicative one, Spotify’s daily USA Top 50. On the iTunes downloads chart, he has the top three songs as of this writing, and five of the top 10. The red-bearded upstart has accumulated 341,000 Twitter/X followers within days of registering on the site. The “Rich Men” video (hosted not on his own YouTube page, but that of a site that promises “real music, real people, real cuture” ) has racked up 12 million views in six days. The suspicions of progressive music fans have largely to do with the fast numbers he’s racked up as an independent artist with supposedly no industry backing whatsoever. Since the Virginia native’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” song began taking off from out of nowhere less than a week ago, the Appalachian country-folk singer has been acclaimed by freshly minted fans as a phenomenon of the people and accused by detractors of harboring ugly right-wing attitudes or suspected of being an “industry plant.” Is viral sensation Oliver Anthony too good to be true? Too “right” to be true? Or an authentic working class hero, which is something to be? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |