Media Downplay Oliver Anthony’s Overnight Success (UPDATED)
Virginia crooner rocks iTunes charts with blue-collar anthems, protest songs
Pretend you’re an entertainment journalist.
There’s a new singer on the scene who has no agent, record label or marketing muscle behind him. He’s a virtual unknown, but by the power of social media his music explodes on the iTunes charts.
He lands not one or two but three songs in the top 10, a literal overnight sensation. His music dominates on social media, too, and his first live performance since his career ignited draws a sizable crowd.
He just joined X, formerly known as Twitter and now has more than 300K followers.
Worth a story, no?
It gets better.
The singer shares plainspoken lyrics that speak to the working stiff, the guys and gals who break their backs only to watch it scooped up by the government. The songs aren’t overtly political, but they speak to modern frustrations in ways that make progressives nervous.
How fast do you write that story?
Well, if you work for Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline or TheWrap.com you don’t even bother. Those entertainment sites are ignoring the stunning rise of Oliver Anthony, a Virginia resident whose song “Rich Men North of Richmond” went viral mere days ago.
A Google News search also couldn’t find the AP or Reuters picking up the story. Most mainstream news outlets pretend it’s not happening.
Meanwhile, his recent concert drew strong media coverage from right-leaning outlets.
No words… Thank you. pic.twitter.com/UUFVfJQdab
— Oliver Anthony (@AintGottaDollar) August 13, 2023
Billboard begrudgingly covered Anthony’s rise, while both TMZ and Rolling Stone found the most newsworthy element of his story is that conservative influencers are sharing his music.
Like that noted alt-right figure Joe Rogan.
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There’s a reason these news outlets ignore select stories despite their obvious value.
Several, actually.
Some may be unaware of his overnight stardom. Progressive journalists live in a bubble, protected from right-leaning or contrarian views. Anthony may be all over a conservative’s social media landscape, but liberals may be blissfully unaware of his story.
There’s another angle, though.
Reporters understand Anthony’s work undercuts their narratives. Bidenomics is working! There is no collusion between the Biden administration and Big Tech!
Look, squirrel!
Everything is fine, and our elites have the situation firmly in hand.
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Anthony’s music says otherwise, and reporters are loathe to give those messages the oxygen they richly deserve.
Just wait, though.
Journalists may be pouring through Anthony’s social media feeds for “problematic” thoughts. Some may be on the ground in Virginia, digging for dirt on a singer who defied the groupthink. They may work harder discrediting Anthony than a certain president’s son and his miles and miles of misbehavior.
Their silence may soon be replaced with blistering editorials and investigations into why an unknown singer is outselling the biggest stars in music.
The best-case scenario for Anthony? He keeps making music for the masses while the media keeps looking the other way.
UPDATE: Musician and podcaster Winston Marshall echoes the themes presented above in a blistering attack on Rolling Stone magazine for The Spectator.
This is a big story in music. The biggest maybe since rapper Bryson Gray knocked Adele off the iTunes top spot in October 2021 with “Let’s Go Brandon.” Gray’s story was largely ignored by the music press, completely so by Rolling Stone. An unknown rapper beats the biggest-selling artist of the twenty-first century to number one? Nothing to see here. Why the crickets? Well, it didn’t help that Gray was an unapologetic conservative “punching up,” as they say, at the president. And Rolling Stone magazine is now, remember, the Establishment. It is the mainstream. It is legacy media. And it has a narrative to protect.
SECOND UPDATE: Variety finally decided to cover Anthony’s remarkable story.
The angle?
Oliver Anthony’s ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Is an Instant Smash Among Conservatives, While Progressives Wonder if He’s a ‘Plant’
The far-Left outlet bemoans that Anthony lacks a sizable paper trail, all but saying the reporter dug for any dirt possible but came up empty.
Actually, Variety comes right out and admits it:
(“Oliver Anthony” is a nom de plume; still, nothing that turns up under his real name suggests that he was actually financed by a PAC or major label or doesn’t really know what a deer blind is.)
Next, the outlet demonizes the singer’s fans because they’re (gasp) right wing.
But if an artist is known by the fans they keep, the highest-profile fans Anthony has quickly accumulated are very much on the right side of the aisle — insta-supporters like former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, firebrand commentator Matt Walsh, former Mumford & Sons banjoist-turned-political gadfly Winston Marshall and far-right country figure John Rich, who said he has had long conversations with Anthony and offered to produce and finance a full album.
The Mocking Jay of our time.
“But if an artist is known by the fans they keep,”
They’re not. They’re known by the art they make. The art stands on its own merit regardless of who likes it – or, frankly, regardless of who made it. Many great artists have had horrendous morals. It doesn’t matter.
this song actually reveals what’s become wrong in country music today .. repeatedly using profanity and cuss words in a song, or even in public really, is a sign of poor character and disrespect for whoever may be listening .. you want your kids or teens singing along with this song? however well meaning they may think it is? I don’t .. so the sentiments may be real, but the song is a failure
Yeah the song is no failure and a cuss word or two is way better than some grown ass man shoving his appendages into a kindergartners face. So save your lecture for someone who cares because we don’t. Oliver Anthony is the man!!!This song is fire!
Oh, but if you comment your computer code with a few bad words, you’re a genius, right?
Rolling Stone, of all publications, says no thanks to the plain-spoken Dylan of our time. Instead let’s cover Taylor Swift dissing her recent boyfriend again on her new album. That’s genius.
Bigots love bigot songs, but the media has a hard time pushing bigotry
Haha, that’s all it does.
Lefty codswallop
Yes, poor people standing up to the people who impoverish them, and calling them out for their pedophilic ways… those are the REAL bigots. /s
Just goes to show that the media is dead and no one cares anymore. As long as their are platforms that don’t censor like X and Rumble, Truth Social etc people will go there for what is relevant.
Your first mistake was calling them entertainment journalists. There are no entertainment journalists. There are newspeak writers that work for corporate owned media that acts as the propaganda arm of the democrat communist party.
Well said!
He challenged their “gatekeeper status,” and now must be punished by being ignored…
“First they ignore you.
Then they mock you.
Then they persecute you.
Then you win,”
— attributed to Mohandas K. Gandhi
I’m old enough to remember when the media would have celebrated this guy because he, like they, would be the voice of the “common man”, the “Regular Joe” getting shafted by the elites with power. Yes, the media has always leaned left, but they always portrayed themselves as the voice of the regular guy and were always suspicious of power and money, and they often went after corrupt powerful Democrats with almost as much vigor as corrupt, powerful Republicans.
Today’s media love them some rich, powerful people because the wealth and power are now in the hands of the left. If the rich and powerful are censoring speech and making a killing on the stock market, well, that’s OK because they’re all on the Blue Team.
And as media jobs in the Legacy Media are disappearing, they’re concerned about their job security and hence more likely to suck up to the rich, powerful elites to ensure their paychecks keep coming in.