Quick Hits, Vol. 276 (Morgan Wallen)

I hate the google algorithms.  The other day, for work, I searched to find out what a Gantt Chart is (some sort of spreadsheet to show the timing and workflow of a project) and now every single YouTube video I watch starts with some upbeat ad that starts with " DO YOU LOVE GANTT CHARTS?!?!"

Morgan Wallen - Dangerous (The Double Album).  First off, up yours for releasing a double album and broadcasting that in the album title.  33 freaking songs?!?!  Good gravy.  Second off, this is a wonderfully awful Wikipedia entry about his "Early life" : "Wallen was most likley [sic] born in Sneedville, Tennessee.[2] His father was maybe a Baptist pastor and, as a child, Wallen may have taken piano and violin lessons. He was probably offered a scholarship to play baseball in college, but after an injury, possibly chose to pursue music instead."  So weird.  His whole Wikipedia is written that way, as though none of the facts are true and may not be.  So, he might have been on The Voice and gotten his boost from that experience.  Sounds like he collaborated a lot with Florida Georgia Line after and on his first album, as well as touring with them.  A track from that album called "Whiskey Glasses" ended up the number one song on country radio for 2019.  Which is wild, in that I've never heard of that whatsoever.  The album broke a record by sticking on the Top Country Albums chart for 114 weeks.  And now a song off of this album was chosen as one of Time Magazine's top 10 songs of 2020 ("7 Summers").  What is actually happening right now?  I've never even heard this dude's name spoken before.

Anyway, apart from all of that, some of these songs are pretty solidly enjoyable - "7 Summers" is good, even if it is a little bit in the easy listening zone.  But most of them are absolutely pop country dreck that I want nothing to do with.  I know that I'm not in tune with Nashville (see that last paragraph), but I'm just never going to want a drum machine in a country song.  So, things like "Blame it on Me" or "Wasted on You" are never going to be acceptable to me.  I don't care if lyrically they sounds like a cross between Prine, Van Zandt, and Clark - get that shit out of here.  And lyrically, this ain't anywhere near that - lots of beer and whiskey and redneck and boats and "shakin' them hips" and trucks are involved in here.

But his cover of the Jason Isbell song "Cover Me Up" is great, and Chris Stapleton does a duet with him which made me wonder if he wasn't so terrible.  But no, much of this album is pretty tough for me to try to enjoy.  "Somethin' Country" and "Country A$$ Shit" are just terrible bro country dreck.  Verse two of that second one starts so: "Yeah, I just wanna drink a beer/ I just wanna get a line wet/ Let the sun put some more red on my neck/ Wave at the girls on they rental pontoons/ While my bass boat speakers go boom, boom."  I know he, and his fans, could give a shit about what some guy from Austin thinks about his songs, but good gravy that sucks.

Makes me wonder what I would think of Alan Jackson if he came out today.  Some of his lyrics tracked that sort of sentiment, but I think they also seemed a little more vulnerable - I'm singing "Chattahoochee" in my head, and lyrics like "dreamin' 'bout women" and "lot about livin' and a little 'bout love" or "settled for a burger and a grape snow cone" just seem much more pleasant and real that a boatful of drunk pricks ogling girls while they blast bass loud enough for the entire lake to hear.  And yes, I'm officially old.

"More Than My Hometown" is the top track, with 108 million streams.

Oh, he's full on doing the Billy Ray Cyrus hairdo as well.  I mean, and he loves her more than the feeling when the bass hits the hook!?!  Deep love right there.  Also, what a dick.  Unless it's Austin, there is no reason to love a hometown more than a woman.

I wrote this earlier last week, and in the days since then I've read about Wallen a ton - he apparently was caught on camera dropping an N-bomb.  The reaction has been bewilderingly immediate - the guy had the number one album in the country for the past three weeks running, and yet his label has suspended him, his manager has dropped him, radio and playlists are dropping him out of rotation, everyone has come out against him.  Not defending his use of that word by any means, but the speed with which the world has whipped around to kick his ass to the curb is shocking to me.  Also, because I think his music is generally butt, I don't care if he gets cancelled, its just fascinating to see.

Totally didn't intend for this entry to just be about Wallen, but it got long enough to where I think I'll just fire it out there.