Morgan Wallen's Rough Ride To The Top Of The Country Charts

This feature discusses racism and alcohol misuse. 

Despite a long-overdue movement towards inclusion via acts like Darius Rucker and Lil Nas X, country music still retains elements of its rebellious, wild west reputation currently retained by the likes of Bud Light boycott boosters Travis Tritt and Brantley Gilbert. Enter good ol' boy Morgan Wallen, a bro-country sensation whose 2023 album "One Thing at A Time" sold more than half a million units during its first week alone, outdrawing the likes of Miley Cyrus and K-pop hitmakers Thrice.  "As long as I'm being honest and true to myself, I feel like I can do whatever I want," he said to American Songwriter.

Evidently, that attitude extends beyond crafting hits like "Wasted On You" and "Whiskey Glasses." Since competing on NBC's talent show "The Voice" in 2014, the mullet-headed Tennessean's career has been dogged by controversy, from drunken behavior and a racist remark to violating COVID protocol and drawing the ire of litigious fans. Despite those incidents, Wallen's teflon-coated star continues to shine. "It makes me happy to know I'm bringing a certain culture, a certain sound, a certain way of life to a different group of people who may have never heard it," he said to Newstalk ZB while discussing his global appeal. "There's really not much of a better compliment that I can get." As long as his base still buys into whatever culture he's cultivating, expect Wallen to remain a formidable musical force for a long time to come. 

While Morgan Wallen didn't win the 2014 running of "The Voice," he made enough of an impression on the industry to land an agent, a manager, a publishing deal, and a label contract. By 2019 he became the toast of his adopted city of Nashville when he topped the country charts with his debut album, "If I Know Me." A year later, his fans got to know a different side to Wallen after authorities arrested the country star for public intoxication and disorderly conduct at Kid Rock's Big Honky Tonk and Steak House watering hole. A Metro Nashville Police Department affidavit received by Fox 17 WZTV Nashville indicated that Wallen started kicking several glass objects, prompting the establishment's security to remove him after fusing to leave. He spent the night in jail and was bailed out on a $500 bond.

Wallen seemed to downplay the incident in a since-deleted tweet, writing, "Hey y'all, just wanted to clear the air. I went out downtown last night with a few old friends. After a couple bar stops, we were horse-playing with each other. We didn't mean any harm, and we want to say sorry to any bar staff or anyone that was affected." A year later, he reflected on the incident on the "Bobby Bones Show" podcast, saying, "I think I built kind of a reputation for being a little bit rowdy and maybe even rambunctious at times."

Morgan Wallen's blend of redneck country with R&B and his rebellious demeanor made him what Knox News called "The most wanted man in country music in 2020." Speaking to the outlet, the star claimed he had tried to come to terms with his behavior while writing material for his second release, "Dangerous: The Double Album," which was slated for 2021. "The older I get, I've realized that I really just need to face it head-on and get it over with instead of trying to run from it or trying to hide," he said. Given that the album contained a staggering 30 songs, it was easy to assume he wrote much of the material during quarantine. Wallen even canceled his Whiskey Glasses Roadshow when the federal government imposed lockdowns in response to COVID-19. 

But Wallen was seemingly oblivious to those protocols when videos surfaced in on social media in October 2020, showing him drinking, partying maskless, and kissing several women. Some fans were not amused with his carousing in a Tuscaloosa, Alabama bar shortly after the hometown Crimson Tide college football team beat visiting Texas A&M. At the time, the state was extending its "Safer at Home" policies which included a mask mandate and distance protocols in bars. On Twitter, one user accused the star of partying with 19-year-old girls. "Let us take a moment to recognize that Morgan Wallen is a total dirtbag," they wrote. "... As a reminder, he is 27 with a baby." At the time, roughly 200,000 Americans had died from COVID.

News of Morgan Wallen cavorting in a Mississippi nightclub during lockdown quickly caught the attention of the folks in charge of NBC's "Saturday Night Live." The star was days away from appearing as a musical guest on the show, which had taken extreme precautions to mitigate any possibility of a viral breakout.  In response, the program axed the country star, quickly replacing him with Jack White. Wisely, Wallen stepped up to take his medicine on this issue. "I respect the show's decision, because I know that I put them in jeopardy and I take ownership for this," he said in a since-deleted Instagram video. "... I wish I could have made country music and my fans proud this Saturday." Wallen added that "SNL" producer Lorne Michaels left the door open for a future appearance, which took place a couple of months later in December.

Wallen wound up performing on "SNL" after all, even appearing in a sketch that satirized his infamous partying in Alabama. It started with him swigging from a beer declaring "To no consequences!" and included guest host Jason Bateman and show performer Bowen Yang playing future versions of the controversial musician, warning him about his actions. Morgan liked how the bit put a humorous twist on the situation. "I was hoping that we could kind of do something to make fun of the whole situation just because that's kind of what they do," he said on Toronto-based CityNews.

Riding high on the success of "Dangerous: The Double Album," Morgan Wallen went on a bender in Nashville with a few visiting friends in February 2021. Once he and his buddies staggered back to his place, the carousers started disturbing their neighbors with horns honking, women laughing, and dudes lobbing audible obscenities, per TMZ. One person who lived across the street recorded part of the proceedings, later published by TMZ, which included Wallen loudly slurring a few curse words and a racial slur. Within hours of the video surfacing, his label suspended him, while some radio stations removed his songs from their playlists. 

It's hard to tell whether Wallen was naive or living in a bumbkin bubble, but in an interview with "Good Morning America," he seemed more dismayed by industry reaction than his own drunken behavior. "It just happened, you know. I was around some of my friends, and ... we said dumb stuff together," he said to GMA's Michael Strahan. "... In our minds, it's playful, you know. I don't know if that sounds ignorant, but that's really where it came from, and it's wrong." Strahan added, "And had there been no video of the incident we obviously wouldn't be sitting here." On Instagram, Wallen issued a five-minute apology video urging his fans not to defend his actions. Sharing that he was working on bettering himself, he said, "One thing I've learned already ... [and] I'm specifically sorry for [it], is that it matters," he said. "My words matter."

Ordinarily, Morgan Wallen should have earned enough clout to fill the flatbed of a pickup truck, given that his second album "Dangerous: The Double Album" outsold its musical competitors regardless of genre since its 2021 release. But his racist remarks prompted a few award shows to make an example out of him, starting in April with the Billboard Music Awards, which banned him from the ceremony, despite landing six nominations. "As his recent conduct does not align with our core values, we will not be including him on the show in any capacity (performing, presenting, accepting)," read Billboard's statement on the decision. "It is heartening and encouraging to hear that Morgan is taking steps in his anti-racist journey and starting to do some meaningful work." 

In October, the Country Music Association also barred Wallen from attending its ceremonies as did the American Music Awards. More severely, the Grammy Awards and the Association of Country Music outright scratched his entries from their nominations lists.

Despite his absence, Wallen snared three Billboard titles and two AMA trophies. Interestingly, his only country album victory came from Billboard, as he lost out to Luke Combs at the CMAs and Taylor Swift at the AMAs, despite "Dangerous" eclipsing both those efforts in sales. Apparently, Wallen wasn't bitter about those results. "I wake up every morning and thank the Lord for my blessings," he tweeted after the CMAs. "Tomorrow morning will be no different. I love y'all."

While the music industry threw barricades around Morgan Wallen in the wake of his racist faux pas, his record sales spiked more than ever –as high as 1,220% at one point. It was as if his fan base believed they had a bona fide outlaw on their hands, and decided to double down in their support of Wallen. 

Arguably his public mistakes killed any crossover potential that the likes of Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus enjoy, but it mattered little that he was still a mystery to more urban listeners; his rural following more than made up for that gap. His windfall also put the unwitting Wallen in the center of a debate concerning the extent of racism's presence in the predominantly white genre of country music. When "Good Morning America"'s Michael Strahan asked Wallen whether he thought country music had a race problem, he replied, "It would seem that way, yeah. I haven't really sat and thought about that."

Someone who's given the topic of racism in country music a great deal of thought is Mickey Guyton, the first Black female artist to be nominated in a country solo performance category (and remarkably, for a song with very little airplay). "When I read comments saying 'this is not who we are' I laugh because this is exactly who country music is," Guyton tweeted regarding Wallen's controversy. "I question on a daily basis as to why I continue to fight to be in an industry that seems to hate me so much."

Morgan Wallen has had to come clean about his various hell-raising antics. But in 2023, he apologized for an incident that wasn't exactly his own doing. The rigors of relentless touring were playing havoc with his voice — an issue that finally caught up to him back in April at a stadium show in Oxford, Mississippi. Just before Wallen was set to hit the stage, he discovered he wasn't able to sing and was forced to cancel the show at the last minute. A medical diagnosis indicated that he had injured his vocal cords, with doctors insisting that he postpone his tour until he had completely recovered. 

A few days later, a rather gloomy Wallen took to Instagram to deliver the bad news. "Their advice is that I go on vocal rest for six weeks so that's what I'm going to do," he said. "They also said that if I don't listen and I keep singing that I'll permanently damage my voice. So for the longevity of my career, this is just the choice I had to make."

Still, some spectators believed Wallen's carousing was the culprit for the cancellations. One security guard at the Oxford show claimed that Wallen was too drunk to walk, alleging, "That losing his voice is bull crap" in a Tik Tok video. However, in response to the viral clip, both Wallen's label and the security company that employed the chatty guard promptly denied the claims, per Page Six. 

Fans who showed up at his Oxford, Mississippi show in April were not impressed with Morgan Wallen's last-minute cancellation, even though patrons were assured they'd get their money back on the tickets they had purchased. One angry tweet proclaimed, "Drove [over six] hours to make the concert, paid for parking, merch, drinks, etc. Sat in the cold waiting for [Morgan Wallen] just to be told at 9 pm he wasn't performing. Insanely disappointing." Meanwhile, another spectator added, "Morgan Wallen not being able to sing seems like a ridiculous excuse to cancel his show considering that never stopped him before." 

The stoppage didn't sit well with spectator Brandi Burcham, who sued Wallen when she didn't get her point-of-purchase refund. Their grievance statement added that those refunds didn't include compensation for "out-of-pocket expenses they incurred in connection with the concert cancellation, including transportation, lodging, food, merchandise sales, transaction fees and other [fees]," per Page Six.

Burcham voluntarily dismissed the suit when law firm Langston & Lott entered the picture with plans to launch a class-action lawsuit against Wallen. "We have been contacted by numerous individuals who spent thousands of dollars — separate and apart from the cost of their ticket — who would like to see legal redress as well," said the firm in a Facebook post that has since been switched to private, per WLBT-TV. As of this writing, the court case is still pending and a rescheduled show in Oxford has yet to be announced.