Proving once again the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, country star Jason Aldean’s song Try That in a Small Town is basking in exponential sales growth driven by the controversy surrounding its associated music video.
AP reports Try That in a Small Town, which was released in May, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week just behind BTS’s Jung Kook solo single Seven, featuring Latto.
That spectacular launch gave it the biggest sales week for a country song in over 10 years as plenty of big names came out in support of the hit and the artist to defy the cancel campaign critics launched to take it down.
According to Luminate, the song hit 11.7 million on-demand audio and video streams between July 14 and 20, marking a 1,000 percent increase from the previous week, the AP report sets out.
Prior to the music video release on July 14, the track accounted for 987,000 streams in the U.S.
Digital song sales increased from 1,000 to 228,000, in those same weeks, respectively.
As Breitbart News reported, the music video for the song has become a massive hit in the wake of a woke backlash that accused the song of evoking racism.
Despite CMT pulling the video from its rotation, the music video for Aldean’s song has increased viewership by a whopping 999 percent.
Aldean’s video also received fervent criticism online, with some claiming the visual is a “dog whistle” and others labeling it “pro-lynching.”
He begs to differ.
“There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it- and there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage -and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music- this one goes too far,” Aldean wrote by way of defense in a tweet posted Tuesday.
On Friday, July 21, while performing at Cincinnati’s Riverbend Music Center, Aldean addressed the audience on the issue of cancel culture.
He said “Cancel culture is a thing… which means try and ruin your life, ruin everything. One thing I saw this week was a bunch of country music fans that could see through a lot of the bulls—, all right?”, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
File/Jason Aldean performs at the 58th annual Academy of Country Music Awards on Thursday, May 11, 2023, at the Ford Center in Frisco, Texas. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
For those wondering if he would play the song live, he further declared, “The answer is simple. The people have spoken and you guys spoke very, very loudly,” before launching into the song backed by the solid support of his audience.