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Oliver Anthony has also become very (successful) personally with his protest song. © Imago
Oliver Anthony explains that his hit song “Rich Men North of Richmond” doesn’t just stand for the Republicans.
The previously obscure country bard is surprisingly good at marketing his meteoric rise. From the olive-green “Goochland” country t-shirt to the blue folding chair in the video to the three dogs, the 31-year-old singer serves all clichés. As is his overnight hit Rich Men North of Richmond, a setting of populist complaints about ‘they up there’.
In it he rants at the elites north of the capital of the south of Washington DC state of Virginia. According to this, they want “to have total control, want to know what you are thinking, want to know what you are doing.” Critical voices hear undertones of the QAnon conspiracy theory and point to the polemics of the socially disadvantaged and migrants.
Now the tousled lumberjack guy, whose real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford, is a rich man himself thanks to the self-produced protest song released on Aug. 8. It has been played more than 44 million times on YouTube alone. There are also millions of views on other platforms. Of course, the constant promotion on FOX and other right-wing media, which stylized “Rich Men North of Richmond” into an anti-establishment anthem, also helped. With a keen instinct for additional headlines, the country music singer responded to the takeover with video taken from behind the wheel of his truck. “I wrote the song about these people,” he says, referring to the participants in the Republican primary debate, in which Trump did not participate and in which the song was discussed and was monopolized by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
It’s annoying that certain people “pretend like we’re buddies and like we’re fighting the same fight, like we’re trying to send the same message.” His concern is “much bigger” than criticism of Biden. It wasn’t meant to be the Republican anthem that the song has become, although it echoes many of their slogans.
At a concert on a golf course in neighboring North Carolina, baseball caps with “Oliver Anthony for President”, T-shirts with quotes from his songs and stickers sold like hot cakes. And there is already a follow-up hit with “Aint Gotta Dollar”, which rose to second place in the charts.
2023-08-27 16:40:36
#Country #singer #distances
