Hitherto little-known country singer Oliver Anthony (not his real name) has the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 this week with "Rich Men North of Richmond," a song that starts out as an attack on the rich but turns into dog-whistling about "welfare queens" spending their food stamp money on Little Debbie products--it owes its position to support from rightwing podcasters and social media and by gaming the iTunes Store downloads (still a major factor in the Hot 100, despite the fact that more people are streaming now) to look like it's a big hit (Mediabase's radio airplay chart shows neither Anthony or the equally-iTunes Store-game Jason Aldean dog-whistler "Try That in a Small Town" in their top 30, which means that unless either song is between 31 and 40, Seacrest's not playing them on "AT40" this weekend):
NY Times gift article <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/arts/music/rich-men-north-of-richmond-oliver-anthony.html?unlocked_article_code=tLLAm0vJb0-O6_Lab0tbIQcKtVLhAs7qBYy3NlGoF_b0ZGVIhfqeTt5JJZEx41njjL-Zb_ccs5TFBVGw4bIURhS9D5qhqn_cP9kULrclmGTn9-l-HJVbIVULyRcZq5vDHoAQvouITuhKaXCuNm5C6BxbKdrXK_hTyLc2B6eT7rVbYpiV5LOE1lhMTBSSAhP8qHFHGMx-9xkC_FMTaRG83knmxYmXNVi1gyTibJURaVmjBigKL7xahsWF5sO4hW1w3B_PolnTU-OeS_wHzRS96qx29JYRDh2wpWYxLStfJrIsD017EBQP3cdrlSH2xr_JKTXwWL60UUqY4H3yfT08InGdsSBXA0sPljttpI-nGj3qBOznLQA&smid=url-share> It should be pointed out that the iTunes Store gaming is not just political--fans of KPOPers and Taylor Swift have done it to make their favorites look bigger than they are (well, the former, maybe--it's not like you don't hear TayTay on the radio everywhere). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/a9bd0cec-742a-4281-bcbd-f763ca0fbedcn%40googlegroups.com.
