Is All Right-Wing Music Bad? Part 1
Let’s talk about the two “right wing anthems” that emerged this past summer “Try That in a Small Town” by Jason Aldean and “Rich Men North of Richmond” by Oliver Anthony and what they can tell us about right-wing music more broadly.
These songs belong to a country music wave that has taken over the nation by storm this past year and they both feature several popular conservative talking points. As a result, they received a lot of criticism within the mainstream media and among progressive circles. Ironically, this progressive antagonism contributed to their popularity- both of these songs occupied the number-one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for several weeks in a row throughout the summer.
When I first heard “Try That in a Small Town,” while I agreed with its political message, I couldn’t help thinking that it is just not a very good song. On the flip side, while I enjoyed the melodic line and rhythm of “Rich Men North of Richmond”, when I paid attention to the lyrics, it made me wonder why people would think it is a right-wing song at all. It seems as if patriotic songs can only have one of the two- good conservative messaging or good melodic tunes and rhythm. This made me wonder, is all right-wing music bad?
Let’s start with “Try That in a Small Town” by Jason Aldean, a mainstream country song full of country-rock Southern elements. Its lyrics and messaging correspond to a suburban and rural response to the widespread rioting taking place throughout all major US cities in 2020, as well as the crime epidemic taking over American cities at large. The lyrics allude to several instances of public disobedience, such as armed robbery of liquor stores, flag burning, the “knock-out game”, and even gun restrictions. The song draws a parallel between these chaotic urban realities and the relative peace of small towns, a safe haven that is structurally inconsistent with such acts of violence and disorder. The song also emphasizes that the sense of community in small towns is much stronger than in big cities with lines such as “Around here, we take care of our own.” As someone who has lived in a big city, I can attest to the unfortunate state the modern American city finds itself in. It does not take a lot to realize that small towns simply do not have the same issues cities do.
Yet, despite the good messaging, this song is just not great. To a certain extent, evaluation of art does boil down to personal taste, but at the most basic level I think we can all agree whether a song is good or bad. To me, this song, seems very generic and boring. The guitar riff throughout the track lacks personality and my biggest gripe overall is how the cadence of each lyric seems awkward and slightly offbeat, almost as if Jason Aldean tried to elongate each line to fit the rhyme scheme.
Even the message behind the song, which I do agree with, seems to only scratch the surface without going much deeper. That’s not to say that every political song has to be at the level, if I may say, of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly album, but I think Jason Aldean really missed an opportunity to make his message much more powerful. For a lack of a better term, this song really feels unfinished.
In Aldean’s defense, this song was not really supposed to be a smash hit, it was only thrust into stardom by leftist media talking heads and progressive voices on social media who somehow found a way to frame this song as evil.
As for “Rich Men North of Richmond” by Oliver Anthony, this song corresponds to a less mainstream niche of country music. It is stripped back and simple – all there is to the track is Oliver Anthony’s voice and guitar. It is also much slower, somber, and has lots of West Virginia and Appalachia folk influences. I do enjoy it as a melody– Anthony’s voice is very powerful, passionate, and has a catchy tune to it.
Yet, this song was, in my view, erroneously labeled right-wing. The lyrics point to a condemnation of ruling class and the plight of the lower class. Anti-elite rhetoric and class consciousness isn’t necessarily wrong, and it can resonate with many but is it really right wing? I would vote no. Were it not for the one line criticizing people who exploit the welfare system, one could easily frame “Rich Men North of Richmond” as being a left wing or even a communist song. True right-wing ideology recognizes the role human nature, natural law, and a justified hierarchy play for societal flourishing. Moreover, on various occasions, Oliver Anthony has distanced himself from the right-wing movement, reiterating that this song has a general anti-establishment sentiment. Yet simply being anti-establishment is not enough to make you conservative.
All of this beg the two questions- why does it seem as if right wing songs end up poorly representing the movement and why are right-wing songs kind of bad? One potential answer would be that right wing people rarely hold any leadership positions within larger media conglomerates. To even begin to create any right-wing media, be it music or anything else, is already a hassle as you often lack the financial resources and the powerful connections. This is not even to mention the great personal and professional stakes involved, from being labeled all sorts of terrible things and losing potential future projects. Just look at how progressives soundly panned films with vague right-wing messages like Joker, A Quiet Place and most recently, Sound of Freedom. This applies to music just as much.
This is also a visible issue within the conservative movement as a whole due to the Overton Window shifting drastically farther to the left in the past decades. Nowadays, many conservatives have adopted this suicidal “big tent” policy attempting to draw as many people to the movement as possible. This usually entails compromising on crucial social issues and diluting the overall message. Prominent establishment Republicans today are closer in ideology to the Democrats of the early 2000s than to Republicans of the 1970s. An ideology constantly playing catchup to the left is doomed to fail and lose credibility. This can often trickle down the cultural line into right wing music and you end up with music that doesn’t really represent true right-wing values beyond surface-level issues. Both “Try That in a Small Town” and “Rich Men North of Richmond” are examples of that.
To be continued…
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