Thursday open thread: On country music and choosing kindness
So. I'm not a country music fan. Just ain't my thing. But this story caught my eye on my peregrinations around the intertubes yesterday.
A US country star has denied claims his new music video is an anti-Black Lives Matter anthem that promotes vigilante gun violence.
Jason Aldean's Try That In A Small Town was pulled off air on Monday by Country Music Television, days after its release.
On Twitter, Aldean, 46, rejected the criticism, calling it "meritless" and "dangerous".
Another country star, Sheryl Crow, accused Aldean of "promoting violence".
The song was released in May, but the video came out last Friday and quickly began to draw a backlash.
The three-minute production features clips of masked protesters, Molotov cocktails and a burning American flag as well as CCTV of robberies.
"Well, try that in a small town, see how far ya make it down the road," Aldean sings.
If you want to watch the video, you can do so here.
If you will recall, Mr. Aldean was a headliner at the concert in Las Vegas in which fifty-eight people were murdered by a gunman shooting from a highrise hotel room. One would think he would be more cognizant of depictions of violence. Indeed, after the shooting, he came out with a statement which called for stricter gun laws.
But his protestations that this was not a pro-lynching song ring hollow after this bit of information:
The video was filmed in front of a courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee. Critics noted that a white mob lynched a young black man, Henry Choate, from the building in 1927.
I'm tired of people not owning up to their own words and actions. If he didn't know the history of this location, he should have. And if he did know of it, well, that puts the lie to his protestations.
Meanwhile, this is a much more salutary story:
Luke Combs is having a huge fanboy moment.
Earlier this month, Combs' remake of Tracy Chapman's 1988 hit song “Fast Car” hit the top of Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, making Chapman the first Black woman in history to have a No. 1 country hit song as a sole writer.
Following the success of the song, Chapman told Billboard that she was "happy for Luke and his success and grateful that new fans have found and embraced ‘Fast Car.’”
She added, "I never expected to find myself on the country charts, but I’m honored to be there."
After hearing her comments, Combs told Billboard that he was also surprised by how many people supported his cover of "Fast Car."
“Oh man, ‘Fast Car’ has surprised me more than you can imagine," he said. "Tracy Chapman wrote this perfect song that that I first heard with my dad and it has stayed with me since."
An iconic song written by a Black woman, embraced and championed by a younger white man, which has brought acclaim to them both in a genre which many assume to be retrograde.
You don't have to be a Jason Aldean. You don't have to stoke animus and division. You can be like Mr. Combs, covering a song not from his genre, because he listened to it as a kid in his dad's car and loved it. You can choose to be decent. You can choose to do the right thing. You can choose to n fuel the culture wars. Mr. Aldean made a video casting BLM activists as dark forces. Mr. Combs chose to trumpet a Black woman's song.
In a world filled with the likes of Jason Aldean, be a Luke Combs.
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