Oliver Anthony performs at Eagle Creek Golf Club in Moyock, North Carolina on August 19, 2023.
Mike Caudill/Billboard via Getty Images
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Mike Caudill/Billboard via Getty Images
Oliver Anthony performs at Eagle Creek Golf Club in Moyock, North Carolina on August 19, 2023.
Mike Caudill/Billboard via Getty Images
The song “Rich Men North of Richmond” was written and performed by an artist that almost no one had heard of just a few weeks ago, yet it hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Did. That was before the author died. Oliver Anthony was front and center during Wednesday night's Republican debate. It was taken up before the candidates spoke.
Anthony posted a video on Friday, two days after the debate, distancing himself from politicians and others trying to glorify the successes of “rich people north of Richmond” and watching the candidates talk about their songs. He said it was “interesting” to watch the debate stage.
“I wrote that song about those guys,” he said. “I really hate to see that song used as a weapon.”
Anthony has already achieved the first feat for a musician working in any genre. He came out of nowhere to the top of the charts. None of his songs have ever appeared on any charts, and “Rich Men North of Richmond'' was only released about two weeks ago.
“Rich Men North of Richmond'' seems to fit into a deep vein of protest music condemning fat cats who take advantage of workers. On the surface, Anthony's songs reflect generations of singer-songwriter traditions. Lyrics celebrating working men and women have a long history in American music, with artists such as Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bill Withers, and Bruce Springsteen.
However, if you scratch the surface, you'll also find extremist and conspiracy theory stories.
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One line in particular that stands out is its connection to a known conspiracy theory: “I want politicians to look out for miners / Not just minors on some island.'' This is a reference to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, which died in prison four years ago this month, and where conspiracy theories about the circumstances surrounding his death continue in far-right circles. Anthony also makes cynical comments about overweight people that bring to mind the tropes of Reagan-era welfare queens. Pay for a bag of fudge rounds. ”
Elsewhere, Anthony talks about human trafficking and people exploiting children, an unsubstantiated but common QAnon story. In a new song called “I Want to Go Home,” released Wednesday, he warns that the United States is now on the brink of a new world war. (NPR has asked Anthony multiple times for an interview, but he has not responded.)
In a video response posted Friday, Anthony pushed back against the notion that “rich people north of Richmond” are anti-poor. “It's just saying the government takes people who are in need and dependence and makes them needy and dependent.”
Jared Holt is a senior fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. He said this is not new; political movements, including extremists, have always understood the power that cultural artifacts such as music and movies have in normalizing their ideas.
It's worth noting how the song has resonated with some far-right influencers, including those whose job is to sow discord in the United States with disinformation about coronavirus vaccines, LGBTQ people, and more. Holt says it's about how they are treated.
“If far-right figures are able to connect directly to this song, they could potentially tap into a broader audience that they wouldn't normally have access to,” Holt said.
But Anthony's rapid rise this summer has a very specific context. Earlier this month, also for the first time in Billboard history, three country artists occupied the top three spots on the Billboard 100, with Jason Aldean's “Try That in a Small Town” at No. 1 and Morgan Warren's “Last Night” took first place. In second place was Luke Combs' cover of Tracy Chapman's song “Fast Car,” which took third place. It inspired further country music hits.
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Two of those artists were also spurring many conversations surrounding politics and racial tensions. In 2021, a video of Wallen using her N her word went viral and subsequently earned her the best-selling album of 2021 in any genre. Aldean's video shows him singing in front of the courthouse where the black teenager was lynched.
Anthony, on the other hand, benefited from a noticeable signal boost. The video for “Richmond North Rich” was posted online just two weeks after his near-anonymous fellow piece, but within days, commentators such as Joe Rogan, Laura Ingraham, and Matt Walsh publicly praised him.
Natalie Weiner is a journalist specializing in country music. She points out that music lovers sometimes take advantage of the chart's algorithm by comparing new Oliver Anthony fans to the fan armies of pop artists like South Korean band BTS.
“The fan base has been buying downloads for a long time because it carries a lot of weight on the charts,” Weiner said. “So if they want to push an artist, just buy the download version. You're voting with your wallet.”
However, such efforts typically require a sizable portion of the music industry to be successful, and it's not clear whether Anthony's fans are as organized as BTS's. At least not yet.
Marissa R. Moss, another prominent country music journalist who co-authored the country-focused Substack “Don't Rock the Inbox” with Weiner, has a different theory. She believes Anthony's meteoric rise to fame is something of a reversal of what happened to the country trio the Chicks (formerly known as the Dixie Chicks) two decades ago. Back in the early 2000s, the Chicks criticized the invasion of Iraq. People angry at their politics boycotted the band and began destroying their CDs. They were taken off country music radio.
“Some country fans were furious and bulldozed their own records,” Moss recalls. But the backbone of her movement, she says, is not fueled by avid music fans. Rather, she says, her backlash “came from extremists in the early stages of Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards, and was not specifically about the Chicks themselves.”
In both cases, the product being sold is more important than what it stands for, she added.
Oliver Anthony fans say his lyrics give voice to people who are often left out of popular discourse and pop culture. Natalie Weiner points out that all performers, regardless of genre, develop a public persona, and Oliver Anthony is no exception. She discusses “authenticity” in country music by how he presents himself and how tied that persona is to how mainstream country music already positions itself. He added that he was given special trust.
“The reason country works so well is because people think country music is 'authentic' and 'authentic,'” she observes. This is a straight, white, cisgender man playing a guitar and singing in the woods, and that's always coded as true for people, even if they don't like country music and don't know anything about country music. Even though it's deeply ingrained deep within our collective pop culture. ”
Andrew Limbon contributed to this article.
