Just a mere 72 hours ago, Saving Country Music posted a warning that Ella Langely was taking a risk by collaborating with Morgan Wallen on the new song “I Can’t Love You Anymore.”
Fair or otherwise, releasing a song with Morgan Wallen would stir political acrimony, and at a time when Ella Langley is at the very top of popularity and has no need for a promotional boost. In fact she runs the risk of becoming overexposed by releasing another hit single, or undercutting her current singles that continue to perform very well.
This week, Ella Langley’s new album Dandelion spends a second week at #1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart—a good sign this could end up being a “sticky” title that will remain near the top of the charts for weeks, and possibly years to come. Langley also continues to have the #1 song in all of music with “Choosin’ Texas,” and another top hit with “Be Her,” while these two songs and “I Can’t Love You Anymore” are stacked #1, #2, #3 on the iTunes charts, meaning they could dominate the singles charts come next week.
As was said on 4/24,
“Morgan Wallen remains one of the most vilified characters in all of country music, if not the most vilified, whether those notions are valid or otherwise. He’s a favorite whipping boy of politically-oriented musical commentators and social media pundits who love to use their hatred for him to socially posture and morally preen, despite Wallen never having espoused any sort of political thought … Whether it’s fair or not, some have and will perceive Ella Langley releasing a duet with Morgan Wallen as a strident, naked, unmitigated political act and expression.”
Well that’s exactly what music outlet Stereogum has done in a series of viral posts across their social media platforms in a shameless attempt to smear Ella Langley’s character by making her guilty by association. The post on X/Twitter has nearly 4 million views alone and counting.
The Stereogum posts read, “At Stagecoach, Ella Langley sang her new Morgan Wallen collab, brought out Theo Von, and sang her #1 hit for a crowd that included Sydney Sweeney and Scooter Braun. Next month she’ll play the Kid Rock-headlined Rock The Country, where tickets were recently slashed 50%.”
The posts cobble together completely circumstantial evidence in an attempt to brand someone politically toxic because no actual, direct evidence exists. It’s an unethical and irresponsible act of journalistic malfeasance with the express attempt to kneecap a performer due to political acrimony.
Though this type of practice is far from uncommon from random individuals on social media, or even perhaps politically-oriented journalists on their personal accounts, to see this from a musical outlet proper in such a brazen attempt to character assassinate is truly something unprecedented in music media. Rolling Stone, eat your heart out.
As has been pointed out previously, Morgan Wallen himself has never publicly espoused any political views whatsoever, and there is no indication that he even engages in political thought. And unlike other country artists, Wallen has avoided things like the Kid Rock tour and the TPUSA Super Bowl Halftime Show. It is a wild-eyed assumption that Wallen resides on the political right.
But then to take that completely speculative political assumption, and then use that as the basis to assign political ideologies to someone else by proxy is the seat of blatant irresponsibility, especially for a media outlet. Did Stereogum reach out to Ella Langley to ask what her political views were before posting these accusatory missives? Why are they talking about who she’s been seen with, and who is in her audience as opposed to her music itself? How was her set at Stagecoach? Isn’t this insulting to any performer’s artistry?
Now get it wrong. Eyes are wide open here. Of course there’s a chance that if Ella Langley does have a political disposition, maybe she leans right, if only because that’s the direction the majority of Americans lean irrespective of party affiliation, and an even greater majority of country fans and artists, and people from rural parts of the United States. There’s no reason to be obtuse here like Stereogum‘s post that tries to beat around the bush as opposed to coming right out and saying what everyone knows it implies.
But you just can impose a political alignment on Ella Langley or anyone else because two famous people were in her audience, or her booking agency put her on a Kid Rock show that at this point she probably doesn’t even desire to play now that she’s multipliers more popular than Kid Rock himself, or because she invited a podcaster who’s interviewed Bernie Sanders and come out strongly against the Iran War on stage with her. Maybe she’s just a country artist interacting with people in the country space.
While Stereogum is looking to point the ugly finger of guilt at people, why aren’t they asking why Diplo remains the only constant every year on the Stagecoach lineup, despite multiple women coming forward to accuse him of rape, sexual assault, revenge porn, and other charges that he continues to face? If being affiliated with Morgan Wallen is such an indictment of character due to his N-word incident, why hasn’t Stereogum reported on Jelly Roll saying the N-word three times on camera, and two years after Morgan Wallen?
Just yesterday, Stereogum posted yet another story about Hayley Williams twisting off on Morgan Wallen. These stories are a weekly occurrence as both Hayley, many in the public, and much of the media continue to obsess over Morgan Wallen, but refuse to look into credible accusations against Jelly Roll from Nicole Arbor and others.
And these things can have grave consequences. As nobody should need to be reminded of right now, political violence and assassinations are a very real part of American life. As Saving Country Music reported earlier this year, Tanner Usrey received direct and credible death threats after he was announced as a participant in the Kid Rock tour, and a man was arrested over it. You can’t just flippantly decide to slot someone in the political binary as New York Magazine also recently irresponsibly did without understanding the implications and potential dangerous ramifications.
There is a reason there is a curtain on the ballot booth. That’s because it is an inherent part of democracy to allow everyone the privacy of their political beliefs, and for individuals not to face political retribution like the kind Ella Langley experienced from Stereogum, and for political beliefs neither Stereogum or anyone else has confirmed. It is beyond irresponsible in every capacity.
Furthermore, the effort to shame Ella Langley and her supporters will only push them further to the right where they will find folks accepting them with open arms as opposed to elitists shaming them to virtue signal to their political constituents and drive clicks via social media rage bait. Jason Aldean had sworn off making political statements until the media started shaming his wife for posts on Instagram. Now Jason Aldean is one of the most politically active artists in American entertainment.
What did the attempted shaming and cancellation do to Morgan Wallen? It either did nothing, or as some surmise, it actually goosed his popularity with fans who rallied to his defense, and still do to this day to the point where Saving Country Music was attacked for initially questioning the wisdom of Ella Langely duet with Wallen under the false assumption it was some sort of cancellation attempt.
If political apparatchiks larping as music journalists think they’re going to move the political needle by attacking the most popular artist in all of music at the moment—and by using the 2nd most popular artist in music as the pretense and circumstantial evidence—they might be in for a rude awakening.
Meanwhile, for years many of these very same politically-oriented journalists, commentators, and outlets have criticized country music for not supporting women in the genre. Now that women are finally starting to see some top-level success, they pull out the tire iron, and are swinging for Ella Langley’s legs, just as they have done to Miranda Lambert in the past. Stereogum rarely even covers country music, unless it’s Sturgill Simpson releasing funk songs about his penis. Yet now they decide to swerve into the space to run over Ella Langley.
And it’s important to understand this is not just one media outlet’s perspective. It’s the stereotypical and pervasive perspective of much of media both inside and outside of country music who loathes country music fans and many of its artists, and sees them as political chattel and pawns that can be assuaged by buzzy viral social media quips—and if they can’t be turned, must be destroyed.
Ella Langley’s music and success should live an die upon her own actions, and her own merit, not who is in the audience, not who came out on stage with her at Stagecoach, or who she released a promotional 3rd single with. Ella Langley co-wrote and co-produced all of Dandelion and “Choosin’ Texas,” and took it to the very top of music as a solo artist, not via collaborations like many country women have needed to resort to in the past.
It’s her actions, it’s her music, and whatever beliefs she espouses publicly that she should be judged on. This guilt by association is irresponsible, reckless, unfounded, and potentially, outright incorrect.
It’s also likely to be ineffective, if not counter-productive for those with political motivations.
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