All These Days I Spent Wasted On Wallen
In which I reckon with the disappointment of Morgan Wallen and his latest album "One Thing At A Time".
From the first proper post on this Substack: “The Tragedy of Morgan Wallen”
I guess in a way I got what I wanted.
I wasn’t planning on writing about Morgan Wallen again. At least, not in regard to The Incident and everything surrounding it. Mostly because I find a lot of the discussion around it to be really… unproductive? For as many thinkpieces you can make about how Wallen was not only able to bounce back from what should’ve been a career-ending mistake, but become a superstar on the same level as Drake and Taylor Swift, ultimately we’re going to reach the same conclusion we’ve known this whole time: the music industry doesn’t care if you’re a bad person, just if you make them look good.
Nashville has done their damndest to prove to the world they’re really growing and thriving as an industry. If you’re one of the ten people who watch the CMAs or you pay attention to the country categories at the broad awards shows like the Grammys, you’ll notice a lot of these people who get a ton of awards and speeches about being “accepted” by Nashville regardless of race or orientation. Artists like Mickey Guyton or Brothers Osborne whom the industry claims to love. In reality, Brothers Osborne hasn’t had a radio smash hit since their breakout song “Stay A Little Longer”. Mickey Guyton hasn’t had country radio success at all despite a very agreeable sound and many friends within said industry willing to support her. But giving them the big awards and getting them to make emotional speeches at these shows makes them look good, and fools people into thinking “maybe Nashville isn’t racist/homophobic/bigoted after all”! Then they invite outed transphobe and Trump supporter Jason Aldean to the stage to play his latest recycled garbage.
Point is, Nashville likes artists who make them look good. No extreme politics, no calling out sketchy shit happening within the industry (Brothers Osborne outright implied one of their singles was sabotaged by their label during their Grammys speech), hire black artists to appear progressive but keep them making the same safe, calculated fluff that the white artists make, and most importantly, no embarrassing scandals. Especially if you’re on the rise to becoming Nashville’s golden ticket into finally getting back into mainstream pop culture after decades of being irrelevant in the conversation of popular music.
Morgan Wallen did not make Nashville look good, even before the incident. Wallen is a young, reckless alcoholic who sleeps around with college girls and idolizes gangsta rappers whom Nashville wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. But he’s making them a lot of money by being the first country artist in years to actually appeal to a younger audience, a demographic Nashville has STRUGGLED to capture. A lot of Wallen thinkpieces about the incident mention how his sales and streams actually rose despite being completely cut off by the industry, and that’s primarily because people really did like him that much. It’d be easy to assume those sales came from listeners who were either racist themselves or totally cool with casual drops of the n-word, but again, I find that way of thinking unproductive. It’s not like Wallen is the only shitty person getting streams despite past transgressions. Chris Brown has a song in the Top 20 right now. Kodak Black is a hero in Florida. Red Hot Chilli Peppers consistently make rock fans’ favorite albums of the year, even years after their peak (feel free to look up what “Catholic School Girls Rule” is about if you don’t know what I’m talking about). Hell, I would bet money that some of you reading this right now are still listening to Kanye West. And that’s not a judgment on you or your character at all. It’s very common when it comes to consuming art you will enjoy the music that means most to you, even if the person you’re listening to doesn’t support your values. I think the honest reality is that people loved and cherished Wallen’s music in spite of the incident. Not because of it.
In general, I don’t think it’s worth centering the discussion of Morgan Wallen around the incident anymore. It’s been two whole years since it happened, and I think it’s safe to say he’s been “held accountable” for it. Did he receive justice for it? Was he sufficiently punished for it? No, but he was never going to. He’s shielded by an industry that’s too big to fail. If this was someone like Zach Bryan, he would have been thoroughly blacklisted and actually sent back into the indie circuit. But Wallen is the golden boy of an industry who wants him to shut up and make his little songs. The radio pulls and award show bans were really just sending him to the corner of a room to think about what he’s done.
I’m more interested in discussing what happened after the incident. Now, I should start by addressing that forgiveness is an individual choice. Someone who may hear about what Morgan Wallen did and ultimately decide to forgive him will not share the same perspective as someone who hears about what Morgan Wallen did and doesn’t forgive him. This is especially important to understand when it comes to race. People who are truly affected by Wallen’s use of the n-word (aka black people) have more of a reason not to forgive Wallen for his transgressions because they’re the ones who are affected by that word to begin with. But at the same time, black people are not a monolith, and there are certainly black fans and friends of Wallen who are willing to forgive him should he not cross that line again. Jimmy Allen, a black country artist from Nashville, reached out to him privately and talked to him about what happened, ultimately choosing to forgive him while side-eyeing the white people on social media trying to tell him how to feel. We’d learn a few months later that Wallen had started a friendship with rapper Lil Durk, who has since publicly vouched for Wallen and even made a song with him. And I don’t think that’s an endorsement we can just handwave. Unlike Allen, Lil Durk is nowhere near the Nashville bubble. He’s someone who has spent decades rapping about his personal struggles with gang violence and systemic racism. I’m not saying we should trust his word 100%, but I do think there’s something to someone as deep into black culture like Lil Durk being so openly supportive and friendly with Morgan Wallen.
So maybe the question isn’t “is Wallen a good person”, it’s “is Wallen a better person”. Has he done enough to leave that incident in the past? Does the endorsement of people like Lil Durk mean he really has changed for the better and we don’t have to feel guilty or resentful of his success?
The truth is… I don’t know.
I couldn’t write any essays in 2022 because I was so deeply close to social media burnout that every time I started writing, I’d circle back to the same problem. Pop culture discourse, particularly on Twitter and Youtube, is in the worst state it’s ever been in. Three years of isolation due to the ongoing pandemic and industries scrambling to recover all the success they were robbed of has turned media discourse into an endless sea of bad-faith arguments, undercooked political commentary, and a complete lack of empathy where we categorize complete strangers into cynical stereotypes for the crime of enjoying/disliking a piece of art. To the point where even the idea of “hey, what if the backlash this person endured wasn’t entirely worth it” is a controversial opinion that requires several asterisks and clarifications out of fear that you will become one of those people. I’ve always known this about social media, but it took breaking away from scrolling through my Twitter timeline to realize how bad it truly is right now.
And I bring this up because pretty much every conversation about Morgan Wallen I’ve had privately has been really… normal. Whether they’re people who have heard of Morgan Wallen or only know about him through the incident, or even people who have been just as invested in his rise as I have, I’ve realized that I immediately go on the defensive against people who never planned to attack me. I remember one day in 2021 when I was with a group of friends, all people of color, and I’d brought up how embarrassing it was that my most-played song of the year came from Morgan Wallen. The first thing a friend told me after I explained what he did was, “I understand. Guns N’ Roses is on my Wrapped playlist like four times”.
In the build-up to this new album, I think I quietly came to terms with the fact that I’m gonna be invested in Morgan Wallen no matter what. As easy as it’d be to write him off as a reckless privileged moron, he’s also one of the most talented and innovative country artists in the mainstream. He doesn’t just make beer-drinkin’, girl lovin’, truck-drivin’ songs like the rest of his contemporaries, some even more talented than him. He has a knack for detail that turns the most generic conceit into a really vivid story about Wallen and the ups and downs in his life. Part of the reason why “Sand In My Boots” is such a tremendous song is because it’s such a specific story about a meet-cute that never resolves. Meeting someone you really click with and are ready to take on the world with, but you’re the only one ready for it. She has other plans, and they don’t involve you. Which is cruel, heartbreaking, but also understandable. I think it helps that the girls in Wallen’s song always have more personality and character than what Nashville writers typically care to add. They’re not nameless girls, they’re specific to the way she broke his heart or makes his heart soar. It’s partially why “Tennessee Fan” is one of the better songs on the new album, cuz their relationship is deeply tied to this shared love of baseball and how being together caused her to start rooting for a team she’s long held a grudge against. No coincidence he’s got a rumored romance with rising talent Megan Moroney, who wrote essentially the same song from the other side on “Tennesse Orange”.
And his depression songs don’t feel like generic wallows in misery and sadness. There’s bitterness in the way he spits out his lyrics. There’s resentment in the way he feels wronged or abandoned by someone he trusts. Even if some of it borders on toxic, it’s still a raw, intense feeling that comes across great when he decides to mix his guitar tones with trap percussion. He could use a better trap tone, admittedly, and not all of his country-trap experiments work, but when it hits on the seething venom on “Wasted On You” or the exhausted dirge of “Last Night”, it hits hard. He has a lot of talent, a lot of potential.
But like… that’s exactly what makes this so frustrating, you know?
I figured out why seeing all that discourse about Wallen and the really ugly, unsympathetic takes about him made me squirm. Because in all honesty, I want him to do better. I want him to prove that he actually did mean what he said in his apology video. I don’t care if you dislike his music or can’t see him as anything other than the n-word guy. I want to see someone with an interesting artistic vision, a kind heart, and the potential to bring country out of its stale, generic, checklist habits and force the artists in the industry to just try for once. Which is a very parasocial opinion to have, I know. But we get invested in these artists for a reason. Their stories resonate with us and we want to believe the art they make comes from a real place and a real heart.
What would Wallen need to do in order for me to forgive him and feel okay with engaging with his music again? Well, don’t say the n-word again for one. But that’s easy. Even if Wallen wasn’t going to lose his career to it, knowing the public outcry and loss of opportunities that came from him saying it means he’s going to think twice when he goes on his next wasted bender. But I mean… you shouldn’t say the n-word if you’re white. That’s just it. You shouldn’t say it because you’ll get in trouble, you shouldn’t say it cuz it’s a loaded word with centuries of hatred and bigotry behind it. When I want Wallen to get better, I mean that I want him to not only understand the roots of his transgression, but also to give back to the people he hurt, prove that he’s going to be a better person from now on, and actually stick to it. A great first step was to go sober, maybe learn to live without alcohol as a dependent for his mental stress. What I didn’t want him to learn, was that all he had to do to get better was to stay quiet and not involve himself in any sort of trouble. The kind of complacency motivated by fear of losing his career rather than actually feeling bad about what he did. Just wait it out until the noise goes down, and once you’re back in the spotlight, just learn to behave and make your little songs for your fans who will never challenge you or ask for anything more.
I only needed to listen through One Thing At A Time once to know which lesson he learned.
As an album, One Thing At A Time is fine. When it comes to really long albums like this, I’ve learned to accept that sometimes it works best as a “pick your favorites” kind of deal. But it’s hard to pick your favorites when a lot of the album retreads the same ideas for almost two hours. There are three kinds of songs among the thirty-six present on the album: Songs where Wallen prides himself on getting better but falls back into his demons when a girl breaks his heart, songs where Wallen meets a girl and starts flirting with her and seals the deal by the end of the night, and songs where Wallen sulks about the person he used to be and is thankful for anyone who stuck by him. Sure, every song has its own identity, sound, and influence, but when they circle back to one of the same three ideas and the album is nearly two hours long… it’s exhausting. Words like “bloat” and “stream trolling” are thrown around too liberally I feel. If we assume every album with a long track length is just to flood the market or get as much money as possible, we’d have to question entire genres that don’t usually settle for the 30-50 minute sweet spot. But in this case, it does bother me because it’s obvious that the label wants to live off this album for years. Hell, considering that “Last Night” and the title track are singles on country radio and pop radio respectively, they could double-dip this album’s entire lifespan. Send “Everything I Love” to country and “Thinkin’ Bout Me” to pop next, then “Man Made A Bar” to country, “Sunrise” to pop. God forbid they get bold and do something like “Cowgirls” to country and “180 (Lifestyle)” to pop. But with how many songs are on the album and how many of them will play nice to radio stations who just want the reliable hits they can play over and over again… it’s foolproof.
But it comes at the expense of not just the art, but the artist themselves. A lot of what I described with Morgan Wallen earlier felt lost in this album. He shines in moments like “Everything I Love”, “‘98 Braves”, “Thought You Should Know”, I’ve even grown to really like controversial tracks like “You Proof” and “Last Night”, but for every great song he makes he drops another that could have been saved for another album or cut entirely. And even the best songs on this album would be in the middle tiers of Dangerous: The Double Album. There’s no moment of defeated yearning like “Sand In My Boots”, there’s no biting self-awareness and destructive impulses like “Livin’ The Dream”, “Wasted On You” is better than “Last Night”, there’s not even a duet as good as “Only Thing That’s Gone” with Chris Stapleton. Yes, even the Eric Church song, one of the better songs on the album, still has lowkey hacky writing that’s only saved by good production and the two of them having really good chemistry.
So I’m left with an album that I don’t regret going through, that has a few songs that entered my regular rotation, but one where I’m feeling like every fear I had about Morgan Wallen came true. Pitchfork writer Sam Sodomsky wrote an excellent review of this album where they talked about Wallen’s interviews post-incident. “… All the while Wallen seemed mentally fatigued and physically uncomfortable, as if the most important lesson he learned from his experience was that a lot of people are watching and it’s best not to make any sudden moves”. That’s exactly why One Thing At A Time feels like such a non-entity of an event album. He didn’t exactly take a step backward, he just stood still. Maybe he’ll tip-toe around the area, flirt with more trap elements and even interpolate a Rich Gang song cuz he can. But as long as he stays in the circle and plays nice with Nashville, he can keep his career and become the biggest country star since pre-1989 Taylor Swift.
I got the worst feeling when he opened up the album with “Born With a Beer in My Hand”, where he acknowledges how the alcohol is making him a worse person and will eventually break him if he keeps letting it rule his world, and all he can come up with is, “Well, what can you expect from a redneck?” (no doubt a lyric from his right-hand man rapidly approaching hack status HARDY). That’s such a cowardly way to treat sobriety. Empty excuses to avoid doing any actual work. By the time I got to “Outlook” where Wallen claims his “outlook has changed” which ends up just being “God is looking out for me”, I just sighed. Not that I expect him or even want him to address the incident, but if you’re going to hint at the fact that you used to do some “bad things” and then make these sweeping songs about how much you’ve changed and how “the angel on your shoulder” is protecting you, the LEAST you can do is acknowledge that you’ll never be done. Some people will hold a grudge against you forever, and you can’t wave that off with just a simple “I’ve changed”. At least reckon with the fact that you had consequences, even if they aren’t on the scale you frankly deserved. I can’t listen to this album without hearing the height of privilege from a man who clearly thinks all he has to do to atone for his mistakes is simply to not do it again. Have you apologized to Mickey Guyton for the way your fans treated her? Did you reach out to Maren Morris after Aldean threw her under the bus before introducing you on stage? Have you talked to Jason Isbell since he publicly denounced you despite your cover of his song being an integral part of your rise to fame? I understand if those are private matters and you’re not obligated to share that with everyone, in fact, I’d respect you a lot more if this was true! But I’m getting the impression nothing I said ever happened, and you’re just happy to ride out your inevitable success while being careful not to “screw up” again.
I’d love for you to prove me wrong, but I know you won’t.