NASHVILLLE, Tennessee (AP) – Fans of Morgan Wallen are buying up the country star’s latest album after a video last week showed him shouting a racial expression.
Wallen’s second record, “Dangerous: The Double Album”, retains its first place for a fourth week on the Billboard album of all genres, less than a week after Wallen apologized for using racist language.
The country music industry acted quickly to reprimand the public him and radio stations and streaming services removed his songs from their playlists. But fans responded by playing him even more.
Billboard reports that his latest album sold 25,000 copies during the week ended February 4, according to MRC Data, an increase of 102%. Billboard reported that the streaming numbers of the album increased slightly by 3%, representing about 160 million streams on demand. The download of songs from the album also increased by 67%.
The interest extended beyond just Wallen’s current album. The daily sales of his first album ‘If I Know Me’, which was released in 2018, also increased from 200 to 2,500 on the week ending February 4, according to data provided by MRC Data.
Wallen’s popularity has skyrocketed over the past year and songs such as ‘Seven Summers’ and ‘Wasted on You’ have given him a crossover success on pop radio. His album has already set records and is the first country album to spend four weeks on top of the Billboard 200 series since 2003, when Shania Twain’s album “Up!” spent five weeks at the top.
Hannah Karp, the editorial director of Billboard, said that people who are curious about Wallen in the wake of the scandal and media attention, get some interest in his music. But she said it also shows how her fans react to decisions to remove him from the radio as well.
“His fans are probably streaming him more because they can no longer hear him on the radio,” Karp said. “Some fans may stream him more in addition to their support for him, which super fans and fan armies often do.”
Karp noted that the sales and downloads of albums are generally much smaller than the stream numbers for all artists, so it does not take much to increase large percentage of sales.
Karp said it may be too early to predict the long-term consequences for Wallen.
‘We still do not see the full effect of radio dropping its music from the playlists. Radio is a very powerful driver of consumption, and it will eventually lead to a decrease in power and sales, ‘she said.