(March 31, 2025). Morgan Wallen, the star of “Bro Country” Music and this decade’s poster boy for anti-cancel culture, has a new album to promote.
It’s called I’m the Problem. And no, that title is not Wallen offering some kind of mea culpa about past antics that have made him one of the most controversial figures of the 2020s. The title track is a diss song to a lover whom he blames for enabling him in the first place. Talk about gaslighting.
In keeping with that theme, Wallen — hero to conservatives from the Gulf of Mexico (yes, Mexico) to the Great Lakes and from the Pacific to the Atlantic — appeared on the ultra non-conservative comedy sketch show SNL on March 29, and played both “I’m the Problem” and another song, before making headlines — yet again — for his latest controversial move.
This time, after hugging guest host (and recent Oscar winner) Mikey Madison, Wallen sent Twitter alight by walking off the SNL stage as the credits rolled — breaking a 50-year tradition in which guests and hosts remain on stage with the regular cast as the band plays the end-theme. Even prior controversial guests like Kanye West and recent second-time host Shane Gillis (the comedian who was famously fired from the show) stuck around until the cameras stopped rolling.
Wallen’s “moment” instantly gave his followers another “owning the libs” check mark and ensured that he’d be in the news cycle for the next 48 hours. To further fuel this, he posted on social media a picture of his departing private plane and the words “Get me to God’s country” — which was presumably anywhere but the New York City hell hole he’d just spent the past hours selling his soul alongside a bunch of LGBTQ+ and minority performers… performers who, btw, had just spent the better part of 90 minutes mocking another conservative hero — Donald Trump — and the motley crew that make up his second presidential administration.
I can just imagine Wallen might have read one too many mean tweets about how he should never have graced SNL with his presence in the first place, and his “abrupt” exit was the only path to redemption in the eyes of his left-hating followers.
Prior to his latest attention-seeking antic, Wallen’s appearance on the show had drawn the ire of liberals and conservatives for obviously different reasons. The right couldn’t fathom Wallen gracing the show it has long since dismissed as an unfunny shell of its former self, while the left couldn’t wrap itself around the fact that the 50-year-old institution would even book Wallen in the first place.
Wallen’s act was the best way for him to save face with his followers. And conservatives certainly have a proven recent track record when it comes to rallying around musicians who thumb up their noses at the establishment. Fellow country musicians Jason Aldean and Oliver Anthony Music had back-to-back No. 1 songs in 2023 with tunes that were viewed as liberal smacks in the face (“Try That In A Small Town” and “Rich Men North of Richmond,” respectively. Remember those gems?).
For Wallen’s part, that early walk-off and the Instagram post that followed were certainly on-brand for a country artist who is as well known for his controversies as he is for his music. Those include having an earlier SNL booking cancelled for mocking a mask policy during the pandemic, being videoed uttering the N-word just weeks after his Dangerous: The Double Album dropped in 2021, and being arrested for throwing a chair off a rooftop bar during the album cycle for his follow-up, One Thing at a Time.
But those controversies — and the resultant backlash from mainstream media and the music industry — only fueled the success of Wallen’s last two LPs, which now happen to be the two longest-running top 10 charting albums of the 21st century. Dangerous is now likely the most successful charting album in Billboard 200 history (based on chart numbers, not sales), after eclipsing Adele’s 21 as this century’s No. 1 LP. Adele’s album had previously been named the No. 1 Billboard 200 album of all time, so it stands to reason that the title now belongs to Wallen’s still high-charting Dangerous. Both Dangerous and One Thing At a Time have spent more than 100 weeks in the top ten, making Wallen the only act to have two such releases.
The two albums didn’t succeed on sheer music quality alone. The historic chart run for Dangerous was owed mostly to the N-word controversy in which Wallen was banned from every awards show and radio station important to his genre. That “cancellation” only fueled the right, who went above and beyond to support the album by streaming it in record numbers. Eight of its ten opening weeks at No. 1 occurred after the N-word video surfaced, and the album would remain in Billboard’s top ten non-consecutively for more than three years, with its 158 total weeks being second in history only to the My Fair Lady soundtrack (173 weeks) from 1956-60.
His 2023 follow-up, One Thing At a Time, was even more successful, spending 19 weeks at No. 1 — the most in 12 years — and 103 weeks in the top ten (second only to Dangerous among non-soundtrack albums), and counting.
Before this weekend’s SNL incident, it had been nearly a year since Wallen’s last headline-grabbing act (the chair throwing episode), and the “Last Night” singer clearly needed another one — especially with the release of I’m The Problem looming. The SNL jab was just the kind of free pub he needed to rev up his base.
The “problem” with Wallen is that controversy — whether warranted or not — has become synonymous with his brand, so much so that it’s now harder to discern whether his music, which is very one-dimensional, could actually make it on its own merits, sans some kind of politicized controversy to get his fans going. And with the new album coming out, the whiskey-worshipping crooner couldn’t leave it to chance that it might not be just the music that keeps people coming back. Adding to that fear may have been the fact that the last two pre-album singles released ahead of I’m The Problem — “Smile” and the title track — both fell short of reaching No. 1 on the Hot 100, peaking at Nos. 4 and 2, respectively.
Those numbers are nothing to sneeze at (and many of those songs still garner hordes of country radio airplay), but in a soft market where the tunes that prevented him from topping the Hot 100 chart are recordings that have been around for months, it’s easy to wonder if some of the bloom is coming off the rose for country music’s current king of controversy.
Either way, the left will continue to show righteous indignation for a stunt that SNL’s cast members oddly seemed unfazed by, while the right will continue to believe that their guy “owned the libs” with this latest act of attention-seeking desperation.
Meanwhile, whichever side’s reaction is the most validated, Wallen will harness the attention he’s getting into another big charting album when his whiskey-soaked, 37-track set is released in two months.
The only question is did he pull this stunt too early. I’m The Problem isn’t due until May 16, by which time these 48 hours will be up and his fans may have forgotten that he once again “owned the libs”… or tried to.
Whether he owned the libs or just rented their attention for a weekend, Wallen’s biggest win is that we’re all still talking about him.
For now anyway.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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