United States: Morgan Wallen is the king of the sales chart

Taking a look at this week’s album sales chart in the United States you can see how the top ten positions are split practically in half between newly released albums and albums released for a long time, a year or more. Two of the ten albums in the Top Ten are by Morgan Wallen: “I’m the problem” (read the review here) which occupies the third position and has been on the charts for 50 weeks and the previous “One thing at a time”released in 2023, which stands in ninth position and has been present in the American chart for 165 weeks. If we scroll down the ranking we find Wallen, a little further down, in twentieth position with the 2021 album “Dangerous: the double album” which has been on the chart for 277 weeks now. The only thing missing from the list would be the recording debut of the musician born 33 years ago in Sneedville (Tennessee), “If I know me”released in 2018. Of course he’s there too, now in 88th place with 393 weeks of seniority under his belt.

The numbers listed above certify the evidence that Morgan Wallen – despite being a semi-unknown name in our area, or perhaps completely unknown – in the United States he is a more than established star. A star that began to shine practically from the beginning, in 2016, when the country-pop of his music did not go unnoticed “The way I talk”in which he proudly jokes about his rural origins characterized by a slow and lazy speech like only the streets of Mississippi.

What could have been just an episode, a lucky single, instead turned out to be only the first of a series of successes for ten years now. The American public evidently fully recognizes itself both in the sounds that mix country with pop and rock and (above all) in the lyrics of his songs which describe the problems and lives of the people who live in the American province. Wallen has an incredible facility with writing, his production is fluid: the first album had 14 songs in the tracklist, the second had 30, the third 36 and the last, with an always upward game, 37. Regarding the number of songs on the last album, “I’m the problem”declared with disarming simplicity: “We recorded about 50 songs and took 13 out.”

However, in his journey forward, not everything went smoothly. In 2021 the overwhelming rise of Morgan Wallen was put to the test by a rather unpleasant event. A video immortalized him, tipsy, indulging in racist insults. Faced with the evidence, the musician had no choice but to apologize for what had happened. Apologies that did not convince the leaders of iHeartRadioone of the largest American radio networks, which decided to eliminate it from its programming, a measure they also took Spotify And Apple Music. If that wasn’t enough, theAcademy of Country Music declared his ineligibility for the American Music Awardsalthough truth be told, he still ended up getting two nominations, despite not being allowed to attend the awards ceremony. In addition to this, towards the end of that problematic 2021, Wallen was harshly criticized by his fans for having allowed the company that handled the sale of concert tickets for his tour to adopt the pre-sale dynamic pricingi.e. the use of an algorithm that modifies the cost of the ticket according to the requests reported by the market: therefore, the higher the demand, the more the tickets cost.

Despite these disgraceful missteps – it should be noted that in 2024 he was arrested in Nashville for throwing a chair from the sixth floor which risked hitting two policemen – and his different point of view compared to the jury of Grammy Awardswhich is why last year, in open controversy, he decided not to submit his “I’m the Problem” being examined by the Recording Academy for possible nominations. This stance of Morgan Wallen it was linked to the fact that in all these years of continuous success he felt snubbed by the Academy having never received even a nomination he considered deserved. Be that as it may, nothing could stop the combative Morgan. Most importantly, the American public has chosen to continue listening to his songs and the sales charts of this and other weeks are there to testify to this above all considerations.