Jason Aldean's big controversy with Try That In a Small Town

14:45Jason Aldean's big controversy with Try That In a Small Town

Journalists Andrea Williams and Emily Nussbaum join Commotion guest host Amil Niazi to discuss the polarizing reactions to Jason Aldean’s latest single, Try That In A Small Town.

For the past couple weeks, Jason Aldean's new single Try That In A Small Town has been the most polarizing country song in America.

Critics say its message is troubling for the way it seems to take aim at those with legitimate criticisms of the police and the American government. It also doesn't help that parts of the music video were shot at a location in Tennessee where a Black teenager was lynched in 1927.

Journalists Andrea Williams and Emily Nussbaum join Commotion guest host Amil Niazi to discuss what the song and its reception suggest about the state of country music today.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Amil: Andrea, you've heard the song. You've seen the now-infamous music video. What is your reaction to all of this?

Andrea: I think that people are rightfully upset and offended. There is clear imaging in the lyrics of sundown towns and vigilante justice. Even when he's talking about these actions that would necessitate some kind of response, we know that when we talk about sundown towns, it's really not about that. You could be in trouble just for staying there after dark.

WATCH | Official music video for Try That In a Small Town:

And then of course you move to the video, and he's very clearly got all these images from protests — no mention of why people had to protest, but just the fact that they are. I say all the time: I don't think that every country music fan is racist, but I do think that every person who is racist or who longs for this bygone era when Black people were "in their place," listens to country music. Jason Aldean knows his audience. But it's clear this is not a Jason Aldean issue. This is a country music issue.

Amil: And for those who are not familiar with the phrase "sundown town," could you give a quick explainer of what that means?

Andrea: It was basically that Black people were to be out of town by nightfall. If they were coming into town to work during the day, that was fine — but then they needed to be out of town and go back to where they came from by nightfall, or else anything could happen.

Amil: Emily, this is not the first time that Jason Aldean has made headlines for his perceived politics. How in line with his brand is this new song?

Emily: Well, I'd say that the song is cruder than the songs he usually sings, but it's not a big departure. I have to add: the main thing about Jason Aldean is that he's a really boring country artist. He doesn't write his own lyrics. Most of his radio singles are the most basic brand of "bro-country"; they're just self-pitying laments about trucks and dirt roads. Politically speaking he is a Trump supporter, and he goes to the [Conservative Political Action Conference] with his wife, Brittany. But the thing is, this whole thing makes him sound much more interesting than he is, from my perspective…. There's nothing rebellious or exciting about this; it's just a scandal that sells a very familiar type of music, that's almost the only music that gets played on country radio. But it doesn't represent what goes on in country music in the broader sense.

Amil: Jason Aldean's response to this backlash by his Twitter account reads: "There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it — and there isn't a single video clip that isn't real news footage — and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music — this one goes too far." Andrea, we were just talking about how explicit the lyrics seem, and yet he's trying to say that there's nothing in there referencing race or politics. What do you make of that response?

Andrea: The response did what it was supposed to do; he's addressing it because this story became bigger than country music, but also he's doing this gaslighting, straddling-the-fence thing because at the end of the day, he's not going to "capitulate to the woke mob," right? We know what we hear, but at the end of the day he doesn't ever have to say anything, really, because he is propped up by the mainstream. He's going to sell concert tickets. He's going to get streamed. He's going to rise to the top of the charts. It doesn't matter how good he sounds. He again knows that audience well, that audience both he individually and country music collectively has cultivated. I didn't expect anything more.

Emily: I just want to jump in and add one thing. The part where he says there isn't a single clip that isn't real news footage…. There's a great woman on TikTok who actually investigated the footage he uses, and not only is it not footage of American protests — it comes from other countries, including Canada. It's stock footage that they put in. So even at the most basic level, his defense of his video doesn't hold up. Even leaving aside the deceptiveness of the other stuff, it's just B.S.

Amil: Emily, that piece that you wrote for The New Yorker looks at how class, race and gender politics are shaping Nashville's new scene and the music industry of late there. How does this story fit into that larger conversation that you were getting at in your story?

Emily: To a certain extent, mainly as a distraction. There's no doubt that mainstream country music — and I don't think my piece is Pollyannaish about this — it has enormous problems of bigotry and structural bigotry, especially based on what gets onto mainstream radio. But people who don't listen to country music already think that it's all people like Jason Aldean — and that's not the truth. There's an extremely complex and varied world in Nashville and outside of Nashville of people who love and play country music.… A lot of the people that I write about in the piece come from exactly the small-town backgrounds that Jason Aldean only pretends to come from and tries to define.

Amil: Andrea, you're in Nashville. You've been covering this industry for a minute. What do you make of what Emily's saying there and what her piece sort of gets at?

Andrea: I think that it is par for the course. I think it is a reflection of the actual country music industry. Emily's right that there are all of these groups and individuals who are pushing against that common narrative of what country music is, who it's for, who it's by. But when we talk about this tussle for power — who owns Nashville? — there isn't really a power struggle at this point. All of these people are pretty much on the margins.

I'm not saying that to dismiss their music. I'm simply saying that when we talk about this multibillion-dollar industry that is country music, these people are not scratching the surface of it because we have not done enough collectively, including gathering the power of people outside of the industry, to push against the industry on a consistent, sustained basis. So everybody gets kind of pushed to the side. We ride these ebbs and flows of movements, if you will, where every now and then we'll put a Black person on the stage or a queer person on the stage, and then ultimately we go back to normal. I understand the seductiveness of wanting to say things are getting better, but they are not. They're just not.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender.