The bright side of the coin: Morgan Wallen triumphs with One Thing at a Time. His second double album in three years (the other was released in 2021) had the best commercial start of 2023 with 100,000 physical copies sold and plays equivalent to 400,000 more copies in just five days, according to the magazine. Billboard.
Such success places the American among the pop elite alongside Drake, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift.
The darker side: Morgan Wallen is the country singer who was caught uttering a racial slur in 2021. Shelved for a time by his record label and several American radio stations, however, he never been abandoned by his audience. What its current success demonstrates once again…
What attracts all these people? Certainly not its originality. The arrangements are predictable at will, his vocal inflections too, and he sings enough from his nose to be in the mould. And his point? He doesn’t leave the frame either: he talks about beer, whisky, pick-ups, motorways and, like everyone else, about faltering loves.
On the other hand, almost everything Morgan Wallen touches is comfortable on the ear. He is not sparing of his melodies and each of his musicians knows the secret of the notes that weep or smack of nostalgia. It is even quite convincing when approaching folk-pop (Neon Star), even if, here again, we would never dare to call it audacious.
He doesn’t have the nerve of the Dixie Chicks, the sensitive accuracy of Riley Green or the soul of Luke Combs, but Morgan Wallen has one asset that obviously counts: the sound he offers is reassuring, like a stable benchmark in a constantly changing world. It’s enough to shine, but not enough to be an interesting artist.
Country
One Thing at a Time
Morgan Wallen
Big Loud/Mercury/Universal