News/Commentary

Rolling Stone dumps on song sweeping America: A right-wing ‘screed’ with ‘Reagan-era talking points’

August 13, 2023 | | Print Article

Rolling Stone magazine is facing massive backlash for passively aggressively dismissing Oliver Anthony, the Virginia singer behind the hit song “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

“‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ is a passionate screed against the state of the country and right-wing influencers are very into it,” a tweet posted by the magazine on Friday reads.

Notice the use of the word “screed.”

The tweet likewise links to a veritable hit piece titled, “Right-Wing Influencers Just Found Their Favorite New Country Song.”

While the piece isn’t overtly critical of Anthony, the insinuation lying throughout it is that there’s something wrong with the song.

“A look at the lyrics … suggest[s] … why ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ is appealing to right-wing influencers: Anthony rails against high taxes and the value of the dollar, but also wades into some Reagan-era talking points about welfare,” the piece reads before quoting from the song.

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“Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothing to eat/And the obese milking welfare. Well God, if you’re 5 foot 3 and you’re 300 pounds/Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds,” the quote reads.

FYI, in another one of Anthony’s songs, he rails against Democrats AND Republicans, both of whom he accuses of being “full of crap.”

In fairness, Rolling Stone does mention his center politics: “In his straight-to-camera introduction video, Anthony … says he sits ‘pretty dead center down the aisle on politics and always have,’ and that ‘it seems like both sides serve the same master — and that master is not someone of any good to the people of this country.'”

However, Rolling Stone magazine also takes a shot at Anthony for mentioning deceased convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein

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“The real head-turner though is an apparent allusion to Jeffrey Epstein’s Caribbean island, where the billionaire and convicted sex offender allegedly introduced underage girls to powerful associates: ‘I wish politicians would look out for miners/And not just minors on an island somewhere,'” the magazine’s piece reads.

Notice the use of the word “allegedly.”

Combined, these paragraphs gave many the appearance that Rolling Stone was passively aggressively attacking, dismissing, and disparaging Anthony. And so in response, many critics attacked, dismissed, and disparaged Rolling Stone.

Look:

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All this comes days after Anthony became a viral sensation courtesy of a number of influential figures on the right sharing the song to their fans and followers.

In a YouTube video posted earlier this month, he revealed that “Rich Men North of Richmond” is his “first song to get out there that has been recorded on a real microphone and a real camera, and not just on my cell phone.”

That said, he noted that he’s been passionately writing music since 2021.

“Things were not good for a lot of people and in some respects, I was one of those people. I had wasted a lot of nights getting high and getting drunk and I had sort of gotten to a point in my life where even things that I did care about didn’t mean anything to me anymore,” he said

“This is certainly no Dr. Phil episode, but I found an outlet in this music. I started uploading a couple of songs,” he added.

Listen:

All this also comes amid “Rich Men North of Richmond” racking up millions of views online and skyrocketing to #1 on iTunes.

Vivek Saxena
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