Morgan Wallen: a night of whiskey and Silverado trucks with the country music sensation from the United States

Has Britain succumbed to the allure of country & western music? Morgan Wallen’s event at London’s O2 Arena looked like it was the world’s biggest barn dance, with young women wearing cowboy hats and boots and young guys wearing check shirts and trucker caps worn backwards. There are 20,000 of them.The loyal country fanbase in the United Kingdom has never been so young and fervent.

This did not have the demographic of “Whispering” Bob Harris’s usual Radio 2 listeners who grew up listening to Emmylou and the Eagles. It was more akin to Ed Sheeran supporters dressing up in costume. Young couples clutched to one another while downing shots of Jack Daniel’s with the good ol’ boys, mouthing every word of songs about mending broken hearts. Women in groups held up phones and sang ballads about baseball and driving a Silverado truck.

 

It’s difficult to overestimate Wallen’s popularity in the United States. The 30-year-old had the most popular streaming song (Last Night) and album (One Thing at a Time) in 2023, even surpassing Taylor Swift. We all know how much America enjoys country music. While Last Night topped Apple Music’s global song chart this year, Wallen has never had a success in the United Kingdom.

Nonetheless, the customized algorithms that push music to interested listeners have definitely reached a large enough audience to sell out London’s largest arena. Perhaps Ed Sheeran’s use of Irish folk tropes and Swift’s Nashville connections have eased listeners’ attitudes toward country cliches. “This is my first time in the UK,” Wallen said, his Tennessee drawl curling like the Mississippi.

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“I like to go on first impressions, and what I seen so far, I think we’re gonna have a damn good time together.”My first impressions were of a performer with the fashion sense of a garage mechanic and a moustache that had fallen out of favor circa 1985. In moments of romantic longing, he possesses a strong country voice, rich and flexible, capable of gliding to a keening falsetto.

His songs are all played in major keys and contain so many booze and vehicle brand names that one suspects sponsorship agreements. They’re plenty of delicious puns, like the closing encore Whiskey Glasses, in which the glasses are both containers for booze and a method of perceiving the world. “Poor me, pour me another drink,” the first phrase says.

 

Wallen’s main artistic advancement has been to merge country with hip hop beats and skittery trap music production, all of which are often considered “urban” musical genres. It’s a subtle modernization that washed away in a live environment, where dual electric guitars pushed the sound into boisterous country rock.

Morgan Wallen

In the United States, Wallen’s career was nearly wrecked in 2021 when he was caught on camera using a racial slur. Despite some debate over racism in country music, Wallen’s career does not appear to have suffered as a result of the issue (the artist apologized and stated that he was receiving counseling).

The 20,000 British fans singing along to Ain’t That Some weren’t discouraged, cheering loudly when Wallen said, “I realize it’s cliché to sing Chevrolet, cold drinks, and Fridays / But that’s exactly the way it is out here… That’s some C-O-U-N-T-R-Y s—?” Yes, it is.

 

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