Who doesn’t love an overnight success story? Not one of those feel-good artists brought to you by NBC’s The Voice, sponsored by First Bank, but something … someone real. I don’t mean to discredit any talented individual that brings you to tears on primetime cable, but it’s different when an artist is curated by vox populi on x.com. Unfortunately we’re in an age of algorithmic ‘content’ crafted for girls to dance to during rush week or by someone who cos-plays as a NPC on TikTok. It’s rare to see someone with zero aspiration to go viral get feed’d without screaming about fake aliens on a plane (TMFINR).
Enter Oliver Anthony: Virginia farmer, dog father of 3, Tyler Childers look- and-sound-a-like, American.
Over the past few days Anthony has gone from 0 to 4 million views on youtube, gained over 134k followers on X and become the most-requested muse for Youtube music reviewers while still existing off-the-grid. This recently sober, God-fearing American has written an anthem for the working middle class that is apparently striking fear in the hearts of Rolling Stone bloggers for being “right wing”.
Oliver states that he is “dead-center” politically. [Honestly though, aren’t we all by now?] Speaking about the substance of his song he continues, “The universal thing I see is no matter how much effort they [the people] put into whatever it is they’re doing, they can’t quite get ahead because the dollar’s not worth enough, they are being over-taxed. … I want to be a voice for those people. And not just them, but humans in general.”
Now, I’m a sucker for alliterations so “Rich Men North of Richmond” immediately checked that box. A simple 4-chord capo’d acoustic track I can learn in 5 mins on Ultimate Guitar …. easy. Seeing @outlawcountry and @whiskeyriff stop dead in their twitter tracks to promote this guy, I’m paying real close attention.
Everyone wants to be the next Tyler Childers or Zach Bryan and this guy seems to have done that overnight without really trying. It’s refreshing that one talented artist with a song can voice the sentiment of the people, regardless of race, gender or political ideals and just be celebrated for good fucking music.
Can’t wait to see his name next to the likes of Benjamin Tod, Sturgill and Jason. If not, I’ll still be listening.
(Sidebar) When the aliens come down, i hope Oliver is our ambassador instead of Tiktok Bobbi.
- Vaya con Dios