Written by Tim Linaberry
By now, you have probably heard, seen, or read the latest chapter of the culture wars: stadium country star (and mass shooting survivor) Jason Aldean had his derisive music video yanked off CMT just 4 days after airing. The planet is experiencing its hottest summer in recorded history. Labor strikes are erupting all over the global north. But let us not lose sight of what truly matters right now.
JUST WHO DOES JASON ALDEAN THINK HE IS CLAIMING THAT HE’S FROM A SMALL TOWN?
Let me make something clear here – I can count on less than one hand how many Jason Aldean songs I have ever willingly listened to. To me, stadium country (not to be confused with folk country) music exemplifies everything wrong with music nowadays. Millionaires hiring songwriters to pen lyrics that pander to rural America from the comfort of their private jets is just not my mug of transphilic beer. Country capitalism aside, the chance to dissect the backlash to “Try That in a Small Town” is my kind of party.
After amalgamating a career that has netted him somewhere in the ballpark of $50-90 million through extensive touring and ten studio albums, Aldean has – no doubt – been seeking continued relevance (and income) in a rapidly-changing world. After experiencing three of the strangest years in a country with a rapidly deteriorating social fabric, I cannot blame Jason for attempting to use his platform to throw his oversized black hat into the social change arena. The song is now one of the highest selling songs in the US.
He knew this song would be divisive. The lyrics do not sugarcoat anything. The attempt to galvanize his conservative fan base, many of whom have been fed a steady diet of fear through the rhetoric of pundits who profit from misrepresenting the ongoing cultural awakening, had the intended effect of enraging the progressives. The Twitter-sphere’s backlash was fierce. Millionaires with microphones – and many others — on both sides of the ideological spectrum commented on Aldean’s music video, which depicted images and clips of nearly all the lyrics of the song, projected upon the ivory-white exterior of a Tennessee courthouse, draped with a massive American flag.
I found the imagery of “Try That” a little contrived. Did the songwriters find the clip of the protester spitting in the cop’s face prior to penciling the lyrics, or did they ask ChapGPT to locate it in the post? Did they not feature the grandad’s gun because they were not sure whose grandad to include, or was it because they had too many guns to choose from? Was that the same burning flag featured in my band, The Resistance Company’s latest music video? [To further the sidebar: while both TRC’s video and Aldean’s video may appear similar on the surface, TRC would like to mention that we are physically present in the protest footage of our video.]
To many – especially those who are engaged in activism, fighting for a better world – the American flag is no longer seen as an emblem of American exceptionalism, but a symbol of structural racism and white supremacy. The burning of the flag is now more common than ever, as the deeply-rooted disconnection in this nation’s sordid history bubbles to the surface, as evidenced in the music video’s clips of the George Floyd protests, and most recently, the embattled activists struggling to prevent Cop City from being erected in the forests of Atlanta.
Team Aldean did a terrific job constructing an anti-woke musical mosaic pyre, leaving matches and all. From choosing a set backdrop historically known for lynching, to mentioning how the good ole boys who were raised up right are out there looking for a fight, connotations of sundown towns abound.
Aldean defended his video and its imagery:
“Try That in A Small Town, for me, refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up, where we took care of our neighbors, regardless of differences of background or belief. Because they were our neighbors, and that was above any differences. My political views have never been something I’ve hidden from, and I know that a lot of us in this country don’t agree on how we get back to a sense of normalcy where we go at least one day without a headline that keeps us up at night. But the desire for it too – that’s what this song is about.”
To his credit, we do get the stereotypical view of rural “small town” ‘Merica flashing before our eyes during the final chorus of the video. There truly is nothing quite like the image of a poor, white farmer, gazing at the horizon of a setting sun, while his genetically-modified, mono-cropped, nutrient-depleted, dust-bowl-waiting-to-happen slice of the American dream withers away. The accuracy of that metaphor has never been more on the nose.
If the purpose of the video had truly been to highlight community and togetherness, why does the song seek to further drive the wedge between the rural and urban ways of living? Both cities and towns have incredible examples of communities that seek to improve the lives and well-being of their inhabitants. Why then spend most of the song evoking polarizing imagery, charged emotional footage designed to trigger our amygdalas? Country capitalism, obviously. Fear smells; fear sells. If the goal of the song, as Aldean claims, had been to move the needle toward concepts of care and community, perhaps he should not have composed one of the more threatening choruses of all time.
Lastly, and to wrap up this opinion piece with a red, white, and blue bow: JASON IS NOT FROM A SMALL TOWN!
He bounced back and forth between Macon, Georgia, the principal city of a metropolitan area with a population of nearly 250,000 people, and a Miami suburb, before relocating to country mecca Nashville – the 21st largest city in the US. While we spend the next month squabbling about the (de)merits of a mediocre country diddy, sanctifying our moral outrage in the bowels of the internet, we lose sight of the bigger picture: capitalism and its quest for endless growth setting the world on fire. The elevation of this story to front-page news seeks to distract us from questioning the economically-oppressive regime which has pitted both rural and urban ways of life against each other. Little does Aldean know, that we ALL need to be crossing THAT line – together.
TIM LINABERRY
IG: @the.inverse.converse
Blog: medium.com/@theinverseconverse
