Morgan Wallen Is Slowly But Surely Making His Way Back To Country Radio

A man sitting in a chair

Morgan Wallen has slowly but surely been creeping back into the public eye.

After a few months where he went completely off the grid because of the racial slur incident I’m sure we’re all well aware of at this point, he’s been seen singing a few songs at Kid Rock’s bar, playing some new tunes on Instagram, attended the VIP party at Miranda Lambert’s new bar Casa Rosa, and even hopped back on Twitter to talk about a potential collab with Hardy and Koe Wetzel.

Though he announced earlier this year he wouldn’t be going on tour this summer, he hasn’t slowed down one bit in terms of album sales with Dangerous: The Double Album, which made him the first country artist to ever spend 10 weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 chart.

Immediately after the video surfaced back in February, he was dropped from Cumulus Media’s 400-plus radio stations, among many others across the country, like iHeartRadio, and even some Spotify and Apple Music playlists.

According to a lengthy write-up in Variety, his songs have started reappearing on stations owned by iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media, Cox Media, TownSquare Media and other large stations and chains in the United States.

Most of the top executives have decided that it is now up to the discretion of each independent station to decide whether or not they want to play his music, whereas before, it was a company-wide ban.

According to one top-label executive, unlike seemingly everything else regarding Wallen this past year, this move has been much more subtle:

“There was no fanfare at all when people started adding it back in. It’s been completely subdued and unnoticed. It’s like a soft opening.”

And it’s being done that way on purpose.

They don’t want to upset listeners who don’t believe he should be back on the radio yet, but they also want to keep his fans happy. And they’re one of the most rabid fan bases in all of country music right now, often showing their support for him in the form of Billboard’s ahead of several different awards shows he was barred from.

According to one radio person:

“Nobody is saying, ‘Guess what’s coming up next, a guy you haven’t heard in six months!’

It’s a thing that people are going to do quietly and not want to make a lot of noise about. It’s like, have him blend back into the mosaic of the thing and not make a big deal about it.”

And Audacy (formerly Entercom), might be the only radio station entity who is still keeping Morgan off its airwaves altogether.

The official data shows that,

“The vast majority of stations across all ownership groups look to have played Wallen between 10-30 times in the first nine days of the month — a one-to-three-plays-a-day rate that officially qualifies as dipping a toe back in.”

So, you shouldn’t be all that surprised if you hear “Chasin’ You” or “Whiskey Glasses” on your local station from here on out (they’re only playing what’s classified as “recurrent” singles, so it’s not likely you’ll hear anything from his most recent record quite yet).

Again, it remains to be seen if all of this really means much in terms of the near future and if Morgan will be playing shows later in the year, or even if it means he intends on releasing some new music sooner rather than later.

Within the country music industry, it’s really never been so much of a question as to “if” he would make a comeback in the genre, but rather “when.” And all of this signals that a comeback in some form, slowly but surely, is likely underway.

Here’s one of those new tracks he recently posted on Instagram (and co-wrote with Miranda Lambert), “Thought You Should Know”:

A beer bottle on a dock

STAY ENTERTAINED

A RIFF ON WHAT COUNTRY IS REALLY ABOUT

A beer bottle on a dock