Jason Aldean has the #1 song in the country.
For the first time in his career, the country star finds himself at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated August 5 with his latest single “Try That In A Small Town,” an incredible run after debuting on the chart last week at #2.
The single was actually released back in May, but began receiving renewed attention after Aldean released a video for the song featuring scenes of rioting and looting.
Others have accused Aldean racism after the video was filmed at the Maury County courthouse, the scene of a 1927 lynching.
Aldean has strongly defended the song, both in a statement released on social media and at his concert, including last weekend when he spoke out against cancel culture and thanked fans for “seeing through the bullshit.”
“Here’s what I wanna say. A lot of things out there, you guys know how it is, cancel culture is a thing, that’s something that, if people don’t like what you say, they try and make sure that they can cancel you.
Which means, try and ruin your life, ruin everything. One thing I saw this week was a bunch of country music fans that could see through a lot of the bullshit, alright.”
And after the song hit #1 on the Hot 100 chart, his wife Brittany also spoke out on attempts to “cancel” the song and her husband.
In a post on Instagram, Brittany celebrated the milestone, noting that efforts by those who wanted to silence the song didn’t exactly go as planned:
“Well, yesterday was a monumental day for Jason Aldean. #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart!! …A career first.
That sure did backfire, didn’t it?? The best fans EVERRRR”
The song flew under the radar when it was released, and didn’t really begin to make an impact on the charts until the controversy drew more attention to it.
But many have accused the singer of caving to political correctness after removing news footage of the Black Lives Matter protest from his latest video, “Try That In a Small Town.” However, his label confirmed that the footage was actually removed due to copyright issues with the owner of the footage.
