You thought it couldn’t get worse… and then it did.
This week, Country Radio Seminar (CRS) is happening in Nashville, which is an industry event that brings together radio people, industry professionals and tons of artist across several days to mingle, and in many cases, artists will debut new songs or perform fan-favorites.
Eric Church debuted a powerful new song called “Johnny” there yesterday with a full choir, and there was another performance that caught my attention… for the absolute worst reasons.
If you’ve spent any time on social media over the last few weeks, there is a high chance you might have scrolled past a song called “Oil Money” by Graham Barham, which features viral ring girl Sydney Thomas in the video, and that has obviously helped it gain some traction too:
@grahambarham OIL MONEY🛢️💰 #newmusic #countrymusic #unreleased #musictok #countrymusictiktoks #fy @Sydney Thomas ♬ OIL MONEY – Graham Barham
It’s hard to believe this song is viral on TikTok, right? “Oil Money” makes the peak of bro-country look pretty fantastic. Obviously, the reason this song went so viral is that he featured the viral ring girl from the Tyson/Jake Paul fight, Sydney Thomas, in dozens of teaser clips.
Anyways, aside from all of that, the song is downright horrible to put it lightly… but the live version? So much worse… I know you’re shocked…
Graham performed it at CRS yesterday, and it was SO bad. First of all, they had the band and the backing track playing over top of each other? He also sounded awful, and it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him sing live, but my guess it that he hasn’t been out grinding on the road playing shows and honing his craft. Believe it or not, some of these “TikTok artists” who blow up and go viral by lip synching songs in the front seat of their truck for an audience of 14 year old girls have never played a show in their life. Got that record deal though…
The record label probably saw him gaining traction on TikTok and decided to turn him into their next “big thing,” pumping money and time into having him pop up on your timeline nonstop with Sydney Thomas.
Either way, it’s manufactured bullsh*t, and I can only imagine how uncomfortable this was to watch in person, because I could barely get through the video on TikTok. It’s hard to watch. And look, maybe he’s a nice guy, but there’s just no world where this should be put on stage at CRS. I really thought record labels and the Nashville mainstream country music industry were finally turning a corner… but I guess not so much.
Watch at your own risk:
@thetraveladdict.com Graham Barham performs “Oil Money” at CRS in Nashville Tennessee. @Graham Barham #grahambarham #oilmoney #countrymusic #thetraveladdict #nashville #nashvilletennessee #CRS #countryradio #country ♬ original sound – thetraveladdict
The comments section was lit up too:
“And the crowd goes MILD.”
“Hate from Kansas brotha”
“Is this karaoke?”
“Wow. Sounds so much better on the radio”
“Gonna lie, this is fire”
“I reckon anybody can be a country artist at this point.”
“I gotta lie this is fire.”
“Gotta lie this is so great’
“Background track and band playing at the same time”
“Gonna lie, this is better than the TikTok ‘real’ videos.”
“And here I thought this was a joke the whole time. All 65 different videos.”
“Imagine what Simon would say.”
“Much better with Sydney Thomas.”
“Like this for a class action lawsuit for your ears.”
“Hate from Texas this song is trash.”
“This is me on my 8th shot of jack at the karaoke bar”
They go on like that… if you’re lucky enough to have not heard it yet, I’m not so sure I would hit “play” on the button below, but you can at you want to for comparison’s sake… just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
“Oil Money”
