This has got to be the worst song on the album, and it’s not even out yet.
Morgan Wallen is gearing up to release his new album I’m The Problem this Friday, and yesterday, he held an album preview event at his Nashville bar, where fans could pop into hear some of the new music, as well as the stories behind the songs. The lengthy 37-song tracklist includes features from fellow country artists Eric Church, Ernest and Hardy, as well as Morgan’s first major collaboration with a female artist with Canadian pop star Tate McRae on a duet called “What I Want.”
But one of the tunes I’ve had my eye on is “Miami,” which Morgan previously disclosed is a nod to to the late, great Keith Whitley… but it’s probably not how you think. Morgan appeared as a guest on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast recently, where he explained that his tribute will be a “flip” on Whitley’s classic “Miami, My Amy,” making it more of a “rap style” song.
Immediately, country music fans had a visceral reaction to that concept, and rightfully so:
“I got a song on my record called ‘Miami.’ It’s a Keith Whitley flip… that’s one of his bigger songs, I guess. But we flipped it and turned it into more of a rap style. But it’s cool, I like it.
It seemed like it could use rapper on there, but I didn’t end up using a feature, we ended up just making a second verse. But it’s one of those songs that it wouldn’t be surprising if we got a remix and did that once it’s out.”
Morgan is no stranger to trap beats and rap influences in his music, but he also told Theo he wanted to tone that down for this project… but not on “Miami,” it seems. I’m not a massive Morgan Wallen fan, but I’m also not a total hater… I like some of his songs and you obviously can’t really go anywhere without hearing them these days, and they’re certainly catchy, I’ll give him that. Plus, with 30+ an album, there’s a little something for everybody.
But now that I’ve heard part of “Miami,” which does interpolate “Miami, My Amy,” I just can’t get on board… and even though what’s leaked is only part of the song, it’s really not country in the slightest and I hate that they used it like this:
@that.boycory CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR THE FULL ALBUM! #country #countrymusic #countrytok #morganwallen #morganwallentiktok #nashville #fyp ♬ original sound – Cory Uram
It will be really interesting to hear what Whitley’s family thinks of this song, because his wife, Lorrie Morgan and son Jessie Keith had high praise for Morgan in the past, particularly the song “Keith Whitley” from Morgan’s One Thing at a Time album. Hank Cochran, Dean Dillon, Richard McGill were the original writers of “Miami, My Amy,” which was released in January of 1986 as the second single from his album L.A. To Miami.
It’s an all-time classic, and some of the fans in the comments seemed to agree with me on how bad this song is:
“Thought he was staying away from the trap beats lmao.”
“So trap beats?”
“I thought this was supposed to be a nod to ‘Miami, My Amy.'”
“Nope.”
“Nah he doing Keith wrong on this one.”
“I love Morgan. What a disgrace to Keith Whitley. Just do your own thing.”
“The blatant disrespect to country music is ridiculous.”
“Most of the songs he’s released on the new album have trap beats. Also I was hoping a Whitley song wouldn’t have trap beats.”
Some seemed to love it, though… how subjective music really is will never cease to amaze me:
“This album is already doing crazy numbers in the car and it hasn’t even dropped yet.”
“This album bout to change my life I stg.”
“Morgan is about to drop that summer heat early.”
“Omg this might be my favorite.”
Some of you need to go get your hearing checked.
I really love the idea of a Keith Whitley tribute, and I think Morgan is a talented artist in many respects, but this does not show off any part of that, and if anything, is an injustice to the legacy of incredible music that Whitley left behind. And I know Morgan is a big Whitley fan but something like “Miami” just takes it too far.
Of course, the above TikTok is just a minute or so of the full song, but I’m not sure I have it in me to listen to the whole thing on Friday.
I’m one of the hardest people to offend on planet earth (it’s actually kind of scary… I should probably get to therapy, but I digress), but turning a Keith Whitley classic into a rap song is an easy way to do it.
“Miami, My Amy”
Actually, “Keith Whitley” was one of my favorite songs off this record, so I think I’ll just stick with this…
