Jason Aldean

As all regular readers of Culture Shock know, we cover a lot of the goings on in country music. Not only am I personally a fan of the genre, but it is one of the few remaining subsections of art that isn’t outright hostile to conservative and traditional values. There are music executives in Nashville and the corporate media who would like to subvert the genre away from its roots in telling the stories of working-class people and reflecting on the hardships and joys of a simple American life.

It’s officially Spotify Wrapped season! For the uninitiated, this is the time of year when Spotify subscribers receive their year-end data on what they listened to the most throughout the previous twelve months. The streaming app tells you your top songs, artists, albums, genres and any other cookie they’ve been tracking. Every user’s Spotify Wrapped is packaged up nicely into an immensely shareable infographic that dominates social media for days. I do not share mine because my music listening habits when no one is watching are completely embarrassing! But a lot of people do, usually to show how cool or niche their music or podcast tastes are.

Cuss out a cop, spit in his faceStomp on the flag and light it upYeah, ya think you’re toughWell, try that in a small townSee how far ya make it down the roadAround here, we take care of our own That’s a sampling of the lyrics to “Try That in a Small Town,” the new Jason Aldean single that led left-wing Twitter trolls to try to “cancel” the country music star. Critics claimed the song was racist, particularly because the music video was filmed in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Tennessee (which was the site of a lynching back in 1927) and features news clips of BLM and antifa riots.