Oliver Anthony

Wednesday

Spectator Editorial

Welcome to the new counterculture

The mantle of song of the summer generally belongs to whichever hit Americans heard the most in clubs and bars, at cookouts or on their way to the beach: the earworm that dominated the airwaves and was the soundtrack to their fun in the sun. But as temperatures cool, the most talked-about song of the summer of 2023 wasn’t a mega-hit from a superstar, but a stripped back political ballad by a previously unknown country musician from southern Virginia. Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” is an angry song for a restive country — and, astonishingly, given Anthony’s status as a complete outsider, it shot to number one in the charts. His rise is unprecedentedly steep: never before has an artist with no prior chart history debuted in the top spot.

oliver anthony rolling stone counterculture

Monday

Winston Marshall

Oliver Anthony and the sorry state of Rolling Stone

I must confess, I often forget Rolling Stone magazine still exists. Once the zeitgeist-surfing Holy Writ of American counter-culture, it hosted the pioneering writers of the boomer generation: Tom Wolfe, Lester Bangs, P.J. O’Rourke, Hunter S. Thompson. Even as recently as 2020 the magazine boasted accomplished journalists such as Matt Taibbi. But over five decades, the magazine withdrew into the Establishment, just as their boomer readers did. And every now and then the Rolling Stone’s pale cadaver makes a misjudged groaning gasp for life, if only to remind us it’s not quite dead. The rag mustered one such gasp this weekend.

oliver anthony rolling stone counterculture