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.
