NASHVILLLE, Tennessee (AP) – Morgan Wallen fans are buying the country’s latest star album after a video showed him shouting a racial insult last week.
Wallen’s second album, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” remains at number four on the Billboard album chart for less than a week, less than a week after Wallen apologized for using a language. racist.
The country music industry acted quickly to publicly reprimand he and radio stations and broadcast services removed his songs from their playlists. But fans responded by interpreting it even more.
Billboard reports that his latest album sold 25,000 copies during the week ending Feb. 4, up 102 percent, according to MRC Data. Billboard reported that album release figures increased slightly by 3%, representing approximately 160 million on-demand streams. Song downloads from the album also increased by 67%.
Great interest extended beyond Wallen’s current record. Daily sales of his first album “If I Know Me,” released in 2018, also increased from 200 to 2,500 the week ending Feb. 4, according to data provided by MRC Data.
Wallen’s popularity had skyrocketed over the past year and songs like “Seven Summers” and “Wasted on You” earned him a crossover hit on pop radio. Her album already set streaming records and is the first country album to spend four weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 since 2003, when Shania Twain’s album “Up!” He spent five weeks at the top.
Hannah Karp, Billboard’s editorial director, said some interest in her music comes from people who are curious about Wallen as a result of the scandal and media attention. But he said this also shows how his fans are responding to decisions to remove him from the radio as well.
“His fans are likely to broadcast him more because they no longer hear him on the radio,” Karp said. “It’s possible that some fans will pass it on as well as show their support, which is what super fans and fan armies often do.”
Karp noted that, in general, album sales and downloads are much lower than streaming figures for all artists, so it doesn’t take much to cause significant percentage jumps in sales.
Karp said it may be too early to predict the long-term consequences for Wallen.
“We haven’t seen the full effect of the radio dropping its music from the playlists. Radio is a really powerful consumer engine, so it may end up slowing down transmission and sales eventually, ”he said.