‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ singer Oliver Anthony decries Beyonce’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ as “complete trash”

nme.com:

Oliver Anthony has decried Beyoncé‘s 2024 country album ‘Cowboy Carter’ as “complete trash” in a new video.Anthony, who went viral last year for his folk song, shared a video titled ‘What I’ve Learned from the Music Industry So Far…’ yesterday (December 5) on YouTube. “I had a lot to get off my chest, and we managed to pack it all into this 15-minute video, lol,” Anthony wrote in its description.The video sees Anthony railing against the practices of the Nashville music industry, which he described as full of “people who look at you like you’re a fuel source”.“They want to see how much oil they can get out of you.

And when they’re done with you, they just spit you out.” He also described his apprehension towards a “scary” new era of artists emerging “out of the dark” with a viral hit and landing in an industry of people who “build a character out of you that fits what they want.”“The second you step out of that, you just get so much friction from it,” he ranted, adding that it involved “six to ten months” of him “getting stalled and manipulated” by the industry, as he felt he was “discouraged to say things I wanna say”.

Anthony self-released his debut studio album ‘Hymnal Of A Troubled Man’s Mind’ in March this year.However, his rant takes a turn as he recalled a time when he was asked to “make some stupid post about Beyoncé’s country album” and about “how it was good” even though he felt ‘Cowboy Carter’ was “complete trash”.He expressed that listening to her cover of [Dolly Parton‘s] ‘Jolene’ made him want to “throw up”, and how it’s “total cringe”.“It represents how degenerative our society has become that a song like a Beyoncé version of ‘Jolene’ can come out and anybody actually listen to it and think it’s not just.