As much of Nashville’s music community condemned the track, prominent Republican presidential candidates rushed in to support it.
For Jason Aldean, the only thing better than having CMT play his new music video is having the country-music cable network refuse to play it.
That’s what happened this week when CMT said it had pulled the clip for “Try That in a Small Town,” Aldean’s latest single, in which the country star lays out a vision of urban chaos — an old lady getting carjacked, a holdup at a liquor store, a cop being spat on — before more or less threatening to kill anyone who might attempt to bring such behavior to a place “full of good old boys raised up right.”
“Try that in a small town / See how far you make it down the road,” he sings over slashing guitars and booming drums, “Around here we take care of our own / You cross that line, it won’t take long for you to find out.”
In the video, directed by the singer’s longtime collaborator Shaun Silva, Aldean and his band perform in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., as violent news footage — including scenes from what appear to be Black Lives Matter protests — is projected onto the building. After premiering Friday, the video drew immediate criticism on social media for its embrace of vigilantism and for its conspicuous use of a location known to historians as the site of a lynching of an 18-year-old Black man in 1927.
“As Tennessee lawmakers, we have an obligation to condemn Jason Aldean’s heinous song calling for racist violence,” state Rep. Justin Jones, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter. Among the other prominent voices denouncing “Try That in a Small Town” was Sheryl Crow, who tweeted that “there’s nothing small-town or American about promoting violence.”
CMT hasn’t explained its decision to stop airing the video, though it’s easy to assume that the network was seeking to distance itself from the widening backlash against Aldean (at a moment when its corporate owner, Paramount, is already facing scorn amid the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strike).
But whatever exposure he’s losing on CMT — an asset of debatable value in the YouTube era — Aldean, 46, is more than making up for with the hubbub over its being yanked: Nearly two decades into a Nashville career that’s seen him top Billboard’s Country Airplay chart a whopping 25 times, Aldean has happily taken up the role of bomb-throwing right-wing culture warrior, one for whom each attempted cancellation by the so-called elites of music and media only boosts his appeal among those who’ve stuck with him.
To be clear, Aldean, who’s on the road this summer ahead of the release of his 11th studio album, doesn’t see himself as a villain.
