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How ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Reached the Top of the Charts
- moribvndvs 3y agoThe thing that pisses me off about this guy and the normal folks that embrace the song is the lack of awareness and the down punching. The first half of the song is more or less something that just about every working person can empathize with. We have to work harder for less and our representative government doesn’t represent us, let alone work for us. Brilliant, I agree. Then it’s all downhill after that. Without missing a beat, it launches into the usual vicious demagoguery and tired North vs South rhetoric. The Rich Men Irrespective of Richmond _do not give a shit about you, me, or miners_ as long as the money flows. Here, we’re just peddling their usual indirection: it’s not the generations gross inequality of wealth and power or the exploitation, no it’s this welfare queen that’s holding you down. Despite, you know, said straw man having no power and being on the bottom end of a callous, engineered system that makes it almost impossible to crawl out from. Violently reacting to the symptoms while not looking at the cause. As long we’re buying this trash, the dwindling middle class are shitting on the poor, our attention will be drawn from the folks that propagate this misery. Same as it’s been for the entirety of human civilization. Every time a Republican celebrity or politician posts this song and a working class stiff likes or retweets it, a useful idiot is born.
- anthony_d 3y ago> Every time a Republican celebrity or politician posts this song and a working class stiff likes or retweets it, a useful idiot is born. That might be true but I hope with some time and self reflection you’ll recover.
- snapplebobapple 3y agoYou need to go check out small town west virginia. A massive minority of the people are on some form of government subsidy. It is reasonable to conclude he is not punching down, he is noticing a genuine problem in his community (that he has misidentified that as a reason his taxes are so high rather than as a massive subsidy for the region from outside rural west virginia causing at most a small increase in country wide taxes is unfortunate but i cant really blame him, you tend to notice what is plain as day in front of you rather than the subtlety behind that when you are mad about your situation)
- jntvjnvutnuvt 3y agoIt's ironic that you at first seem concerned about "normal folks that embrace the song", but then "down punch" them by calling them "useful idiots" at the end. Your "lack of awareness" is quite something.
- piva00 3y agoYou are insufferable.
- smitty1e 3y agoHe's got another well-recorded, heart-felt piece => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB9n0XA8dks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB9n0XA8dks
- joneholland 3y agoThe irony is that the rich men north of Richmond are all republicans. The most impressive con I’ve seen is that an entire swath of this country has become convinced that the people with the worst policies for them are looking out for them.
- tourmalinetaco 3y agoThe most impressive con I’ve seen is that almost the entire country believes one of two puppets on a stick is “for them” and totally not for maintaining and strengthening the oppressive systems that have been put in place over the last 150 years. There is no irony that the men north of Richmond are Republicans, that is in part deliberate. The irony here is that you interpreted a class struggle song in a way that allowed you to feel knowledgeable and superior to those who choose the “worst policies”.
- jntvjnvutnuvt 3y agoThe most impressive con is how you think you know what's better for people down South than they do.
- rob74 3y agohttps://archive.is/dOQ97 https://archive.is/dOQ97
- nonethewiser 3y agoI would wager it struck a chord with more than "conservative pundits". Not only judging by its popularity, but messaging. It's a song about class struggle, not party politics. There are lots of people on both sides who've been hit hard economically. And even those that are doing fine can relate to not feeling represented by politicians in DC. Oh, and the guy's voice is awesome.
- merpnderp 3y agoYeah, the fed money printer made a lot of really wealthy people even more wealthy, while the ruling class mocked the idea of it being inflationary (bald faced lying). And yet here we are with food and housing out of control, and the only people suffering are the poor and middle class. That song speaks to a lot of people.
- varelse 3y ago[dead]
- mempko 3y agoExcept most of that money went into their pockets and not buying food. So how could it affect food prices? The issue is that companies got greedy and decided to charge more because they thought they could get away with it. The money printer went mostly to the top who bought real-estate and other property. Some of it went to regular people and a lot of that went to pay down debt. Money printing doesn't equal inflation. Inflation happens when producers decide to raise prices. That could be for many reasons. Record profits suggests it wasn't the cost of their inputs.
- joneholland 3y agoBoth of you are pushing a misleading agenda so I’ll add a third one. Food prices didn’t skyrocket from an excess of demand, and they didn’t purely skyrocket because of corporate greed. They went up because the cost of production went up. Because oil went up so transport went up. Because grain supply chains were disrupted by the war. Every step of production has become more expensive. All of it was supply side driven. Not consumption driven. Almost all of the inflation in 2021 was supply side driven, but we needed to get away from the zero interest rate trap of the last decade so the fed wasn’t going to let a good opportunity go to waste.
- fnord77 3y agoit would completely ring true if it weren't for the racist bit. otherwise great song, tainted
- nickthegreek 3y agoWorth checking out Billy Bragg's restructuring - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGNFR7pgxDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGNFR7pgxDY
- WillPostForFood 3y agoWhat is racist in it? Are you confusing it with “Try That in a Small Town”?
- nonethewiser 3y agoWhat racist bit?
- WillPostForFood 3y agoIf there was anything racist in it, the NYT article would have been all over it...
- varelse 3y ago[dead]
- h2odragon 3y agoSame way NWA "Fuck the Police" did: people wanted to listen to it? The shape of this story over the last two weeks has me wondering if theres a "persecution Promotion" program available from some PR firm: "become a subversive hero for only $800k.." If there aint yet, there will be soon.
- Suffocate5100 3y ago[flagged]
- nickthegreek 3y agoHis Fox interview seems to have upset some of his fans. https://www.stereogum.com/2233996/viral-country-singer-oliver-anthony-pisses-off-racists-with-first-interview-since-topping-hot-100/news/ https://www.stereogum.com/2233996/viral-country-singer-olive...
- brodouevencode 3y agoThose are the types of "fans" that insist on extremist, racist purity checks for every point. I'm sure most people who resonate with the song agree with Anthony.
- nonethewiser 3y agoIt upset everyone hoping he was a white nationalist. A group of people which is partially comprised of white nationalists.
- tlogan 3y agoThe interesting story here is how unknown artist can become so popular literally overnight. The reason for posting this is more to discuss mechanisms how this can happen. I have feeling that as with Barbenheimer meme there is something all these marketers are missing.
- nonethewiser 3y agoIt is incredible. Just some guy making music in the woods. Obviously the tech is one factor that makes this possible - youtube and social media. But his voice and the message were a lightning rod.
- turambler 3y ago[flagged]
- dfee 3y ago[flagged]
- turambler 3y ago[flagged]
- GlibMonkeyDeath 3y agoYeah, I mean Elton John's accent sounds exactly the same when he talks and sings too...
- turambler 3y ago[flagged]
- pcdoodle 3y agoYeah, it's a good song. Happy to see it's possible to break through without "Going through the Orifices" as Steve Jobs would say.
- malwrar 3y agoI really dislike how skeptical and dismissive this article is, most of the paragraphs seem to be worded to suggest “conservatives think they are embattled and suppressed but actually have lucrative institutions and are backed by rich media figures” and generally dismiss the legitimacy of the voices this song represents. They attack the legitimacy of the chart-topping nature of the song by loosely suggesting it’s due to coordinated iTunes purchases. They seem to claim the Epstein reference in the song is something to do with QAnon. It’s infuriating and distracting, I’d rather get background on how the song impacts regular people and some context on its message rather than read a half-baked attempt to marginalize it as conservative whining.
- tourmalinetaco 3y agoWelcome to the NYT, a rag that’s been largely irrelevant for the past decade at minimum.
- smfugit 3y agoNo one has interest in everything that goes viral or gets popular. I mean I just tune it out, if its not interesting to me. Which means whatever is currently at the top of any list (eg obama or trump), the Attention Economy throws up (including HN) doesn't really means what people think it means. There are lots of people who are paying attention to something totally different, cause whats available on the buffet is endless. Meanwhile those who go viral (ala obama and trump) think they are having impact.
- Jsebast24 3y agoYour first sentence is logically false.
- brodouevencode 3y agoWorking-class hero anthems were once the mainstays of union supporters, free speech absolutists, and anti-war advocates. The Overton window has shifted hard.
- version_five 3y agoLess the Overton window than the establishment priorities. There's a well discussed shift of the "left" from being the working class party, supporting unions etc to the party of the elite establishment. And the "right" occupying the working class champion spot. It was happening for years but really galvanized after occupy wall street when the establishment decided they'd have an easier time giving lip service to social justice political causes to get social license to trample actual working people, and they've been wildly successful.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> There's a well discussed shift of the "left" from being the working class party, supporting unions etc to the party of the elite establishment. No, there's not, unless you confuse the Democratic Party (which was not historically even relatively “left” before the shift in question) with the “left” and the Republican Party (which was similarly not “right”) with the “right”, and also confuse “white racial issues, including those of the white working class in industrial states” with issues of “the working class”. The left/right (or related liberal/conservative) split never really modelled US party politics well for most of history; US parties have been characterized more by coalitions of regional, racial, and ethnic factions than left-right ideology, with a left-right alignment (centered pretty far to the right by international standards) emerging as strongly aligned with the split between the major parties only fairly recently.
- johnea 3y agoBecause NYT keeps addvertising it? They're one of the biggest promoters of the cheeto too...