“I guess I’m the problem … If I’m so awful, then why’d you stick around this long?”
So asks Morgan Wallen on “I’m the Problem,” the title-track hit of his fourth studio album, which dropped on Friday.
Clearly, the 32-year-old nation sensation — who has taken the style to the highest of the pop charts in recent times — is as problematic as he’s well-liked.
However regardless of all his transgressions — from a video of him utilizing the N-word in 2021 to hurling a chair off a rooftop bar final 12 months to him abruptly bolting on the finish of “Saturday Night Live” in March — Wallen remains to be the most popular factor in nation music.
Or, arguably, music interval.
Wallen’s followers — of which there are sufficient to fill stadiums — are sticking round by means of all the controversies that might have killed many a profession. As an alternative, he has racked up three Billboard Sizzling 100 No. 1 hits and 10 nation chart-toppers.
Wallen represents an enormous a part of the nation that sees themselves in him — flaws, mullet and all.
“I think Morgan is very much a cultural lightning rod,” Holly Gleason — Nashville editor of Hits journal – informed The Put up. “It’s the difference between how New York and LA and the flyover [between them] tend to view each other.”
As an alternative of getting canceled after his sequence of scandals — which started in 2020 with him being arrested after being kicked out of Child Rock’s Nashville bar and partying with no masks on the top of COVID — Wallen has solely come again stronger.
And larger. His new album is a 37-track opus — that includes visitor appearances by Eric Church (“Number 3 and Number 7”), Tate McRae (“What I Want”) and his “I Had Some Help” associate Put up Malone (“I Ain’t Comin’ Back”) — that has already spawned 4 hits: “Lies Lies Lies,” “Love Somebody,” “I’m the Problem” and the present single “Just in Case.”
But the Sneedville, Tennessee native hasn’t precisely embraced all the trappings of his superstardom.
“I think Morgan has had one of the strangest relationships with fame,” mentioned Gleason. “Right here is that this Southern child. He’s bought a mullet, chicks dig him. After which unexpectedly, the world crashed in … He’s by no means been capable of actually settle into the truth that he’s a public determine. Each time he goes out, it’s all eyes on him.
“He feels judged,”’ Gleason continued. “Morgan doesn’t get a break, because if he leaves the house, you know, he’s got a target on.”
At this level, Wallen is rolling along with his rabid fanbase — and maybe doesn’t really feel the necessity to appease the haters.
“He has been so publicly pilloried and judged without anyone trying to understand where he comes from or what his foundation is,” mentioned Gleason. “He probably does have a little bit of a chip on his shoulder or some anger about no one wanting to hear his side of the story.”
When the two-time musical visitor bolted from “Saturday Night Live” — forgoing the standard hugging and high-five-ing on the finish — and posted “Get me to God’s country” as he boarded his non-public aircraft, Gleason mentioned that it may simply be merely that “he may not like New York.”
Wallen himself not too long ago mentioned “I was [just] ready to go home” on the podcast “Sundae Conversation.”
“I’d been there all week.”
Wallen has additionally had a bumpy relationship with awards reveals, because the “Last Night” singer was banned from the CMAs in 2021. This would possibly clarify why he didn’t even present up when he received Entertainer of the 12 months in 2024. He additionally simply ditched the ACMs, the place he received Entertainer of the 12 months.
And regardless of all of his success, Wallen has but to win any Grammys, solely being nominated twice — for “I Had Some Help,” his duet with Put up Malone.
“I think Morgan has come to a place where he doesn’t care about those awards anymore,” mentioned Gleason. “And I think once people know you’re not going to show up and you don’t care and you don’t respect them, they’re inclined to give the awards to somebody who does. They’re not going to give an award to somebody who isn’t breaking bread with them.”
Nonetheless, Wallen clearly connects with a large viewers. And whereas 37 songs is so much for anybody to digest on “I’m the Problem,” there’s sufficient right here to maintain Wallen’s sizzling streak going. The man is aware of his lane.
“He doesn’t try to sing songs he doesn’t understand,” mentioned Gleason. “His tone is like that guy you went to high school with who calls you one day because he’s got to talk to somebody. He’s a young man who is trying to figure it out.”
As he sings on the introspective “Superman” — one of many highlights of “I’m the Problem” — he embraces the human imperfections which have an extended historical past in nation music: “Don’t always know my wrong from right/Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy/No, I don’t always save the day.”
“When he sings, something about the tone in his voice is truly believable,” mentioned Gleason. “You can hear the flaws in his voice. You know this isn’t a perfect individual.”
