CMT has pulled the recently released music video for Jason Aldean’s new song “Try That In a Small Town,” which attacks riots and lawlessness in the United States.
QUICK FACTS:
- Country Music Television (CMT) has taken down the newly released music video for Jason Aldean’s single “Try That In a Small Town,” a video reportedly standing up against rioting and looting in America.
- Featured in the video, Aldean can be seen performing in front of a courthouse with a flag burning, protesters screaming and attacking police in various scenarios, and a convenience store robbery in the background.
- The country singer denied that the song was meant to mimic the BLM protests and riots from the summer of 2020, but was meant to symbolize the neighborhood he grew up in where communities watched out for one another.
- “NO ONE, including me, wants to continue to see senseless headlines or families ripped apart,”Aldean said. “‘Try That In A Small Town,’ for me, refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up, where we took care of our neighbors, regardless of differences of background or belief.”
- Aldean, who was on the stage during the Route 91 Country Music Festival mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017, included in the song lyrics warning lawlessness “might fly in the city,” but he will use his gun “from his grandad” if someone tried it in his small town.
JASON ALDEAN ON HIS NEW SINGLE “TRY THAT IN A SMALL TOWN”:
“I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject too the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide BLM protests. These references are not only meritless, but dangerous,” Aldean said.
BACKGROUND:
- In April 2023, CMT co-host and country singer Kelsea Ballerini opened the annual awards show honoring the six victims of a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, three of whom were young children.
- Ballerini said she could relate to the tragedy, as she witnessed a school shooting in her high school cafeteria in 2008.
- A few hours later, Ballerini danced with a group of drag queens while she sang her new hit, “If You Go Down (I’m Going Down Too),” later tweeting an image from the performance and thanking them for “celebrating love, self expression, and performance.”
- Conservative commentator Tomi Lahren took to Twitter at the time to criticize the performance, claiming the country music industry “has gone full woke.”
- “Y’all just don’t stop do you?” Lahren wrote. “Does everything have to be a platform to shove the rainbow mafia down our throats? Can you ever just do…idk…country freakin music?!!!!” Lahren tweeted.
- In June 2021, CMT urged viewers to “wear orange” as part of a coordinated stance against gun violence, upsetting many fans who said they would no longer tune in to the channel.
- “We’re (virtually) wearing orange today in support [of] National Gun Violence Awareness Day and to call attention to the more than 100 lives that are lost every day to gun violence,” the network tweeted at the time.
