Jason Aldean, Decrying ‘Cancel Culture,’ Has a No. 2 Hit

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In May, the country star Jason Aldean released a single, “Try That in a Small Town,” with lyrics that paint contemporary urban life as a hellscape of crime and anarchy: “Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk/Carjack an old lady at a red light.” “You think you’re tough,” Aldean sings. “Well, try that in a small town.” Initially, the track got relatively little notice, landing at No. 35 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. That changed last week, after the song’s music video became a culture-war battlefield, with some accusing Aldean — one of country’s biggest hitmakers for nearly two decades — of employing racist dog-whistle tactics and the singer defending himself as the latest victim of an out-of-control “cancel culture.” The controversy led to a rush on Aldean’s song, with both streams and downloads exploding over the course of last week. “Try That in a Small Town” makes its debut at No. 2 on the Hot 100, Aldean’s best showing ever on Billboard’s all-genre pop chart, beating current hits by Olivia Rodrigo and Morgan Wallen. Aldean was surpassed this week only by Jung Kook of the South Korean supergroup BTS, whose debut solo single, “Seven,” opens at No. 1. The video for “Try That,” released on July 14, opens with Aldean performing before a stately building draped with an American flag; the structure was quickly identified as Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., where in 1927 a young Black man named Henry Choate was lynched by a vigilante mob after being accused — falsely, historians believe — of raping a white girl.