Morgan Wallen’s Sales Skyrocket After Racial Slur Controversy

Despite the country music industry’s swift withdrawal of support for Morgan Wallen after a video of him surfaced Tuesday night using a racial slur — a breakneck fall from grace that has included much of the radio industry pulling his songs from airwaves, his contract with Big Loud Records being suspended “indefinitely,” and the Academy of Country Music halting his “potential involvement and eligibility” for this year’s awards — the country singer lost no support from his fans on streaming.

Wallen’s sales increased 1,220 percent on Wednesday compared to Tuesday, while his song sales were up 327 percent, according to Alpha Data, the data analytics provider that powers the Rolling Stone Charts. And despite being removed from playlists like Today’s Country on Apple Music and Spotify’s Hot Country Songs, his streams did not dip on Wednesday at all. {snip} Wallen’s on-demand audio streams were up 6 percent, while his programmed streams increased 16 percent compared to Tuesday.

Wallen did, however, see a 79 percent drop in radio spins on Wednesday and Thursday compared to the previous two days, according to Alpha Data, after radio chains including iHeartMedia, SiriusXM, Entercom and Cumulus Media announced they were pulling his songs from airwaves.

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But there were a handful of stations still playing Wallen through Thursday, one of them being the Florida station WHEL-FM, serving Fort Myers and Naples, which, according to The News-Press, was previously called Trump Country before changing its name to Hell Yeah 93.7. {snip}

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