Morgan Wallen would have come into his own better elsewhere
Published 2024-08-29 07.50
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full screenMorgan Wallen. Since Aftonbladet did not get access to pictures from the concert, a picture from a previous gig is used. Photo: John Locher/AP
CONCERT Anyone who takes a shot every time Morgan Wallen sings about booze and being drunk needs to have his stomach pumped after just under an hour.
That is, at 10 p.m.
Morgan Wallen
Place: Strawberry arena, Solna. Public: No task. Barely a third of the arena is used and it is not crowded. Length: 1 hour and 45 minutes. Best: ”Cover me up” och ”Last night”. Worst: “Up down” deserves the biggest applause of the evening. Because it ends. Question: Only one Patrick Mahomes jersey in the crowd? It’s better than nothing. But Stockholm, again, where is your love for the Kansas City Chiefs?
For a country concert, the average age of the audience is fascinatingly low.
In normal cases, that figure is usually a little closer to, well, osteoarthritis in the knees.
Here, the majority of the spectators could just as easily have been at the “Summerburst” festival or on a student van. The number of backwards caps is about as many as the cowboy hats.
Morgan Wallen have really succeeded in selling country to a new generation. At the same time, he has also, thanks to his enormous success, changed the image of how a modern arena howdy should sound and look.
The 31-year-old from Tennessee goes on to trap beats and the concert begins with a house drop. Before the twang kicks in, the stage show is more reminiscent of edm than Nashville.
Country history may always have to be rewritten. But was it necessary to rewrite it so much that the band sometimes poses the same as a numetal band in the 90s? Doubtful. Without the big and funny shorts, it doesn’t really look wise. Sometimes there is also too much bad hard rock in the music as well. For example, whoever came up with the idea of the howling guitars in “Up down” cannot have been sober.
Morgan Wallen was working as a landscaper at home in Knoxville when he participated in the talent show “The Voice” in 2014. Today, he is the single most important reason why country overtook hip-hop to become the most streamed music genre in the United States in 2023. He is a superstar in the United States and on Spotify, regardless of genre. Only the albums with Garth Brooks has totaled more weeks at number one on the US country chart than Morgan.
For a while, all 36 songs from the latest album “One thing at the time” were on the Billboard Top 100 list. Yes, 36 pieces. In the US, Wallen’s current tour is also the second largest Taylor Swift.
There is a direct appeal in the voice and melodies that explain why Wallen’s mix of pop, country, rock and soft trap has caught on so quickly and with so many. The problem is that the basic formula often becomes monotonous. Whoever takes a shot every time he sings about whiskey, beer and being “wasted” has to be carried out and stomach pumped barely an hour after the concert starts, that is at 10 p.m.
It will be a completely different charge when Morgan Wallen leaves his own platitudes and instead makes a nice cover Jason Isbells “Cover me up”. It is noticeable how much Wallen respects and likes it. The ballad has a depth and a weight that he himself does not come close to.
Moreover, everything had come into its own better elsewhere. The strawberry arena has been screened off and shrunk to a third on a Wednesday. It will be what it will be. Wallen has to fight for a while longer before he fills the biggest arenas in Sweden.
It mostly sounds like Ed Sheeran i countrykeps.
FACT
ALL THE SONGS
1. Ain’t that some 2. I wrote the book 3. One thing at the time 4. Everything I love 5. You proof 6. 7 summers 7. Love somebody 8. Cover me up 9. Lies lies lies 10. Where I find God (med Larry Fleet) 11. Sand in my boots 12. Up down 13. Cowgirls 14. Chasin’ you 15. I had some help 16. Wasted on you 17. This bar 18. More than my hometown 19. Whiskey glasses EXTRA NUMBER 20. Thinkin’ bout me 21. Last night 22. The way I talk
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