Morgan Wallen’s recently-released Dangerous: The Double Album enjoyed a record-breaking week despite the singer’s mass-cancellation by the music industry.
After getting canceled by every major radio station and streaming platform in America, Morgan Wallen’s album sales are going through the roof. According to data emerging this morning, sales of the singer’s recently-released Dangerous: The Double Album nearly tripled last week, with Wallen clearly benefitting from all the negative publicity.
After video surfaced of the artist uttering a racial slur outside his home after a night of partying, the singer faced an extreme blowback from the music industry. Nearly every country radio station in America removed his music overnight, streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music scrubbed his music from their playlists, SiriusXM and Pandora dropped the singer entirely, Beverly Hills-based talent agent William Morris Agency dropped him, the Academy of Country Music Awards disqualified him from receiving future awards, CMT blacklisted him, and label Big Loud/Republic ‘indefinitely suspended’ him.
That sounded like the end of Wallen’s meteoric career. But almost immediately after the devastating cancelation, Morgan’s streams, album sales, and downloads started surging. Within 24 hours, streaming volumes more than quadrupled, and sales of Wallen’s just-released Dangerous: The Double Album going through the roof.
Now, that album is enjoying another week atop multiple US-based album charts, with sales nearly tripling week-over-week.
Rolling Stone is reporting that sales nearly tripled over the past week — and counting. Amazingly, that sales week ended last Thursday, which only includes one full day of Wallen’s mass-industry cancellation (video of the racial slur first started making the rounds on the evening of Tuesday, February 2nd).
On the Billboard 200, Dangerous remains the top-selling album for the fourth-straight week, with total album equivalent sales of 149,000. In both cases, the number two album isn’t even close.
Also worth noting is that Dangerous: The Double Album is — as the name clearly states — a double album stuffed with 30 tracks. That means the price tag is typically double (or more) on formats like CD and vinyl — both formats that may have gained popularity given that radio play is gone.
Separately, major radio stations are now facing heavy pressure from Morgan Wallen fans to reinstate the singer’s music.
Digital Music News first reported that major radio conglomerates ordered their member stations to remove Wallen’s music. The process started with Entercom, and was quickly mirrored by networks like iHeartMedia and Cumulus. But those top-down orders are reportedly generating serious tension between local radio stations and corporate headquarters, with some stations planning to reinstate the singer.
Part of the problem is that angry Morgan Wallen fans are calling stations and threatening to stop listening entirely — a threat that keeps getting repeated and is being taken seriously. “We’re losing core listeners, [especially] younger core listeners,” one programming director shared.
A similar problem is also happening at SiriusXM, which ordered Wallen’s music removed across its entire satellite radio dial as well as Pandora. But almost immediately after those orders were issued, fans started complaining and canceling their subscriptions. One source within the company pointed DMN to ‘unexpected cancelations’ from country listeners, many of whom didn’t bother to call first.