Billboard's Number One Country Song Getting Little Radio Airplay

America’s new No. 1 country song on Billboard promises to show “the f— door” to anyone with complaints about the United States.

“Am I the Only One,” by Aaron Lewis — once known to rock fans as the frontman of the nu-metal band Staind — entered Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart in the top spot this week, becoming only the ninth song to debut at No. 1 on the closely watched tally, reports The L-A Times.

A stripped-down acoustic ballad built around Lewis’ mournful baritone, “Am I the Only One” delivers the anguished thoughts of a proudly conservative guy troubled by what he views as the encroachments of so-called cancel culture — and does so just as country music is undergoing a public reckoning over its history of racism and discrimination.

“Am I the only one not brainwashed? / Making my way through the land of the lost,” he sings, “Who still gives a s— and worries ’bout his kids / As they try to undo all the things he did.” Elsewhere in the tune, which Lewis cowrote with Ira Dean and Jeffrey Steele, the 49-year-old singer laments flags burning and statues coming down and wonders if anyone else “quits singing along every time they play a Springsteen song.”

“Am I the Only One” achieved its impressive chart showing thanks in large part to digital downloads, which Billboard measures along with streams and radio play in formulating its rankings. According to the trade magazine’s tracking firm MRC Data, Lewis’ single sold 58,622 downloads in its first week of availability — enough to land at No. 2, behind BTS’ “Butter,” on the all-genre Digital Song Sales tally.

Indeed, “Am I the Only One” outsold the No. 3 song on Digital Song Sales — Walker Hayes’ “Fancy Like,” a viral hit on TikTok — by more than 150%. Lewis’ track, which also racked up a relatively modest 4 million streams in the U.S., entered Billboard’s all-genre Hot 100 at No. 14.

The strong sales suggest that “Am I the Only One” connected with an audience galvanized by Lewis’ message — a familiar scenario among country fans, who pushed sales of Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous” album to new highs following a widespread industry backlash to his use of the N-word in a video published by TMZ.

Yet the real test of a major country song is its embrace by radio. “Am I the Only One” hasn’t charted on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, though that’s largely because Lewis’ label, Valory Music, hasn’t begun promoting the song to radio yet.