Sales and streams of Jason Aldean‘s single “Try That in a Small Town” have surged, following controversy that erupted last week surrounding the song and its corresponding music video, reports Billboard.
After selling around 1,000 copies of the song each day from July 14 through July 17, according to preliminary reports from Luminate, sales rose after Billboard’s July 18 exclusive that CMT had pulled the video. The song earned 12,000 in sales on July 18, before surging to 108,000 in sales on July 19 and 103,000 in sales on July 20. The latest sales total for the week (July 14-20) is 227,000, according to the preliminary reports.
After earning 204,000 official U.S. on-demand streams on July 14, and then dipping to 194,000 on July 15 and 174,000 on July 16, streams rose 24.3% to 216,000 on July 17, then surged 178% on July 18 to 600,000. On July 19, U.S. official on-demand streams of “Try That in a Small Town” skyrocketed to 3.2 million, a 440.2% increase.
The sales and streaming spikes come the same week social media commenters began questioning the song’s lyrics and the video’s imagery — with many calling it racist and anti-protest.
“Try That in a Small Town” was written by songwriters Kelley Lovelace, Kurt Allison, Tully Kennedy and Neil Thrasher.
The video features Aldean performing in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn. — the same location where a lynch mob murdered a Black man, Henry Choate, in 1927 — with an American flag hanging from the entrance. The performance is interspersed with footage of a flag burning, protesters screaming and attacking police in various scenarios as well as looting and robbing a convenience store.
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