Oliver Anthony Proves He’s No One Hit Wonder with “Scornful Woman”

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It’s almost like the entire music industry has memory holed Oliver Anthony. It was just two short years ago that he took a video of him hollering out in the woods all the way to #1 in all of music and to headliner slots at major festivals. Though some consider him a one hit wonder with his fudge rounds song, Anthony’s “Ain’t Gotta Dollar” has 43 million spins on Spotify alone—not to mention other top tracks—and he continues to be booked at top spots at festivals, drawing large crowds live.

Granted, over the last year or so, Oliver’s seemed more interested in citing Bible verses and participating in advocacy for rural communities as opposed to pushing his music career forward. But as few people are paying attention, his new song and the video for the track “Scornful Woman” has exploded.

Ever since the video for “Scornful Woman” was released on Wednesday, June 4th, it’s been trending at the top on YouTube. It probably didn’t hurt that the song got big shout outs from major online personalities like Joe Rogan and Jocko Willink. Joe Rogan is known shouting out important independent artists. Tyler Childers, Colter Wall, and especially Sturgill Simpson received big boosts from Rogan, even if he’s pretty novice when it comes to actual music knowledge.

After complaining about the ills of the music industry recently to the chagrin of some of his contemporaries, Anthony has side stepped the whole music world entirely, and is making his way in a lane that’s less musical, and more cultural, creating an interesting test case, and potentially, another paradigm shift in how music can be pushed, similar to how he did with “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

As opposed to using conventional radio and media promotion like major label artists—or even more independent channels like social media or TV/movie placement—Oliver Anthony is taking his music to people who identify with him over cultural concerns. And though on the surface this might code political, Anthony has proven to be difficult to pigeon hole in the political binary. He once again appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast on Friday (6-13).

“Scornful Woman” isn’t exactly a country song, despite the prominent fiddle from the legendary Billy Contreras who is also given a songwriting credit on the track. It’s more like an explosive blues song bordering on rock, with a blistering, emotionally-charged performance from both Anthony, and his accompanying musicians. Guitarist Joey Davis is also credited on the track.

The song was inspired by Oliver Anthony’s divorce. As Joe Rogan touted about the track, “He starts making millions of dollars, playing arenas. The wife divorces him. She wants everything. She wants more than half. She wants all the money he’s going to be making in the future because she was with him when he was broke … He’s just tortured. He wants to die. Wants to die — and writes this song.”

The producer for “Scornful Woman” is Draven Riffe, who along with being a musician too, he’s also one of the guys behind the RadioWV YouTube channel that blew up Oliver Anthony originally, along with other performers from the West Virginia region.

Oliver Anthony has most certainly become a strongly polarizing character. Yet despite the accusations of being an “industry plant” or the product of “Astroturfing,” he continues to soldier forward completely independently with the same original people who he started with.

Anthony is also moving forward and finding success in a way that completely side steps not just the conventional major label industry, but that takes him into uncharted territory even for independent artists, opening up new avenues of how to get attention for music, and well after any big “10 minutes of fame” moment has faded.





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