On The Good & Bad of Oliver Anthony’s Country Music Industry Rant

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A few days ago, Oliver Anthony of “Rich Men North of Richmond” fame released a 15-minute stream of consciousness video ranting about the ills of the country music industry. Some of the observances and sentiments he shares are true, and things you might be inclined to pump your fist in agreement over. A few of the things he says are categorically false and misleading at best, and somewhat dangerous to put out there in the public without context.

It all has become great grist for the online click mills, with outlets pull quoting Anthony’s scathing rebuke of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album, and others claiming that Oliver Anthony called out Parker McCollum for using backing tracks—an accusation McCollum categorically denies.

But the lion’s share of the video captures Oliver Anthony ruminating about his experiences with a host of douchebag mainstream country music industry types in Nashville that all tried to steer him in the wrong directions. You most certainly can understand his frustration with that experience. But what this leads to is very serious questions of why an artist like Oliver Anthony got mixed up with mainstream country industry cretins in the first place.

“Those people look at you like you’re a fuel source,” Anthony says at the beginning of the video. “Like you’re an oil well. And they just want to see how much oil they can get out of you. And whenever they’re done with you, they just spit you out. You don’t matter anymore. And the problem is that the music doesn’t matter to them. And a lot of time the music ends up not even mattering to the artist because they have them singing songs and have them doing things that aren’t even theirs. So there’s not any heart in it.”

This expertly describes a large portion of the mainstream country music industry, though not all. It’s indeed incredible to witness the soulless, commodification of music that happens on Music Row, the lack of commitment beyond whatever is making the most money, and how this sifts certain artists signed to major labels into a black hole of attention, sometimes called the “Artist Protection Program.”

Oliver Anthony goes on to say, “Find some guy that you can build a character around, prop him up through your label, give him a bunch of songs that some kids over at the Hick in Nashville wrote while they were wearing their Crocs and drinking White Claws and hitting golf balls. Nobody that’s either written the song or really sung it understands the words to the songs that they’re singing. But it sounds good, and it’s catchy, and it fits the model. And it sounds like every other big song that been out in the last five years. It’s just like a rinse and repeat model.”

Then Oliver Anthony talks about how he ended up signing with a management company that didn’t share his vision for his music, and just stood in the way of all the things he wanted to do.

“People in the industry only work with people in the industry,” he explains. “So if you want to use an independent documentary guy, or if you want to unconventionally record songs, or unconventionally release them, or if you want to have any impact outside of whatever that model is, they won’t tell you they don’t want to work on it, and won’t tell you that you can’t do it. They just shake your hand and nod their head, and then stall whatever projects you’re trying to work on until you figure it out and start doing it yourself.”

Anthony continues, “So it took 6 or 8 or 10 months of me of getting stalled and manipulated, and put down, and discouraged to say the things I wanted to say to the point where now I’m just back to doing my own thing again. I don’t need a bunch of nerds and coffee drinking freaks in Nashville to tell me how to live my life. I guess that was my mistake for relying on those people instead of relying on God and the people I trust.”

But again, the big question is why Oliver Anthony was working with mainstream country industry people in Nashville in the first place? Why would he ever be interfacing with this side of country music? Doesn’t he know there’s an entire other industry set up as a counterbalance to radio country on the independent side that does allow creative freedom for artists, and can still facilitate expansive distribution of music and live performance opportunities?

How did Oliver Anthony get hooked up with the wrong people, especially after he showed what seemed to be such smarts and presence of mind when being interviewed by Joe Rogan, and said on multiple occasions as “Rich Men North of Richmond” was exploding that he was going to be very careful with who he worked with?

All the signs early on were that Oliver Anthony was working with the wrong folks. He was pictured with disgraced country publicist Kirt Webster. He was booked on bad mainstream country music festivals. He said early on he was being mentored by Jamey Johnson, (Anthony wears a Jamey Johnson shirt in the video, which he jokes about). But Jamey Johnson just released his first original album in 14 years. He’s a great person to advise Oliver Anthony on the artistry of country music. But Johnson’s completely out of touch when it comes to the country music business and management.

“One of the guys I worked with, he wanted me to make some stupid f–king post about Beyoncé’s country album, about how it was good, even though it was complete trash,” Anthony says in the video. “It just makes me want to throw up, trying to listen to the beginning of her version of ‘Jolene.’ It’s total cringe. It represents how degenerative our society has become that a Beyoncé version of ‘Jolene’ can come and anybody actually listen to it and not think it’s complete f–king trash.”



Why would Oliver Anthony ever be interfacing with someone who would be suggest he praise Beyoncé on social media? In what universe would that ever occur? As much as you can use Oliver Anthony’s words for insight on how the mainstream country music industry works, Oliver Anthony himself deserves blame for ever putting himself in that situation.

Anthony seems to want to blame the fact that he came out of nowhere with “Rich Men North of Richmond” for getting swept up in a moment. But the same exact thing happened to Zach Bryan, and he found the right avenue in the industry to navigate away from the Music Row puppetmasters. So have many others like Sturgill Simpson and Tyler Childers.

Even now Oliver Anthony and the people around him seem perfectly unaware that strong alternatives to Music Row exist. Or if they do know, they leave this portion of the story completely out of the 15-minute video. This is especially obvious when Oliver Anthony starts talking about performing at country music festivals.

“People don’t realize that a band can make $450,000 for standing on stage for an hour, and you’re only listening to half the band because a lot of these mainstream acts, especially in country, more than … like these country music festivals, everybody runs backing tracks,” Anthony says. “Like I’ll never forget, I won’t say who the act is. But it was at South Carolina at the Myrtle Beach one, the band who played after us, that dude had six Autotune modulators on a pedal board on stage just to help him with vocals pitch live. And they had backing tracks thrown in, drum loops running … they all do it.”

First off, no, they don’t “all” do it. And the only time you will see or hear anyone do it is at mainstream country festivals like the Carolina Country Music Fest that Anthony references. That festival was headlined by Old Dominion, Morgan Wallen, and Carrie Underwood. Oliver Anthony is a guy who exploded in popularity from a video of him performing solo acoustic out in the woods. They’re two completely different universes.

When you go to an actual country music festival, or an independent music festival, you never see Autotune or backing tracks being used. And when you do, it sticks out so starkly, it’s shocking. This is some of the polarization surrounding Ian Munsick, who is the only artist you will ever see at an independent festival playing to backing tracks. So when Oliver Anthony says this practice is all over country festivals, he’s sharing an uninformed opinion, and creating a lot of unnecessary collateral damage.

Taking Oliver Anthony’s quotes, fans started deducing that he might be specifically talking about Parker McCollum, who performed after Anthony at the Carolina Country Music Fest in 2024. Looking to mine clicks, Whisky Riff then posted an article about it, once again underscoring how Whiskey Riff is manufacturing drama at the expense of the country music community.

Parker McCollum subsequently responded in a video, “100% fabricated lie. I have never ever ever one time have I used Autotune, or a drum loop, or anything fake of any kind on stage. Me and my guys are rippin’ it the real deal ever single night. There has never been one single part of our show, not one note that was not live, raw, and in the moment. 100% fabricated story.”

For the record, Oliver Anthony never named Parker McCollum. He could have meant a different performer, and it could have even been a different festival. It really was Whiskey Riff who made Anthony’s quotes seem like a direct call out of McCollum.

Oliver Anthony concluded the video by saying, “Nobody talks about that stuff,” like the use of AutoTune and drum loops live, and how songs are written in the mainstream is a unique revelation on his part. But anyone who has ever spent any time on a website like Saving Country Music would know all of this stuff inherently. If anything, Antony’s insights sound passe and trite. Of course mainstream country music is manufactured.

When Zach Bryan first started blowing up, Saving Country Music made a concerted effort to contact him to not only conduct an interview, but to share some quick insight about the bifurcated nature of the country music industry, and which side to be on. In the case of Oliver Anthony, large efforts were also made to reach out to both Oliver and the individuals representing him. No response ever came.

Oliver Anthony is booked in 2025 at festivals that should be more his speed like Under The Big Sky Fest in Montana. But someone needs to sit him down and give him the lay of the land in country music if he’s talking to people telling him to tout Beyoncé, and to perform with people who use AutoTune.

None of this means Oliver Anthony’s criticisms of the country music industry are incorrect. But the independent side of country music now represents nearly 50% of all industry activity. If you think the only option is using TuneCore to release your music, or signing to a Music Row major label or management company, you’re 14 years behind the curve, and horrifically uninformed.


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