Good ol’ dude Morgan Wallen stakes claim as country’s new superstar
Given all the trouble Morgan Wallen got himself into while drinking last year, you might be surprised to discover how many of the songs on his new double album, “Dangerous,” are set in dimly lit bars.
In May, the 27-year-old country star was arrested for public intoxication and disorderly conduct after an incident of what he called “horseplay” at a honky-tonk in downtown Nashville. Then, in October, “Saturday Night Live” rescinded a coveted invite to perform after clips surfaced on social media showing Wallen partying without a mask in a tightly packed crowd.
Yet here he is again and again on “Dangerous,” bathed in the glow of some neon sign or another as he gets “Tennessee tipsy” with a lady friend. In “This Bar,” he describes all the life he’s lived under the roof of his favorite watering hole: “I found myself in this bar,” he sings, not exactly encouraging anyone to forget the sight of his mug shot.
Then again, how damaging has any of this trouble been for him?
The famous owner of the establishment in Nashville — Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk and Rock ‘n’ Roll Steakhouse — publicly forgave Wallen for smashing a shot glass. And last month, shortly after the 27-year-old singer was named new artist of the year at the CMA Awards, “SNL” ended up rebooking Wallen.
Minus any serious consequences, the result was a light burnishing of the bad-boy image that’s helping to distinguish Wallen as country music enters its post-bro era. With once-dominant artists like Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean and Blake Shelton having reached middle age, the genre needs fresh male superstars, and Wallen isn’t the only aspirant who understands that success these days relies upon the type of internet presence that Nashville’s older stars have only fitfully pursued.
Whether by incorporating hip-hop into their music (à la Sam Hunt) or reissuing their albums in overstuffed deluxe editions (like Luke Combs), country’s young dudes are no less oriented toward stream
ing than their peers in pop and rap are. But Wallen — whose TikTok hit “7 Summers” recently set a record, later broken by Combs, for the most first-week streams by a male country solo act — brandishes something of an edge; there’s a knowingly scuzzy quality to his mullet haircut and his sleeveless flannel shirts that feels genuine even if his entrance to show business came as a baby-faced contestant on “The Voice.”
What makes the music breathe, especially as the collection stretches into its second hour, is Wallen’s singing, which has a soulful flexibility similar to that of Chris Stapleton, who turns up to match raspy runs with Wallen in “Only Thing That’s Gone,” a muscular duet addressed to — who else? — a bartender. As a vocalist, Wallen is best on “Dangerous” when he softens the tough-guy act with a pang of physical desire, as in “Me on Whiskey,” where he’s actually eager to leave a bar: “I know you got your red dress on,” he sings. “But it was always gonna come back off.”
The craving in these intimate bedroom jams is perhaps a sign that Wallen’s bumpy 2020 left him unsure about life in the spotlight. “Dangerous” closes with a vivid hard-atthe-top song called “Livin’ the Dream” and “Quittin’ Time,” a yearning acoustic number (co-written by Eric Church) about how the singer can tell a lover is finished with him by “the tears not in your eyes.” That’s a great line, one Wallen sells with real empathy. But you’re kidding yourself if you don’t also hear the wink of a rascal ready to get back out there.