Morgan Wallen’s music sales are spiking despite being the centre of controversy after his recent racial slur circulated the internet.
Following the TMZ video, a number of streaming platforms pulled his music from playlists.
Wallen has also been dropped from record label, Big Loud, which they announced via their Twitter and Instagram.
They said, “In the wake of recent events, Big Loud Records has made the decision to suspend Morgan Wallen’s recording contract indefinitely. Republic Records fully supports Big Loud’s decision and agrees such behavior will not be tolerated.”
— Big Loud (@BigLoud) February 3, 2021
As reported by Billboard, Wallen was quick to issue a statement, apologising for his derogatory language.
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He told TMZ, “I’m embarrassed and sorry. I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back. There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologise for using the word. I promise to do better.”
As the situation unfolds, now a number of the most prominent radio stations in the U.S. made the executive decision to pull Wallen’s music from airplay include Entercom, Cumulus and the largest radio station, iHeartMedia.
While that all sounds extremely horrific for Wallen’s career – particularly following his recent indiscretion, sales have since been affected. And all of the data available on it will kind of do your head in.
So below we’ve got the most important parts.
According to MRC Data as reported by Billboard, Wallen’s radio airplay across all genres in the U.S. on February 3rd dropped by a dramatic 71%, in actual plays, going from 2,100 plays to just 617.
Despite that, like some kind of inverse mathematical equation, all of his other stats seem to be skyrocketing for the time being.
How exactly?
Well, if we turn our attention to the data regarding his music sales, according to the same MRC Data, his music catalogue of albums and songs has sold a combined total of 22,500 copies in the U.S., that being significant in relativity as it shows a 339% sales increase.
Analysing album sales on their own, on February 2nd he has sold a total of 1000 copies, which then jumped up to the figure of 8000 as reported on February 3rd.
In terms of downloads, Morgan Wallen’s total increased 261%, going from 4,000 to 14,000 in that same time frame.
It’ll be interesting to see how Wallen’s career weathers this storm in the long-term.