OLIVER ANTHONY AND THE SORRY STATE OF ROLLING STONE:

I must confess, I often forget Rolling Stone magazine still exists. Once the zeitgeist-surfing Holy Writ of American counter-culture, it hosted the pioneering writers of the boomer generation: Tom Wolfe, Lester Bangs, P.J. O’Rourke, Hunter S. Thompson. Even as recently as 2020 the magazine boasted accomplished journalists such as Matt Taibbi. But over five decades, the magazine withdrew into the Establishment, just as their boomer readers did. And every now and then the Rolling Stone’s pale cadaver makes a misjudged groaning gasp for life, if only to remind us it’s not quite dead.

The rag mustered one such gasp this weekend. Oliver Anthony, a blue-collar mountain man, went from Appalachian nobody to chart-topping national treasure in no-seconds-flat — or, to be precise, forty-eight hours. A stirring video of him singing his raw original tune “Rich Men North of Richmond” — that decries the powers that be in DC, elite pedophiles and the plight of ordinary working Americans — has resonated like a national guitar with music-loving Americans starved for something authentic.

The working-class factory-worker sings “Republicans and Democrats, Lord I swear they’re all just full of crap” on his song “Doggonit,” like a character from Hillbilly Elegy making a desperate howl at the flyover sky. Seven years on from 2016, the Rust Belt is still rusting, forgotten by establishment and populist politicians alike. And that desperation has found a voice. Four of Anthony’s songs are in the iTunes top ten, including all the top three. The counterculture has a fresh face — and it wears a shaggy red beard.

It’s not just Rolling Stone that’s baffled by Anthony. As America’s Newspaper of Record notes: Country Music Industry Confused By Man Actually From Country Making Actual Music.