We wish we could wake up and have it not be true, but it is: The viral right-wing hit “Rich Men North of Richmond†debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It’s the first-ever appearance on any Billboard chart for Oliver Anthony (who, for some reason, is credited as Oliver Anthony Music), a feat that has never been accomplished on the charts. Anthony’s folk song, released August 8, quickly caught on in right-wing circles for its lyrics criticizing taxes, inflation, and welfare (controversially), and those titular rich men are politicians in Washington. Anthony insists he’s “pretty dead center†politically, even if his song has been lauded by such esteemed figures as Marjorie Taylor Greene (“the song Washington needs to hearâ€), Joe Rogan, and Winston Marshall, the guy who quit Mumford & Sons to become an alt-right pundit. The non-right-wing influencer crowd, meanwhile, has criticized the song for its muddy politics and just being bad music.
Like Jason Aldean’s surprise hit just a few weeks before, “Rich Men†hit No. 1 thanks to a boom of digital downloads putting up 147,000 in sales, per Billboard. In other words, Anthony is really about to find out the meaning of “taxed to no end.†While “Rich Men†is the week’s runaway sales leader, the song was only the fourth most streamed of the week in the U.S., with 17.5 million streams. (It hasn’t been promoted on radio but still earned 553,000 impressions owing to some spins — not enough to crack Billboard’s radio chart.) In a statement, Anthony told Billboard, “The song itself is not anything special, but the people who have supported it are incredible and deserve to be heard.†Hey, at least we can agree on the first part.