Overnight sensation, Oliver Anthony, shook the world by reaching Spotify’s top charts overnight off of his hit song “Rich Men North Of Richmond.” Born and raised in Farmville, Virginia, Anthony sang at local restaurants while working on industrial jobs in Virginia and North Carolina. Following the discovery of his hit song, Anthony’s career skyrocketed, with his views on Spotify reaching 9.2 million monthly listeners.
The song lyrics contain relatable and common financial struggles that the majority of his audience deal with. Lyrics like, “‘Cause your dollar ain’t $#!& and it’s taxed to no end” and “Lord knows they all just wanna have total control” really show how his songs call out America’s Government. These lyrics tell us just how much, in his opinion, the government is changing and wronging people. An additional lyric that shows Anthony’s opinion on low wages, is the first line “I’ve been selling my soul, working all day, overtime hours, for bullshit pay”. All the lyrics in his song resonate to politics and how wealthy people in the North made it easy, but people in the South that don’t make as much money, and have to work hard for it.
Although Anthony’s intent was not for his songs to be controversial nor political, it definitely caught on. People suffering from the government’s ways were just able to relate to his lyrics in a way that they had never thought about. There has been speculation that Anthony was proposed to sing the National Anthem at the 2024 Super Bowl, for $100,000. It was said that Anthony refused to take the money because he’d rather sing it for free. Oliver Anthony has gone from a small town singer at a local bar, to a top of the chart, well-known country singer.
