Country star Morgan Wallen had been all over radio and streaming playlists alike in the early weeks of 2021, with his ‘Dangerous: The Double Album’ topping the US charts. However, this week a video emerged of Wallen using a racial slur, and broadcasters and streaming services have been quick to react by pulling his music from their playlists.
Variety reported that Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora quickly took this step, with SiriusXM, CMT, iHeartRadio, Cumulus and Entercom in the broadcasting world also removing his music.
Meanwhile, label Big Loud has “suspended” Wallen’s contract – a term that makes it somewhat unclear whether this will lead to the artist being dropped, or quietly brought back into the fold at some point.
Wallen still has three songs in Spotify’s US Top 50 chart, but at numbers 14, 16 and 19 – a slide from his peak positioning last month.