Music journalist suggests country fans are racists, says they and 'other supporters of racial slurs' are buying Morgan Wallen tickets in droves

Music news outlet Consequence of Sound rolled with a story headline Tuesday that reads, "Country Fans, People Who Like N-Word Buy Ungodly Amount of Morgan Wallen Tickets."

And if the headline isn't inflammatory enough, a sentence in the first paragraph of Wren Graves' story gets more specific: "Country fans, and various other supporters of racial slurs, have bought over 700,000 Wallen tickets since the tour was announced three weeks ago."

"Country fans, and various other supporters of racial slurs": How do you feel about that, country music fans?

What's the background?

Wallen made big headlines earlier this year after a video surfaced of him using the N-word — and then his label, Big Loud Records, suspended him indefinitely and radio stations dropped his music.

But less than a week later — akin to a collective "Oh, yeah?" — it was reported that Wallen's sophomore effort, "Dangerous: The Double Album," was skyrocketing in sales.

In fact, just a month later, the "Dangerous" album shattered a 64-year music chart record as it spent its eighth-straight week in the Billboard 200's No. 1 slot.

Wallen, as you might expect, apologized for his use of the N-word: "The video you saw was me on hour 72 of a 72-hour bender, and that's not something I'm proud of, either. Obviously, the natural thing to do is to apologize further and continue to apologize, because you got caught, and that's not what I wanted to do ... I let so many people down who mean a lot to me, who have given so much to me. It's just not fair. I let my parents down, and they're the furthest thing from the person in that video. I let my son down, and I'm not OK with that."

Now what?

And after all that, Consequence of Sound seems perplexed and distraught, noting in its story that Wallen's "massive arena tour has become the hottest ticket of 2021" — and then appearing to stick it to country music fans for contributing to Wallen's success.

COS added that nearly all of his tour dates have sold out, and that Billboard has declared "Dangerous" the top-selling album of the year. The outlet also said that while Wallen pledged $500,000 to black-led organizations in response to his N-word controversy, a September COS article said he was several hundred thousand dollars short of that promise.

What did observers have to say?

Commenters on the COS Facebook page seemed mixed in their reactions to the outlet's "People Who Like N-Word" story.

Some appeared to align with the outlet's take, with one commenter responding "good headline" and another saying "Lol @ the title. That is accurate." Another ally said "country has been, and continues to be, the bottom feeder of popular music."

But others were annoyed and took COS to task:

• "Or...I don't know...judging someone because of a drunken mistake is stupid.....But go ahead and bash him and listen to Chris Brown or other artists who have done far far far worse," one user replied.
• "Country fans aren’t the only ones who like that word or use it daily...or in songs," another commenter offered.
• "People who like the N-word buy ungodly amounts of rap music," another commenter said.
• "Y’all are race baiting; pretty f***ed up," another user declared.
• "This is a s**tty take LMAO this publication is a joke," another commenter wrote.
• "Unfollowing this ridiculous publication," another user decided. "Worthless."