After country star Morgan Wallen was filmed using a racial slur back in 2021, there was some backlash. He was banned from that year’s AMAs (despite being nominated), many of his country peers spoke out against him, and he lost his record deal. Broadly, though, it didn’t feel like he was outright canceled across the board, and he actually had a more prosperous 2021 than just about any other musician: Dangerous: The Double Album was the most-streamed album of the year.
Earlier this month, he released a massive 36-track album, One Thing At A Time, and that one is also doing remarkably well.
It was revealed yesterday (March 12) that the album, Wallen’s third, is No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart dated March 18. It had 501,000 equivalent album units earned in the US during the week ending March 9, which is the biggest week for an album so far this year. The album racked up 498.28 million on-demand official streams in the US, the biggest week ever for a country album and the fifth-biggest of all time across all genres.
The #Hot100 top 10 (chart dated March 18, 2023)
— billboard charts (@billboardcharts) March 13, 2023
The success continued today: On the new Hot 100 chart dated March 18, Wallen’s single “Last Night” is No. 1, making it his first Hot 100 chart-topper. That’s not where his Hot 100 presence ends, though. In fact, he has five top-10 singles this week, with spots 7 through 10 occupied by “Thought You Should Know,” “You Proof,” “Thinkin’ Bout Me,” and “One Thing At A Time.”
Wallen certainly has a supporter in Lil Durk, who put him on last year’s 7220 album.