John Rich, of the iconic country duo Big and Rich, recently made waves after releasing his latest song, “Progress” in a way that bypasses the norms of the music industry or “the machine” as he calls it.
Rich decided to experiment with different platforms to release his music that holds a prominently conservative message. Rich holds the belief that his voice and views will be shunned if played on traditional radio stations, record labels and mainstream social media platforms. So instead, he went straight to the people.
The political song challenges the conception that progressive ideology has brought “progress” for America. His words ring clear in the trending music video which showcases Rich singing his new song in the countryside, in his car and in front of the American flag while incorporating footage of violent protests, high gas prices and empty store shelves.
“Stick your progress where the sun don’t shine/ keep your big mess away from me and mine/ if you leave us alone we’d all be just fine/ stick your progress where the sun don’t shine,” he sings in the chorus.
During a recent interview on Outnumbered, Rich spoke about president Joe Biden and the recent inflation.
“So, listen, he said he was going to bring unity. I saw the poll earlier this month that said, was it 88% of Americans said that we’re on the wrong track in this country. That’s quite a feat to get 88% of Americans to agree on anything. But Joe did it. Good job, Joe. He did bring unity, and now we’re unified that we don’t like what’s going on.”
Since “Progress” could cause outrage among many, Rich chose to introduce the song via two notoriously free-speech social media platforms and saw success through these communities.
“When I’m talking about them shutting down our voices, I’m talking about Twitter and YouTube and Facebook,” Rich said. “And I thought, you know what, I’m gonna reach out to Truth Social and reach out to Rumble because they still allow free speech over there. Why would I launch this song on the platforms that I’m railing against in the lyrics?”
After being posted for only a few hours on Truth Social owned by former President Donald Trump and the Rumble video community, the song not only climbed the Apple iTunes song chart, but it hit No. 1 in the world.
“Here I am with no record label, no publisher, no marketing deal,” he stated. “I just got a song that speaks to a lot of people, and Truth and Rumble pushed it out there. And man, I’m really proud of what we did today.”
Looking ahead, the Nashville-based singer believes that this could be a game-changing shift in the music industry. If anything, it’s a step in the right direction in his book.
“It means that if you bring the right content, and you have people like Truth and Rumble that will get that message to your core audience, you can beat the machine that’s been put in place to keep people like me shut down.”
The next hurdle he hopes to overcome is getting his “non-woke” song playing on radio stations.
“Here’s the problem with country radio,” he said. “It’s not your DJs at the radio station. It’s not the people on the ground at the station. It’s the people way up the food chain that run the conglomerates that have bought up 90% of all of our radio stations.”
“Those people generally — there’s a few good ones in there. And when I say good, I mean, you know, lean conservative. They want free space, they want artists to be heard,” Rich continued. “But there’s a big [contingent] of them that do not like anybody bucking their woke system.”
Your local country station is anything but ‘local’ these days. They’re dictated to by a few conglomerates who bought them up years ago. You hear who/what you hear based on the leanings of a select group of big corp elites, who are the farthest thing from Patriotic middle America.
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) July 16, 2022
John Rich is no stranger to aligning himself with the “Make American Great Again” campaign slogan of former President Trump. He has released several other openly conservative songs in the past and even hosts the series, The Pursuit! With John Rich on the Fox Business Network.
His next performance as part of Big & Rich will take place on August 4 in Deadwood, SD.
