Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” Rides Controversy to #1
Post the “Girl Crush” controversy, the song has:
” Peaked at #1 for country songs on iTunes.
” Gone from #4 to #1 on the Billboard Country Digital Songs chart (it was already doing well from the beginning of the controversy the previous week).
” Gone from #17 to #3 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart (factoring data from radio, sales, and streams).
” Gone from #20 to #2 on Billboard’s Country Streaming Songs chart.
” Gone from #32 to #26 on Billboard’s Country Radio chart.
” The parent album Pain Killer went from #15 to #7 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart (the greatest gainer of the week).
Over the last week or two, the controversy surrounding Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” has been all the rage amongst country music pontificaters and tastemakers that were more than happy to do battle about whether the song has lesbian connotations or not, and if the supposed “boycott” of the song was more fabricated than real. What seemed like an interesting debate to begin with had Saving Country Music bowing out quickly when it looked like it was all part of an effort to bolster sales.
“Girl Crush” is not a lesbian song, and that has been exhaustively established at this point, and anyone who would dare question otherwise has been unceremoniously smeared as a closed-minded troglodyte who needs to understand the new realities of life in 2015 and slunk back under their rock, thank you very much.
But by my perfectly unscientific calculations and deductions, there were way many more people positively outraged at people thinking it was a lesbian song than there were people who thought it was a lesbian song in the first place. The truth is there were people who were chomping at the bit to make “Girl Crush” a political issue ever since the song was released. And after all, the controversy was all sort of nudged along subtly by the artists and others, and then when it all blew up in their face (or didn’t, depending on who you speak to), they acted like the shocked victims of a conservative conspiracy and solicited the support of other artists and the industry, shooting the track up the charts from if nothing else, the curiosity factor stimulated by the fracas.
No matter anything else, Little Big Town and their label knew the song would stir the pot, and that’s exactly what it did, and so much so that it has seen a dramatic resurgence across the board on all of country music’s measurables, including radio play, which was supposed to be the bastion of anti “Girl Crush” conservative misunderstanding in the first place.
Has “Girl Crush” lagged on radio compared to its digital sales? Sure it has, but that’s a narrative playing out all across music, especially for women and slow ballads. That doesn’t make it right, and these are issues we should all be so happy to champion. But try getting sympathy from Sturgill Simpson for Little Big Town’s sales vs. radio discrepancy.
From winning the CMA for Vocal Group of the Year, to being recently inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, there has been a headlong effort by the country music industry to foist Little Big Town onto consumers and revitalize the franchise in a push of virtually unparallelled enthusiasm compared to what we have seen for any other country artist in recent years.
And in my opinion, it is the reduction of the efforts of many artists, independent and mainstream, to even breathe a word about Little Big Town or their songs being oppressed in any manner, for any reason. Not to downplay their talents and their hard work over many years as a vocal group, but Little Big Town have been bestowed untold riches that 98% of musical artists never get to see their entire careers, and that’s not just over Little Big Town’s illustrious and lucrative run, that’s just from the success of the supposedly oppressed and misunderstood “Girl Crush” itself, even before the controversy.
Conspiracy? Controversy? Madison Avenue would salivate over getting this much attention for something that was already waning in its life cycle.
There has been times in the past, and there will be more in the future, where the misunderstanding of a song, album, or artist breeds true controversy, and the champions of forward thinking progress need to rally behind that song or artist to make sure their proper place in the spotlight is secured. But championing “Girl Crush” in such a manner could result in the “boy who cried wolf” syndrome. The true victim here was not “Girl Crush,” but country music, which once again was characterized in the public as a closed-minded, simpleton’s genre with listeners who couldn’t even navigate themselves through lyrics and are full of searing hatred for the gay community.
the pistolero
April 2, 2015 @ 12:33 pm
And in my opinion, it is the reduction of the efforts of many artists, independent and mainstream, to even breathe a word about Little Big Town or their songs being oppressed in any manner, for any reason.
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who thinks this. I said it elsewhere and I’ll say it here: this whole thing is just so much penny-ante bullshit. The real controversy here ought to be that despite the fact that Sturgill Simpson has sold 100,000 copies of his latest album and Aaron Watson scored a Billboard No. 1 with his latest album, “country” radio won’t touch either of them with a ten-foot pole.
hoptowntiger94
April 2, 2015 @ 12:52 pm
I never heard the song – on purpose. I first read (the headline) about the fabricated controversy here on SCM. What really surprised me was the number of artists appearing in my facebook feed wearing “Girl Crush” hats immediately after Trig posted his article. First it was (no surprise) Reba, then Miranda and Blake. Then it was some band that really shocked me. I want to say Old Crow Medicine show (maybe a Grand Old Opry connection?). If it wasn’t them it was some band I really like that I was shocked took a pic wearing the hat.
But the readiness of the hats really feed into the fabricated controversy belief.
Nate
April 3, 2015 @ 7:06 pm
They do sell those hats on their website, and they are available as tour merch on the road, but you’re right. Suddenly EVERYBODY had a hat? Ridiculous.
Lee
April 2, 2015 @ 1:04 pm
I thought it was reported that this was a marketing ploy.
it wasn’t pulled from TX radio stations and the “DJ” that said it had been found out to be fake. I like the song so I’m not complaining but it definitely a shady way of promoting it.
Trigger
April 2, 2015 @ 1:39 pm
No, I think there may have been some who said the DJ was fake, but he came out and identified himself because of it. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a marketing ploy involved somehow, but the DJ was real. I have no doubt there were some people who took issue with “Girl Crush,” but that happens with every song. However with ‘Girl Crush,” it could be seized on as a political issue.
Jessica
April 2, 2015 @ 2:06 pm
It definitely wasn’t fake and that DJ was very much real, as proven when his identity was revealed. Also, the original article never claimed his stations pulled the song – just that it was put into lower rotation because of listener complaints. And it only spoke of those two stations he worked for.
The problem came when mainstream publications with little knowledge of the country music industry jumped on the original blog post and blew it way out of proportion. It grew into this wild beast that it wasn’t at the beginning, and the story seemed to keep getting more and more exaggerated with each new publication that wrote about it. What started as a story about two stations in Texas putting the song into lower rotation due to listener complaints turned into a big controversy about country radio stations all over the US pulling the song from their playlists (which, we all now know, wasn’t true).
I don’t believe the controversy started as PR, but the band’s PR team definitely took advantage of the situation. I’m a Little Big Town fan, but even I’m starting to question the PR tactics behind the “Girl Crush” baseball caps and pretty much everyone in mainstream country music posting a picture of them wearing it. There have been plenty of great songs that have been screwed over by country radio far worse over the past few years – where was all the peer support for those songs? I guess those artists didn’t have PR teams that were as influential. I’m all for artists supporting each other, but something about this just doesn’t feel right.
This has definitely helped the song in the short-term, but I wonder if it will have any negative long-term impacts on the band’s future radio prospects?
Trigger
April 2, 2015 @ 2:23 pm
Yes, I don’t blame For The Country Record for posting an editorial. That was simply one person’s perspective. But when The Washington Post is writing about it, bringing up The Dixie Chicks, and then everyone else piles on it because country music makes such a good political punching bag, it got completely out of hand.
Long term, I expect “Girl Crush” to ride off into the sunset like any regular single, and I don’t think it will hurt Little Big Town’s radio prospects in the slightest because there wasn’t anything fundamental to the controversy.
SayWHAAA
April 3, 2015 @ 10:41 am
The problem is that anyone can write about country radio, but not everyone knows how country radio – or any radio – works.
This started with one programmer talking about one case of needing to scale back spins in response to complaints.
It quickly spiraled into all of country radio scaling back spins.
Then it became all of country radio PULLING the song.
On top of all that, you had Bobby Bones and Little Big Town itself fueling the controversy.
Ong Yong Ze
April 2, 2015 @ 1:04 pm
@hoptowntiger94 I think it was Kacey Musgraves and her band that you are talking about. No surprised really.
On a side note, everyone can tell that Little Big town and their management company were just waiting for some country radio listeners to say something dumb about this song and stir the pot but spreading it all over social media and have the annoyin Bobby Bones and other prominent artists defend it lol. it is so fake and scripted. it is like riding the waves.
hoptowntiger94
April 2, 2015 @ 1:45 pm
You are correct! Thanks for saving me from looking through artist’s FBs!
Truth No. 2
April 2, 2015 @ 1:07 pm
There is no vast right wing conspiracy out to get Little Big Town. “Girl Crush” is struggling at radio for the same reasons that “She Don’t Love You” and “What We Ain’t Got” have already faded into nothingness. The members of Little Big Town are quite shrewd business people. As for singing country music, well…
SayWHAAA
April 3, 2015 @ 10:16 am
She Don’t Love You is at #17 on Mediabase with a very healthy bullet. And that is neither the follow-up to a #1 nor a song that has commanded the buzz and sales interest that Girl Crush has.
No matter how you slice it, this song was moving unusually slowly.
Albert
April 2, 2015 @ 1:07 pm
As I commented in an early article here on this song , there is one aspect to it that most of the ‘controversy’ doesn’t pay enough attention to . THIS IS A GOOD SONG- PERIOD ! How often have we been able to say that about songs of late ? This is a good song on many levels-
1. Fresh take on a timeless theme using a time-LY approach.
2. PROSODY …the music is the RIGHT music for the sentiment . Rare on radio where ballads are concerned .
3. It isn’t OVER-written, over-sung or over-produced or over-performed . The lyric and melody do ALL the work in serving the emotional sentiment . What a concept !!
4. The song sounds different than anything on radio …from its danceable time signature to its sparse lyric-priority delivery .
5. Most importantly , if a listener is really listening , the lyric is as clear as day .
One very very minor nit , for me . The melody seems ‘borrowed” from ITS A HEARTACHE by Bonnie Tyler but THAT is ancient .
If it takes a little bit of controversy to get this well-crafted , honest , timeless and fresh effort to more listeners , good for whomever may have orchestrated that . Lord knows they spend millions to promote SHIT . How ’bout promting a GOOD one with any means at hand ? Nobody is being hoodwinked , scammed , persuaded or cheated by this song . Radio needs to sit up and acknowledge the above .
SisterNumber7
April 2, 2015 @ 2:59 pm
I agree with all of your comments about the music and its impact and value. I also agree, this song is not about lesbians. However, it”™s the lyrics that are the problem. When I hear:
“I want to taste her lips
Yeah, ’cause they taste like you
I want to drown myself
In a bottle of her perfume
I want her long blonde hair
I want her magic touch
Yeah, ’cause maybe then
You’d want me just as much
I got a girl crush
I got a girl crush”
I am left to wonder how much lack of self-esteem a woman has to have to want to become someone else in order to get a man. This is as bad as one of those “girls in a truck song.” If the woman depicted in this song really had any self-respect and understood and appreciated her self-worth she would let this guy go and hopefully meet someone else who truly loved and appreciated her and her attributes.
GregN
April 2, 2015 @ 3:38 pm
Interesting POV, thanks.
Quick question: would the lyrics work better for you if sung from a bitter perspective versus pining?
SisterNumber7
April 2, 2015 @ 4:05 pm
Not sure whether your comment is funny or sad. No need to be that desperate or violent. It’s just time to move on.
GregN
April 2, 2015 @ 4:49 pm
Take it how you want it, I’m not here to argue with or offend you. I’m just saying I could see a pissed off woman singing those lyrics as easily as the pining woman you object to above.
And no mention of violence by me.
Liza
April 2, 2015 @ 4:47 pm
Real life…
Albert
April 2, 2015 @ 6:37 pm
“Real life”
BINGO ….the emotions and sentiments in this lyric are REAL and a good , meaningful , relate- able, timeless song is about REAL life -Addiction , Heartbreak , Being down and out, Infatuations , Infidelity,Jealousy, Divorce , Struggling to find work and support a family , etc…all of the REAL stuff radio doesn’t want to hear about anymore .
REAL isn’t just about ‘ all her friends blowin up her phone ‘ .
Mo Crawford
April 2, 2015 @ 6:44 pm
Can’t take a group seriously that had their first big hit ripping off Pontoon Boat from Sunny Ledfurd
Cool Lester Smooth
April 3, 2015 @ 2:51 pm
“Boondocks” was ripped off from “Pontoon Boat”?
I’d never have guessed it!
pete marshall
April 2, 2015 @ 9:42 pm
Every time there’s controversy the song does better on the charts.
SayWHAAA
April 3, 2015 @ 10:18 am
Kacey Musgraves and Follow Your Arrow say hey.
Talk about how “this isn’t pushing the envelope – this is where the envelope gets mailed to” and “I could play this in New York but not Oklahoma” emerged from the second it first popped up on iTunes. And neither controversy nor all the praise, TV performances, awards, etc turned it into anything resembling a radio hit.
Applejack
April 3, 2015 @ 2:59 am
The true victim here was not “Girl Crush,” but country music, which once again was characterized in the public as a closed-minded, simpleton”™s genre with listeners who couldn”™t even navigate themselves through lyrics and are full of searing hatred for the gay community.
Bingo. This story blew up because the narrative of “simple-minded, ignorant country music fans hate gays” conforms to a popular stereotype that people already hold to be true, and a story like this gives folks the opportunity to pat themselves on the back for being smarter and more “progressive” than those dumb country music fans down South, or out there in flyover land. And because conflicts generate clicks, of course. Granted, I bash the country radio audience too, but my take is that they’re mostly passive, lazy consumers, not zealots seething over with rage, or abject morons. (Well… maybe there’s a few of those. ;))
I have a pretty cynical take on this whole deal. I think the “Girl Crush” campaign was mostly a calculated PR ploy by Little Big Town’s camp. And to that end, I think those folks actually profited off of the unwarranted disparagement of the country music audience in the press, are partially responsible for the dragging the genre’s name through the mud once again.
Applejack
April 3, 2015 @ 3:02 am
Whoops… the top paragraph was supposed to be a quote.
CountryKnight
April 3, 2015 @ 8:46 am
Well, at least, “progressives” can lay off country music for a week or so until the new controversy.” I would hate to tire out their fingers.
BwareDWare94
April 3, 2015 @ 12:04 pm
At this point, I’d rather see the world rid of Little Big Town before Florida Georgia Line. At least FGL has an actual good single in recent years.
This band is fucking annoying, and resulted in garbage like Gloriana. Fuck ’em. They’ve run their course and can ride off into the sunset.
Cool Lester Smooth
April 3, 2015 @ 3:01 pm
FGL has an actual good single? What?
FGL’s stuff somehow manage to be dumbed down version of “Day Drinking,” and I say this as someone who actually doesn’t hate “Cruise.”
Also, “Sober” is a very good song, as radio fare goes.
Hell, “Girl Crush” is a damn sight better than anything FGL has ever released.
BwareDWare94
April 3, 2015 @ 3:16 pm
“Dirt” is better than anything LBT has released in years. I’d even argue that “Get Your Shine On” outdoes most of what LBT has released, in terms of pure catchiness and fun.
I can forgive Florida Georgia Line for pretty much every hit except for “This is How We Roll.” They’re both clearly idiots. The members of Little Big Town, on the other hand, have shown the ability to release great songs. They haven’t in a long, long time, and they’ve sold out just as hard as McGraw and Shelton. Artists who know better but still release shit are ten times worse than a pair of idiots with access to a computer Derek Zoolander’s wardrobe.
Eric
April 3, 2015 @ 6:05 pm
I always like to judge songs objectively, without regard to who the artist is.
Cool Lester Smooth
April 3, 2015 @ 8:46 pm
Dirt is pandering garbage, targeted at people who should know better. It, and it alone, is why I hate Florida Georgia Line.
I would rather listen to Cruise, or Sun Daze ten times than listen to that crap once. A dumb party song is one thing. I can forgive it; hell, I’ll sing along to Cruise, or Sun Daze, if it’s on the radio. They’re catchy, and they don’t pretend to be anything they’re not.
A shitty, pandering bro-country song that pretends to be about something, though? That’s unlistenable. FGL has released a lot of songs that can be categorized as dumb fun, like a worse version of Sam Hunt. Dirt is a terribly written, deeply idiotic song that manages to not even be fun.
It’s no better than trash like “One Hell of an Amen.”
Eric
April 3, 2015 @ 11:31 pm
That’s ridiculously harsh.
The essence of country music storytelling is in finding the profound beauty in the seemingly mundane. I greatly appreciated how FGL was able to use the most mundane of all substances, dirt, to evoke such a warm sense of nostalgia and pride in country roots.
Cool Lester Smooth
April 4, 2015 @ 10:44 am
Ugh. It’s just another checklist song.
The only real songwriting difference between it and the rest of their output is that it’s both much less sincere and lacking an actual hook.
Eric
April 4, 2015 @ 5:19 pm
The difference here is that the checklist actually has emotional meaning. There are some similarities with the 2011 SCM Song of the Year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv6Lfr-Mf20
Cool Lester Smooth
April 4, 2015 @ 5:50 pm
The other difference is that the lyrics themselves are even more empty, the production even less interesting, and the singing even less competent and sincere than their average checklist song.
If I’m at a barbecue (or bar) with my friends, and Cruise or Sun Daze comes on, that’s fine. It’s catchy, it’s got an interesting vocal, and it doesn’t try to convince anyone that it’s anything other than a goofy checklist party song.
No matter how inebriated I am, though, I’ll always move as fast as I can to the dial when I hear “Dirt.” The tune sucks, the lyrics suck, and the singer is wholly disengaged (because he knows that both the tune and lyrics suck). People just like it because it cloaks its inanity by pretending to be about something “real,” while the rest of their songs are proudly, defiantly dumb.
Cool Lester Smooth
April 3, 2015 @ 8:49 pm
And, again, listen to “Sober.” It’s quite good.
BwareDWare94
April 4, 2015 @ 10:13 am
I have heard it and I disagree. It’s an OK song at best. LBT fell off the wagon a long time ago and they haven’t found their way back on.
Cool Lester Smooth
April 4, 2015 @ 10:40 am
I’d agree that it’s “an OK song at best, while also arguing that “OK at best” is both “quite good” relative to the average song on the radio at the moment, and far and away better than anything FGL has ever released (and, again, I honestly don’t mind Sun Daze and Cruise).
Nate
April 3, 2015 @ 7:01 pm
This happens with most songs that are “polarizing” or can be construed to form a political agenda. For instance, with Carrie Underwood’s “Something in the Water” I saw plenty of Christian and conservative Facebook pages condemning the atheists who didn’t want the song played, even rehashing her 2007 quote about “Jesus Take The Wheel” in which she says, “If you don’t like it, change the channel.” None of these articles claiming atheist backlash posted links to attack websites or even quotes from anyone hating on the song. But sure enough, their comment sections were FILLED with Christians running to Carrie’s support telling atheists to shut up and that Carrie is an angel for singing a song about God. Unsurprisingly, it happens on both sides of the political spectrum as we now see with “Girl Crush”. Welcome to the click-bait era of the internet I guess.
BwareDWare94
April 3, 2015 @ 7:42 pm
Yeah, that always gets me, too. Show me the atheists attacking you or stop attacking them, am I right?
For the record, I hate pandering God songs, but “Something in the Water” transcended that hate because it was an awesome song. “He is God,” on the other hand, was pure propaganda meant to push her career to a certain demographic, and was a clumsy, shitty song to boot.
Adrian
April 4, 2015 @ 9:24 pm
“Something In The Water” would have been right in the sweet spot of country radio’s audience in the years before bro country became mainstream. Just 5-10 years ago your typical mainstream country fan was a 30 year old white Christian female in middle America who listened to ballads, went to church on Sundays, and wanted to believe in God’s grace. I remember thinking that they weren’t the ideal audience for classic country, but the bro country culture that replaced them in the “country” scene turned out to be far worse.
Adrian
April 4, 2015 @ 9:27 pm
“Girl Crush” turned out to be a savvy marketing move by Little Big Town. It was not a lesbian song, didn’t seriously offend anyone, and yet generated enough buzz to give them chart success. It makes me think that if Kacey Musgraves had been as adept at this game, she could have gone far.
G Paul
May 17, 2015 @ 8:16 pm
The words are different but the song really sounds like … It’s A Heartache..
. Sung by Bonnie Tyler in 1978
When they first started to sing Girl Crush I thought it
was going to be It’s A Heartache.
Maybe my ears heard it wrong.
Houston McCain
May 21, 2015 @ 9:33 pm
that’s exactly what i thought too they share the same melody
Magnum75
November 5, 2015 @ 4:09 am
Its sad that the controversy is about sexual orientation when the real victim is the origibal owner if this song was robbed. It should b about a felony, not a tjeoretical homosexual agenda. The reason country stars dont bring it up…?… if theyre honest, theyve all done it in more minor moments. Any one who plays an instrument has probably started jamming abd found a song or two while randomly oozing out a melody. This is blatant and unabashed.
jj
May 20, 2015 @ 7:17 am
I dislike the song, mostly because they plagiarized the tune. It’s a doppleganger of Slow Hands. Except Slow Hands was much better. Girl Crush just makes me want to plug my ears, and it’s a boring song. Would work as a lullaby, I guess, since it puts people right to sleep.