Strong Evidence Bud Light Targets Minors, Beyonce Fans Accuse Country Radio of Racism, Cassette Tapes Are Back, Deadpool Breaks Records (The Five for 02/16/24)
Plus, the celebrated return of this Clinton-era Millennial cartoon. Why The Droptines may be the next hot Americana act.
Hey, welcome to The Five. It’s Friday, so let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
Bud Light has been working hard to re-establish the brand’s #1 spot in the beer market, after backlash from endorsing trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney led to a 29% dip in revenue. The St. Louis based beer brand recently entered a deal with conservative-leaning comedian Shane Gillis and is the official beer of the UFC until 2030. Apparently, the company can’t make much money without the blue collar sports fan demographic they were trying to run away from.
Now, a more sinister motive has come forth for the Mulvaney sponsorship…Bud Light is accused of marketing to kids.
While Bud Light dealt with the public outcry and a nationwide boycott over its partnership with Mulvaney, it fought a less high-profile legal battle over whether the promotion of beer by Mulvaney — who often presents on social media as an entertainer for kids — was compliant with industry standards that ban marketing alcohol to minors.
U.S. Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), both members of the Commerce Committee, wrote a letter on May 17, 2023, that sparked a formal review by the beer industry’s self-regulating body, the Beer Institute, into whether Bud Light was targeting minors through its ads with Mulvaney.
Mulvaney posted just twice as a Bud Light partner, first on February 11 in the bathtub timed with last year’s Super Bowl and then again on April 1 for March Madness, with the latter post generating the outrage that cost the company billions of dollars. The company first reviewed the possibility of hiring Mulvaney in December 2022 and went on to pay him a reported $185,000 for the two posts.
The senators in their letter state that Mulvaney was brought on as part of Bud Light’s strategy to “attract young drinkers” and pointed to his several posts aimed at children, including one in March, right in the middle of his two posts for Bud Light, in which he posed as a 6-year-old children’s book character named Eloise.
The charge was reviewed by the Beer Institute’s “Code Compliance Review Board,” which in a July decision found that Bud Light did not violate its Advertising and Marketing Code. But just two months later that code was quietly revised — the Advertising and Marketing Code that beer companies are required to adhere to now includes new language on social media influencers that would appear to forbid any brewer from working with Mulvaney.
In other words, Bud Light targeted minors…and got away with it. They just aren’t allowed to do it again.
As nearly every person in America knows a family who lost a teen to drunk driving…this is beyond disgusting. If there were any justice, this news would bring forth another round of protests against the beer giant.
[two]
Oh boy, here we go. Beyonce released a “country” single, which I think is quite terrible, but you can make your own decision there. The song is going to country radio this week—which means it gets served up to stations for consideration. Normally, radio station music directors spend 1-6 weeks with a song before adding it to rotation.
But hey, because one station in Oklahoma didn’t add the single to heavy rotation the day it was released, the whole genre is racist, according to Twitter. Beyonce, like Post Malone and Lana Del Rey hinting at country records, probably just sees where the attention is going in music, and is ready to scoop up some fans of Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers, et. al.
This is purely subjective, but Beyonce doesn’t appear to have any more interest in country music than Lil Nas X did when he trolled his way to the top of the country charts with “Old Town Road,” mostly for the media attention…then dropped any association with the genre (Nas X pulled the same hat trick on Christian music).
But Beyonce’s new single, with it’s pointless, vapid lyrics may have a place on country radio.
This ain't Texas (Woo)
Ain't no hold 'em (Hey)
So lay your cards down, down, down, down
So park your Lexus (Woo)
And throw your keys up (Hey)
And stick around, 'round, 'round, 'round, 'round (Stick around)
And I'll be damned if I can't slow-dance with you
Come pour some sugar on me, honey too
It's a real-life boogie and a real-life hoedown
Because country radio is the media outlet dumb enough to play a “country” song about Applebees featuring Kesha, so this single may be a fit, as the radio format has a long history of playing very stupid songs, and Beyonce made a very stupid song.
But the internet always rewards outrage bait with clicks, so pop culture writer Taylor Crumpton for Time:
Why would Knowles-Carter decide to re-enter the country music industry after her own personal experience of mistreatment at the 2016 Country Music Awards? Because Knowles-Carter was raised in a household where young girls were told to tell the truth and shame the devil.
The truth is that country music has never been white. Country music is Black. Country music is Mexican. Country music is Indigenous. She did not need to read Black Country Music: Listening For Revolutions by Francesca Royster, Hidden in the Mix: The African American Presence in Country Music, or My Country, Too: The Other Black Music by Pamela E. Foster to understand that. Knowles-Carter simply needed to walk outside her house in Houston, Texas and witness the cultural exchange between Black, Tejano, and Indigenous communities in her hometown. She did not need white validation to classify her country—she has been country for the entirety of her life.
Let’s pause there. The “mistreatment” at the 2016 Country Music Awards was Beyonce getting prime time for her single “Daddy Said” with the Dixie Chicks (their name has since been shortened to The Chicks).
Beyonce’s new foray into country features banjo from country artist Rhiannan Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops (12 Grammy nominations), who’s biggest song is called “Country Girl”
And steel guitarist Robert Randolph (4 Grammy nominations), who I personally watched play in front of 15,000 adoring fans in Chicago (it was a great show).
So the “proof” that country music is racist as a genre is Beyonce’s new singles, which feature two black country artists with a combined SIXTEEN Grammy nominations, with a song that holds THE ENTIRE TOP 5 on the iTunes charts right now?
Long before Crumpton made her way in the world as a “get off my lawn” Millennial pop culture journalist (who’s Twitter feed is full of pop, R&B & hip hop—not country, until this week when Beyonce’s singles dropped), country music has been made by black and indigenous musicians, and embraced by fans of all stripes. If you’re looking for a good starter on native country music, this is an excellent album to dive into:
As for black artists contributing to country music, Mickey Guyton just performed at the Super Bowl two years ago, and Darius Rucker sold TWENTY FIVE MILLION ALBUMS and has had four #1 albums on the Billboard country charts.
So maybe, just maybe, a billionaire singing about her Lexus to a largely working class fan base who suspect she’s just entering the genre to collect checks and shiny gold statues…isn’t a conversation about race, but authenticity.
Maybe the Mexican roofer who eats gas station tacos in his truck on a 20 minute lunch break doesn’t want to flip on the radio and hear something he can’t relate to.
Beyonce weaponizes her fanbase and claims victimhood if the world does anything less than worship her as a god, claiming she’s been slighted by winning 32 Grammys, but not the one Grammy she wanted, which basically makes her this girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who demands “I want it now” about everything she sees, despite being super rich and privileged.
UPDATE: The country station that was misaligned on Twitter for not playing “Texas Hold ‘Em” this week has responded, and the station group does play Beyonce on their other stations, and may play Beyonce on country radio, they’re just not sure yet.
"We are a small market station. We're not in a position to break an artist or help it that much, so it has to chart a little bit higher for us to add it," said Roger Harris, the general manager of Southern Central Oklahoma Radio Enterprises (S.C.O.R.E.). "But we love Beyoncé here. We play her on our [other top 40 and adult hits stations] but we're not playing her on our country station yet because it just came out."
This is, by far, the most manufactured pop culture “controversy” of 2024.
[three]
Jewish hip hop artist Matisyahu was forced to cancel two shows this week in Arizona and New Mexico after the venues bowed to pressure from Anti-Jewish forces.
Venue Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico canceled Matisyahu’s Wednesday concert only an hour before showtime following employee safety concerns over planned protests, KOAT reported.
More than 150 staffers at the venue reportedly expressed concerns for their safety after both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protestors were expected to show up to the reggae performer’s sold-out concert, according to the local outlet.
Matisyahu lobbed accusations of antisemitism at both venue organizers and accused staffers at each of being unwilling to work his shows.
“Tonight in Tucson, we have offered to supplement their staff shortages on our own dime, but to no avail,” he wrote in a statement to X Thursday. “They do this because they are either anti-Semitic or have confused their empathy for the Palestinian people with hatred for someone like me who holds empathy for both Israelis and Palestinians.”
Several pro-Palestinian groups took credit for the canceled shows in a move that makes the whole thing look pretty Kristallnacht-y.
The rapper responded with an official statement:
“There is a significant difference between protesting against the policies of the Netanyahu government in Gaza and shutting down the performance of a Jewish-American artist in Santa Fe. There’s no excuse for antisemitism, Islamophobia, bigotry, bias, racism, or intolerance, not here, not now, not ever.”
In America, in 2024, a Philadelphia born Jew was just denied free speech due to the fear of a mob due to his race and religion.
[four]
Move over vinyl. Cassette tapes are also making a comeback.
When Charlie Kaplan — founder and owner of Long Island-based online store Tapehead City — noticed that Urban Outfitters had devoted a section to cassettes and their players, he knew that a new generation was getting into the Walkman groove.
“The younger kids are getting into cassettes for sure,” Kaplan, 41, told The Post. “Especially with these bigger pop artists like Taylor Swift selling crazy amounts of tapes. I mean, I don’t think there’s, like, 40-year-old dudes buying them.”
No doubt — cassette sales are booming again, rewinding the clock back to the boombox era when they ruled as a more portable alternative to vinyl.
After decades in decline with the emergence of CDs and then digital music, cassette tapes — released by the likes of Swift, Billie Eilish and Harry Styles — have experienced a 443% increase in US sales since 2015, according to Luminate data.
Following the vinyl resurgence, cassettes are the latest example of young music fans who grew up on downloads and streaming now embracing the physical products of their parents’ generation.
Nostalgic pop culture moments — such as Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) listening to tapes on “Stranger Things” and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) rocking out to his Walkman in “Guardians of the Galaxy” — have helped make cassettes hot again.
Props to Gen Z for this one…very cool.
[five]
The once dominate Marvel released nothing but flops in 2023, and now turn to Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool to help them actually make some money in 2024. If you were grabbing some more wings while the trailer played during the Super Bowl, here’s the most viewed movie trailer of all time within 24 hours of release.
This one hits theaters 07/26.
MILLENNIAL NOSTALGIA ALERT: If you’re looking to share some 90’s pop culture with your kids, Disney+ has re-booted the hit animated X-Men series from the Clinton administration…}
Streaming 03/20.
There seem to be a lot of these monster movies nowadays…never much plot, but fun popcorn fare. Godzilla X Kong: New Empire looks more or less as good as any of the rest of them.
Hitting theaters 03/29. If you’re gonna bother watching monsters throw buildings at each other, might as well be on the biggest screen possible.
[new music]
Apple Music | YouTube Music
(I don’t normally name drop, but just this once). When NEEDTOBREATHE debuted in 2006, the band just got killed at radio, and were called Kings of Leon rip-offs. The station I worked for in Chicago were one of the few playing them, and I kept telling the band they couldn’t quit, they were too good, and actually scratch-track recorded a couple of songs for their second album for them while we were in the radio studio for an interview.
Eighteen years later, NEEDTOBREATHE has been one of the most consistent bands out there…never dipping in quality, and proving it on their latest live project for CMT. Highly recommended.
Apple Music | YouTube Music
There’s a bit of a punk edge to the Texas red dirt band The Droptines that’s somewhere between The Bouncing Souls and The Mezingers…but make no mistake, this is very much a country/Americana record. Still digesting this one, but as it sits, The Droptines are sitting at a top 5 album of 2024 so far.
Until the next one,
-sth