Am I the Only One

Am I the Only One
Date Aired	August 2, 2021
Running Time	25:03
Previous Review	Astronaut in the Ocean
Next Review	TBA
Website	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxj-H72wmeM

Todd plays "Am I the Only One" on the piano.

AARON LEWIS - AM I THE ONLY ONE

A pop song review

Todd: So, an interesting thing happened a couple of weeks ago.

Clip of live performance of "Am I the Only One"

Aaron Lewis: Am I the only one

Todd (VO): You know who Aaron Lewis is? I'm gonna guess you probably don't or, if you did, you'd forgotten.

Video for Staind - "It's Been Awhile"

But you may remember him when I tell you that he was the lead singer of Staind, the nu-metal band that produced some of the most dreary and unlistenable rock songs of the early 2000s.

Aaron: And everything I can't remember

Todd (VO): [shudders] Anyway, what you may not know is that about a decade ago, his career...

Todd: ...radically shifted; he went solo and he went country.

Clip of Aaron Lewis - "Country Boy"

Aaron: I still live in the sticks where you wouldn't go

And a country boy is all I'll ever be

Todd (VO): He's only had some very minor success in Nashville and he hasn't really made any impact in many years, at least not until this last month when he released a song about, no joke...

Todd: ...how the liberals are destroying America.

Clip of lyric video for "Am I the Only One"

Aaron: Am I the only one not brainwashed

Who thinks they're takin' all the good we got

And turnin' it bad

Todd: "Well, Todd, that sure sounds like it sucks. But why does that concern you? Shouldn't you be talking about [still shot of music video for "Bad Habits" by...] Ed Sheeran or someone, instead of this [image of Aaron holding a red cap] MAGA has-been? [back to Todd] You're the pop music guy, don't you usually only talk about big hits?" Well, here's the thing.

Clip of Taste of Country

Narrator: If you've been scanning the Billboard Hot 100 chart, you might have noticed Lewis' name on the list.

Clip of interview with Aaron on Fox News

Brian Kilmeade: But you've gone viral, you're number one on Spotify. This song, everybody's sending it to their friends, everybody's listening.

Todd (VO): Ha, yeah, a [screenshot of Billboard Hot 100, with "Am I the Only One" at #14] top 20 debut for a song about how [shot of Billboard article: "Aaron Lewis Debuts Atop Hot Country Songs Chart With 'Am I the Only One'] the guy from Staind hates the left.

Todd: And for the record I'll be using "left" in an extremely broad sense so don't hit me with, like, "Oh, you're not really left if you've [image of people at...] gone to a Medicare for All rally less than twice". Spare me, alright? I just mean [image of...] the entire blue half of the spectrum. 'Cause trust me, this guy does not care about the distinctions. [image of Democratic presidential debate with...] Whether you supported Bernie or Biden, you hate America and you're destroying the country, according to Aaron Lewis.

Clip of Aaron Lewis live performance

Todd (VO): So how does this happen? How does a guy no one's heard from in years, performing in a genre he's never had much success in, how does he suddenly chart higher than Megan Thee Stallion and Maroon 5, even for just a week?

Todd: Well, it's actually a pretty simple explanation.

Clip of Fox News interview

Todd (VO): Basically, it's because the song was targeted directly to cranky, old conservatives, which is one of the few demographics that still pays money for music. And to be clear, it was all sales.

Todd: The song has zero radio play, minimal streams.

Clip of Fox News interview

Brian: But you've gone viral, you're number one on Spotify...

Todd (VO): Yeah, that didn't happen.

Todd: Fox News gets things wrong sometimes. Sorry to break it to you.

Clip of live performance of "Am I the Only One"

Todd (VO): But it did do really well on iTunes, so maybe that's what he meant. And his label marketed it really well. They started promoting it right before the Fourth of July, it went viral with the Fox News nation. [clip of Spotify ad] And in a world where everyone can stream music for free, Billboard weighs it very heavily if a song can convince people...

Todd: ...to spend actual hard-earned money on it.

Video for BTS - "Butter"

Todd (VO): This is how BTS fans have been gaming the system all summer. They can [shot of article: "The Buying Power Of BTS Fans Is, Once Again, Unrivaled In The American Music Industry"] mass-buy copies of the song because their price is so cheap, and thus push all those songs to the top. Well out of proportion to how many people actually like or are listening to the actual music.

Todd: There have been arguments about whether this counts [shot of APK News article: "ARMY stand up for BTS after group is accused of music chart manipulation"] as cheating or not. I'm gonna say it's not, 'cause...

Video for BTS - "Permission to Dance"

Todd (VO): ...people have been finding chart loopholes forever.

Todd: ...also I'm not an idiot, and I'm not gonna get the K-pop stans angry at me.

Todd (VO): So, I'm just gonna say that Billboard's metrics just are what they are. According to them, BTS is the most popular artist in the country...

Todd: ...and for one week, Aaron Lewis had the fourteenth most popular song.

Clip of live performance of "Am I the Only One"

Todd (VO): The week afterward, it promptly vanished. And his label is now trying to see if they can get it to catch hold in a more traditional way, but [screenshot of Billboard Hot 100 chart, with "Am I the Only One" re-entering at #93] so far it's only barely scraped its way back to the bottom of the charts. So, it's only a hit in the extremely technical sense, but it was enough to get it on my radar, so I figured I cover it. It's a fascinating case study into modern politics, the mechanics of the music industry, and...

Todd: Also, let's be real, it's a nice, easy target for a video. Honestly, maybe too easy.

Clip of NBC News coverage of House committee hearings for Capitol raid

Todd (VO): If my personal politics are not clear by now, I'll say my position again. [clips of Trump supporters protesting immigrants] In the year 2021, if you think the problem is, "the libs", you're a stupid asshole. [clip of "Am I the Only One" performance] And if you release a song about it and build a whole career and image around it, you're probably the biggest, stupidest asshole of all.

Todd: But you know what? I listened to plenty of stupid assholes. I don't have to agree with everything I listen to.

Clip of Lynyrd Skynyrd performing...

Todd (VO): I can still sing along with "Sweet Home Alabama", even though I don't share its worldview at all.

Ronnie Van Zandt: Watergate does not bother me

Personally, I think Watergate would've bothered me a lot.

Todd: But I gotta remind myself of my job; I review music, not politics.

Video for Tom Macdonald - "Fake Woke"

Todd (VO): Like a little while ago, I was kinda sketching out a possible review of Tom Macdonald.

Tom Macdonald: Cancel culture runs the world now, the planet went crazy

He's this white rapper who charts sometimes, and his whole thing is how he "hates the SJWs." And I was collecting my thoughts about it, and y'know, writing it out, and...

Todd: ...when I was looking at it, I was like, "This is not me reviewing it as music. It's me debunking it."

Todd (VO): I was like, "Well, this lyric's wrong, and this is wrong, and this is wrong." It was just a list of things that offended me.

Todd: And quite honestly, that's not a video I would want to watch. It's boring and tedious in the exact same way that Tom Macdonald is boring and tedious.

Clip of Tom Macdonald - "Snowflakes"

Tom: Trigger warnings used to be on TV for seizures

And now they're everywhere to protect millennials' feelings

Todd (VO): His songs are essentially unreviewable because they barely even function as music. It's just a list of things that piss him off listed off as dully and artlessly as possible. It's preachy. Like, no one uses that word to describe the anti- woke squad, but it is!

Todd: It's fucking preachy! And goddamn if I'm gonna be making the same mistakes as the guy I'm reviewing!