Jason Aldean Music Video Removed By CMT Due To Recent Backlash

OAN’s Abril Elfi
12:45 PM – Wednesday, July 19, 2023

After initially broadcasting country musician Jason Aldean’s highly divisive music video for “Try That in a Small Town,” CMT has since removed the video from air on Monday.

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The video, showing Aldean playing in front of a courtroom with an American flag hanging from an entryway has garnered more than 1.6 million views on YouTube since it was uploaded five days ago. 

The music video also shows an American flag burning, demonstrators screaming and hitting police officers in various film shots, and citizens robbing a convenience store. The scenes depicted are interlaced throughout the musical performance.

In a separate scene, a recognizable Fox News banner reads, “State of Emergency Declared in Georgia.”

Towards the end of the video, a news anchor discusses how farmers were leaving their crops for the day to aid their neighbors, while the chaotic and rowdy scenes are played in congruence with separate patriotic film shots showing a young child playing hopscotch and the American flag being raised.

Aldean himself witnessed one of the worst mass shootings in American history at the Route 91 Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 1^st, 2017. 

Later in the music video, the country star sings the harmonious line, “Got a gun that my granddad gave me/ They say one day they’re going to round up/ Well, that sh*t might fly in the city/ Good luck.”

The country star responded to the song’s influx of critics on social media on Tuesday afternoon.

In the past 24 hours I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject to the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide BLM protests. These references are not only meritless, but dangerous.…

— Jason Aldean (@Jason_Aldean) July 18, 2023

In his tweet, Aldean said, “I was at Route 91 when so many people lost their lives, and our community just recently experienced another horrible tragedy. No ONE, INCLUDING ME, wants to keep reading about needless tragedies or seeing families torn apart.”

“There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it, and there is not a single video clip that isn’t real news footage, and while I can try and respect others right to have their own interpretation of a song with music, this one goes too far,” he added.

Aldean maintained that the new song, “refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up.”

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