Oliver Anthony’s viral breakout hit “Rich Men North of Richmond” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making the singer-songwriter the first artist ever to notch the achievement with no prior chart history in any form.
He is the sixth artist in Billboard chart history to debut a first solo Hot 100 entry at No. 1, following Zayn, Baauer, Carrie Underwood, Fantasia and Clay Aiken. And “Rich Men North of Richmond” is the first solo-written Hot 100 No. 1 since 2020’s “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals, which topped the chart for five weeks in March and April 2022.
“Rich Men North of Richmond,” which was widely shared online along with a video of the bearded country-folk singer singing with an acoustic guitar in the woods, drew 17.5 million streams and sold 147,000 downloads in the tracking week ending Aug. 17, per Luminate. A YouTube video of the song has 30 million views to date.
With lyrics referencing high taxes and “the obese milkin’ welfare,” the song drew praise from the right and criticism from the left, with many deeming the Virginia-based singer, who seemingly appeared out of nowhere, an “industry plant.”
In a statement posted to Facebook after “Rich Men North of Richmond” blew up, Anthony (whose legal name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford) wrote that he isn’t rushing into a record deal.
“People in the music industry give me blank stares when I brush off eight million dollar offers. I don’t want six tour buses, 15 tractor trailers and a jet. I don’t want to play stadium shows, I don’t want to be in the spotlight,” he wrote. “I wrote the music I wrote because I was suffering with mental health and depression. These songs have connected with millions of people on such a deep level because they’re being sung by someone feeling the words in the very moment they were being sung. No editing, no agent, no bullshit. Just some idiot and his guitar. The style of music that we should have never gotten away from in the first place.”
After debuting at No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart, Anthony told Billboard, “The hopelessness and frustration of our times resonate in the response to this song. The song itself is not anything special, but the people who have supported it are incredible and deserve to be heard.”
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