If there’s one thing we can agree on in this highly divisive society, it’s Dolly Parton. When it comes to musicians, actors, celebrities, really anyone in the entertainment industry or public eye, there’s plenty of polarizing figures. Many of them are disliked, for good reason, as they tend to look down at us regular people from on high, passing judgement and generally wanting nothing to do with people who can’t benefit them in some way. But, there are a handful of celebrities that remain universally beloved (I think there used to be a lot more of them back in the day), and the top example of someone who I think most Americans truly love, it would be the country queen herself, Mrs.  Dolly Parton. Despite enjoying success, fame and fortune that most could only ever dream of, Dolly has remained incredibly humble and down-to-earth, often talking about her home in the mountains of east Tennessee and how much it meant to her to grow up there. First of all, this person needs to go straight to jail… second of all, how miserable do you have to be to come for Dolly Parton? The women has given away millions of dollars throughout her career, giving away millions of books to children all over the country through her Imagination Library foundation in an effort to ensure they all know how to read (her father was illiterate), and help countless other people in ways we’ll probably never know about. I’ve heard it said that she could technically be a billionaire by now, but because she’s given so much money away, and continues to do so, she hasn’t, and might never reach that mark. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s easy to believe because of how generous and kind she really is. So when a woman on X shared a video of Dolly at Costco promoting her new book, Star of the Show: My Life on Stage, and called her a “creepy creature,” the internet was absolutely NOT having it. “Oh look. This creepy creature is promoting its book at Costco. Perfect match.” The post has over 3.4 million views and counting: Oh look. This creepy creature is promoting its book at Costco. Perfect match. pic.twitter.com/hOZxPwopLE — JULIE DONUTS (@Juliesnark1731) December 10, 2025 And as you might expect, the post received overwhelming feedback about how insane it was, and I did not see one comment that wasn’t someone defending Dolly and everything she’s done for so many people. Everyone rushed to her defense, and surely the post was some kind of rage bait (or even bot activity)… there’s no way you would actually share something like that unless you wanted to get ripped online by thousands of people. And in my humble opinion, they absolutely deserved it: Dolly Parton is 79 and still outworking people half her age. That woman is a certified legend, not a “creepy creature.” — Baller Alert (@balleralert) December 11, 2025 Why would you, a nobody, say such ugly things about a person who has done more to help people than you would ever be capable of. Crawl back in your hole – no one wants to hear your vile — TheRealCherokeeOwl (@RealCherokeeOwl) December 11, 2025 Hating on Dolly Rebecca Parton is a new all time low for wyte women Thought I’d never see the day — Blaze (@reallyblazin) December 11, 2025 You need to examine yourself if you think Dolly Parton is creepy. She is one of the nicest and most generous people in entertainment. — Jason Crouch (@jasoncrouch) December 11, 2025 You totally chose the wrong words for this amazing Lady! Her life is a dream come true, and she shares everything she has.. Dolly Pardon will always be remembered, you will be forgotten… — Mike Turner (@MickeyT401) December 11, 2025 Nothing is sacred to you demons!!! Leave Dolly alone pic.twitter.com/uHs70WQ5kd — Guccione (@guccione_ape) December 11, 2025 You’re coming for Dolly Parton? Oh, man… good luck. — Zach D Roberts (@zdroberts) December 11, 2025 You’re getting cooked and rightfully so. — Skyler Shuler (@SkylerShuler) December 11, 2025 Dolly Parton has helped more people than you could possibly hope to in a hundred lifetimes. Fuck off — huntigula (@huntigula) December 11, 2025 The one person NOBODY fucks with is Dolly Parton. You can go sit down somewhere. — Autism Mom (@rnautismmom) December 11, 2025 Imagine being so pathetic that you would attack Dolly Parton, a woman who came from dirt poor farming stock but despite her fame and wealth, has never forgotten where she came from and given back many times over. — Old Sarge (@MichaelGrahamSC) December 11, 2025 If you hate Dolly Parton you are a horrible person — dyn young (linkinbio) (@jadentyoung) December 11, 2025 Death, taxes, and Dolly continuing to be one of the world’s most beloved humans… this person got what was coming for ’em, and rightfully so.The post Woman Gets Destroyed For Calling Dolly Parton A “Creepy Creature” On X, Proves There’s At Least One Thing Americans Can Agree On first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Some serious money. As 2025 slowly draws to a lose, any and all year-end charts are rolling out, thanks to Billboard, Spotify, Apple Music and more. Over the course of the past ten or so days, we’ve seen Apple drop their year-end “Apple Music Replay” which crowned Morgan Wallen’s I’m The Problem the most-listened to album on the platform, Spotify Wrapped also name I’m The Problem the most-streamed album in the U.S. (and eighth-most globally), Koe Wetzel’s “High Road” named the #1 song on country radio in 2025 and most notably, Billboard crown Morgan Wallen the Top Artist of 2025, along with nearly 20 different #1 spots across a wide array of their various charts. Obviously, all of these charts and end-of-the-year rankings revolve around the music itself, whether it’s streaming, digital sales, physical sales, radio play and the like. With that being said, however, recently, Billboard dropped their 2025 year-end Top Tours chart, which provided an in-depth look at the highest-grossing concert series globally, among all artists. Though country music is a bit underrepresented here, with only four artists making the Top 40, there’s still some interesting placements to note. Starting off with the Top 10 overall, Coldplay was crowned the #1 touring act of 2025, grossing a staggering $464.9 million across 59 international shows to 3.5 million fans. Rounding out the Top 10 are the likes of Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, The Weeknd, Shakira, Chris Brown, Imagine Dragons (I had no idea people still listen to them in 2025), Post Malone,  Ed Sheeran and Stray Kids. Obviously, Post Malone is the top-ranked country artist on this list (some will argue Beyoncé deserves a placement here, but I don’t feel like opening that can of worms). Post’s placement at #8 overall on the list is thanks in part to his massive Big A** Stadium World Tour, which not only sold-out stadiums here in the U.S. but in a plethora of different countries in Europe. Overall, the “I Had Some Help” singer grossed $231.2 million across his 51 shows in 2025. As for attendance, he saw over 1.6 million fans throughout the year. Coming in second is none other than Zach Bryan. Despite a highly controversial year that included the ongoing fallout due to his breakup with Brianna Chickenfry, his public beef with the likes of John Mooreland, Dave Portnoy, Gavin Adcock and more as well as his highly-publicized, unreleased “anti-ICE” song, the “Something in the Orange” singer still continued his massive success both in the studio and on the road. Sliding in at #13 overall, above the likes of Bruno Mars, Metallica and more, Bryan grossed a healthy $159.6 million across his limited 29-show run in 2025. Due to the limited dates, Bryan’s attendance was a bit lower compared to the others, totaling 941,000. In third place among country artists is Luke Combs. At #35 overall, the North Carolina incredibly grossed $76.4 million in just 11 shows. Averaging nearly 49,000 fans per concert, he drew in 536,000 attendees overall. Rounding out the entire list, both in country music and overall, is the King himself, George Strait. Easily the most impressive feat out of all the artists present on the list, Strait grossed a staggering $75.4 million in just six shows throughout 2025. With 288,000 fans in attendance, the “Amarillo By Morning” singer averaged 48,000 fans and just over $12.5 million in gross revenue per show. Notably, world-beater and country superstar, Morgan Wallen, is absent from this list. However, this is mainly due to his 2025 tour, I’m The Problem, being pretty limited in scope, only having 19 shows across the U.S. and Canada. The Top 40 highest-selling artists’ tours, ranked by gross revenue, are as follows: Top 40 Highest-Selling Tours Of 2025 Coldplay ($464.9m) Beyoncé ($407.6m) Kendrick Lamar & SZA ($358.7m) The Weeknd ($336.7m) Shakira ($327.4m) Chris Brown (248.7m) Imagine Dragons ($241.6m) Post Malone ($231.2m) Ed Sheeran ($214.5m) Stray Kids ($185.7m) Tyler, The Creator ($174.5m) Lady Gaga ($166.2m) Zach Bryan ($159.6m) Iron Maiden ($150.9m) Linkin Park ($150.6m) Eagles ($150.3m) SEVENTEEN ($142.4m) Dua Lipa ($141.1m) Bruno Mars ($137m) Metallica ($136.2m) Usher ($129.9m) Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band ($124.8m) Andrea Bocelli ($105.5m) Dead & Company ($105.5m) Paul McCartney ($104.5m) Guns N’ Roses ($95.6m) Rauw Alejandro ($91.7m) My Chemical Romance ($88.6m) Chayanne ($87.6m) System of a Down ($85.9m) Phish ($82.7m) J-Hope ($79.9m) Kylie Minogue ($78.4m) Sabrina Carpenter ($77.4m) Luke Combs ($76.4m) Justin Timberlake ($76.2m) ENHYPEN ($76.1m) P!nk ($75.9m) Tate McRae ($75.8m) George Strait ($75.4m) The post Zach Bryan, George Strait, Luke Combs & Post Malone Rank Among Highest-Selling Tours Of 2025 first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

A representative for the Church of Satan is responding to the controversy. Continue reading…

Not backing down. In a wide-ranging interview with Rolling Stone, the Canadian pop sensation Tate McRae talked about growing up in Calgary, her journey to stardom, and of course, her music. If her name sounds familiar, it’s because Tate collaborated with Morgan Wallen on a song called “What I Want” for his mega successful 2025 album I’m The Problem. It was his first-ever female duet for a record, and it ended up debuting at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, marking Wallen’s fourth and McRae’s first on that chart, a huge accomplishment for any artist in any genre. Scoring a hit like that is a dream for anyone, and when it finally happens, it’s certainly one of those “you made it” moments that they’ll remember forever. I mean, what kind of person who makes music for a living doesn’t want to have the top song in all of music? It’s huge, especially if you’re a mainstream, very commercial artist like McRae. But some of her fans were NOT happy about the fact that she would team up with Wallen, who of course has become public enemy #1 among the this weird sect hyper-progressive people (people who don’t even listen to country music). He’s a racist, he’s MAGA-coded, he’s this, he’s that… all the usual pejoratives from the virtue-signaling crowd who have spent the past 10 years pushing cancel culture, telling you what’s “problematic,” and shaming the American people for thinking for themselves. And Tate’s fans called her all kinds of names because of it, but I’m pretty sure she laughed all the way to the bank. McRae never really made any public comments about it, which was the right move in my opinion, because that was a huge moment in her career and something she celebrated. And when Rolling Stone asked her about the “controversy,” because of course they did… she says she has a lifelong love of country music because she grew up with a huge country festival, the Calgary Stampede, in her backyard. Country music is incredibly popular in Canada, and McRae says her brother is a huge country fan, so she always knew she wanted to dabble in genre somehow: “Honestly, country music is huge where I’m from. My brother’s always been a rabid country-music fan. I’ve always wanted, at some point in my life, to do folk music or country, and I probably still will in the future. But I honestly just got the opportunity to do a country song, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is cool.’ And I wanted to cross genres really bad.” She says she was “shocked” at the negative response from fans, because going into it, she just thought everyone would love the song: “It was just about the song for me. I didn’t realize how much a song would be connected to all the other factors, and it really shocked me.” Didn’t think the song would be connected to… Morgan Wallen… the guy you’re singing it with? Oh, honey… She tells the outlet that she has never met Wallen in person, but she doesn’t regret doing the song with him… which should be incredibly obvious considering how successful it was: “I don’t think you should regret anything in life, because it gives you so much clarity. I think controversy and criticism is a way of learning and figuring out what you want to move forward with, and how that shapes you as a person. I think it’s all important.” Show me the paycheck from a massive hit song like “What I Want,” then show many any artist who would even come close to saying they regret doing it… you can’t. It was far from my favorite song on the album, and I’m not sure if Tate would ever perform it live with Morgan now, but she is clearly happy with her decision, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her continue working with country artists, including Miss Megan Moroney, who Tate has become good friends with. “What I Want” The post Tate McRae Defends “What I Want” Duet With Morgan Wallen, Was Shocked By The Controversy first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

You read that right… there’s a couple of Red Clay Strays easter eggs hidden in the sequel to The Shining. In case you didn’t know, a movie Doctor Sleep came out in 2019, and to put it in layman’s terms, it’s a direct continuation of the story that Stanley Kubrick’s classic horror movie tells. As a big fan of The Shining myself, I excitedly saw it when it came out, and loved the nods that it had to the original 1980 film. Little did I know that the movie featured one of my favorite country music acts, and did so before anyone outside of Alabama really knew their name. 2025 has been a big year for the Red Clay Strays. The band from Mobile, Alabama – consisting of Drew Nix (electric guitar, vocals, harmonica), Zach Rishel (electric guitar), Andrew Bishop (bass), John Hall (drums), Sevans Henderson (keys), and frontman Brandon Coleman – recently took home the Vocal Group of the Year award at the 2025 CMAs. They also headlined Red Rocks, and announced headlining shows at Madison Square Garden and Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena for 2026. All that to say that they are very much a household name in the modern day. But it wasn’t always easy for the Red Clay Strays. Brandon Coleman often talks about the trials and tribulations the band went through after they formed in 2016. Specifically, they remember the 2020 pandemic really taking the wind out of their sails, and they’ve said numerous times that many of the band members drove for Uber during that time just to keep their dream alive. Their big break wouldn’t come until 2022, when their hit song “Wondering Why” really took off online and gave the band much deserved attention. But what if I told you that the band had a song (and a t-shirt) featured in a 2019 blockbuster film, and fans of the group are just now noticing over five years later? If you are to watch Doctor Sleep, and pay close attention to the bar fight scene, you’ll actually hear a couple of seconds of the Red Clay Strays’ 2019 song “Good Godly Woman.” How did that come to be? Well, the director of sequel to The Shining is an Alabama-based filmmaker by the name of D. Scott Lumpkin. He’s obviously got a passion for filmmaking, but he’s also dipped into music over the years. It was a couple of years before Doctor Sleep that Lumpkin and his wife, Kate, founded Skate Mountain Records, which was based in Lower Alabama and focused on signing artists in the state that had breakout potential. One of the first bands that they signed was the Red Clay Strays. So while filming was ongoing for Doctor Sleep, the Red Clay Strays were doing some experimental recording sessions in Nashville. Lumpkin was getting samples from the band as he was in the midst of directing, and one of those samples was “Good Godly Woman.” The director told AL.com that, funny enough, they were shooting a scene in a bar that day, and the sound and style of the sample matched up with what was needed for that moment in the movie: “It just so happened we were shooting a honky-tonk scene in ‘Dr. Sleep’ that day. The song fit in perfectly.” So the Red Clay Strays snuck into the movie, albeit a couple of seconds of their music, and the band proudly shared about it through Facebook in June of 2020, when the movie released on streaming: “Who’s seen ‘Doctor Sleep’? Anybody heard our song yet? Seen our t-shirt or any of our buddies’ T-shirts? If not, you can see it on HBO.” Notice that they also mentioned a t-shirt. The film’s main antagonist, Rose The Hat (played by Rebecca Ferguson), was actually seen wearing a Red Clay Strays t-shirt about halfway through the movie. She’s sitting on top of a bus in the scene, and the maroon Red Clay Strays merch is seen clear as day. A fan actually dove down into the comments of that post above to ask where they should be on the lookout for Red Clay Strays easter eggs in the film, and the band replied with this: “Our song ‘Good Godly Woman’ is in there for like 2-3 seconds during the bar fight scene and our t-shirt is worn by the main bad lady while she’s sitting on top of the bus towards the middle of the movie. It’s the sequel to ‘The Shining’ so it’s classified as a horror film, but I consider it more of a thriller. It’s a really good movie in my opinion!” It’s made that much better because the Red Clay Strays are in it. Crazy to think that the talented band from Mobile, Alabama would end up getting their big break years later thanks to TikTok, and not because they were featured in a successful movie. But the Red Clay Strays do owe some of their success to filmmaker D. Scott Lumpkin. In that same interview with AL.com from 2019, Lumpkin had this to say about the Red Clay Strays: “I want the world to watch out, because these guys are going to be giant.” He was certainly right about that. If you want to check out the Red Clay Strays’ cameos in the film, it looks like Doctor Sleep is currently streaming on Netflix and HBO Max. You’ll want to keep an eye out for the t-shirt scene (which is pretty easy to spot), and the portion of this song (that’s linked below) that was featured in the movie. “Good Godly Woman” by The Red Clay Strays The post Years Before They Hit It Big, The Red Clay Strays Were Featured In The Sequel To ‘The Shining’ first appeared on Whiskey Riff.