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“Oil Money” Singer, Graham Barham, Is Back With An Early Contender For Worst ‘Country’ Song Of The Year, “BREAKUP (DOWN)”
Gonna be hard to top this one.
In many ways, country music is in the best spot it’s been in decades. Whether it’s Ella Langley taking a traditional country song, “Choosin’ Texas,” to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks and counting, Zach Top garnering national attention after his Grammy win or the rise of indie/alt. country groups like The Red Clay Strays, Turnpike Troubadours, Treaty Oak Revival and many more, most days, there isn’t too much to complain about in the genre broadly speaking.
With that being said, however, there are still moments every now and then that make me question everything. Today is no different with the release of Graham Barham’s newest atrocity, “BREAKUP (DOWN),” which makes the genius (and certifiably insane) decision to interpolate Jay Sean and Lil Wayne’s 2009 Diamond-certified smash hit, “Down.”
You might be asking yourself, “Now, who the hell is Graham Barham?” While I wouldn’t blame you for asking, I can almost guarantee that you’ve heard his viral “hit” (if you can even call it that) from last year, “OIL MONEY.” In case you were lucky enough to avoid the song, it was apparently inspired by Taylor Sheridan’s hit show, Landman.
The track quickly went viral (mostly for all the wrong reasons) thanks to the egregious trap beats used in the production, the use of viral ring girl from Jake Paul and Mike Tyson’s fight, Sydney Thomas, in promotion and the truly nonsensical lyrics that read as follows:
“She got a body like oil moneyCartier cross around her neck ’cause sheOnly ever seen the kind of club countryHouse in the Gulf where it’s always sunnyLittle tan line honey”
Barham would then follow up “OIL MONEY” with an equally egregious song with none other than Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard, “WHISKEY RAIN,” which was subsequently mocked just as much, if not more than his first viral song. With today’s new outing on “BREAKUP (DOWN),” I think he may have outdone himself and created a song that’s somehow worse than the two aforementioned tracks.
I think there’s absolutely no denying that Sean and Lil Wayne’s “Down” is a certified club hit. While it’s not some piece of high art, there’s a reason why it’s been so popular over the past 15 years; it’s a catchy, fun song. With that being said, however, I don’t know why Barham would decide to attach the track to this exhaustingly boring, autotuned-to-all-hell monstrosity centering around a breakup (how original), “BREAKUP (DOWN).”
Following in the footsteps of “OIL MONEY,” Barham decided to enlist another star to help him promote this disasterpiece — this time calling Heisman winner and failed NFL quarterback, Johnny Manziel, to star in the cringe-inducing music video and TikToks leading up to the song’s release.
@grahambarham I KNOW Y’ALL KNOW THE END OF THIS ONE!! #newmusic #countrymusic #unreleased @Johnny Manziel ♬ BREAKUP DOWN – Graham Barham
For all intents and purposes, this song was dead on arrival, with commenters on TikTok absolutely annihilating the song, its decision to interpolate “Down” and the inclusion of Manziel. There were genuinely too many comments to include, but here are some of the best from Barham’s string of promotional videos.
“This genuinely ruined my day”
“When autotune is so heavy it trups over itself”
“Is this a joke?”
“Go ahead and don’t release this”
“Not only does he make bad songs, now he is ruining good ones too…”
“Please stop”
“SH*TS FIRE ON MUTE”
“Why are you destroying country music”
“I never thought that there would be a song worse than oil money, but you don’t disappoint, this song is way worse”
“This is the type of music a coworker listens to”
“Where can I not listen to it?”
“Unrelease this!“
All jokes aside, I seriously cannot wrap my head around Graham Barham as an artist. In many ways, he presents himself almost as a parody of some wannabe frat bro, nearly a parody of the likes of Florida Georgia Line in their prime. And if he was actually releasing these songs as a satire of the egregious nature of the likes of FGL and bro-country as a whole, the shtick would actually work. However, it becomes increasingly apparent with each and every release that Barham is, in fact, being serious and actually thinks these songs and music videos are “cool.”
There may have been a very short window during the lows of bro-country in the 2010s when this could have actually worked from a commercial standpoint, but we are thankfully long past that point. Now, all we can do is point, laugh and ponder what market he’s trying to appeal to with these abhorrent country-rap crossovers.
If you’re a sucker for punishment, check out the song below.
The post “Oil Money” Singer, Graham Barham, Is Back With An Early Contender For Worst ‘Country’ Song Of The Year, “BREAKUP (DOWN)” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.