John Rich’s Single Tops Beyonce on iTunes Without Major Record Label

The John Rich single “Progress” remained atop the iTunes charts on Sunday, leading Queen Beyonce’s “Break My Soul.”

John Rich is beating Beyoncé on iTunes with far less promotion, puff pieces, and a record label. https://t.co/PMQIfCSlcI

— Bobby Burack (@burackbobby_) August 1, 2022

Unlike Beyonce’s new album, Rich released his song without the backing of a major record label, without the fawning puff pieces, and without the hype across all social media platforms.

No one even called Mr. Rich beautiful or a God on the internet.

Instead, Rich released his song independently, first to Donald Trump’s social media app, Truth Social, and the video platform Rumble.

Rich shunned what he called “woke” record labels over fear of how an established label would promote a song with conservative themes. For similar reasons, Rich did not rely on Big Tech platforms:

“When I’m talking about them shutting down our voices, I’m talking about Twitter and YouTube and Facebook,” Rich said. “And I thought, you know what, I’m gonna reach out to Truth Social and reach out to Rumble because they still allow free speech over there.”

Rich sings about Jesus and patriotism, two topics the music industry finds very offensive. The entertainment critics prefer whatever it is Beyonce sings about these days.

So hood for him. It’s always good to see a media darling — and Beyonce is among the top — lose out to a disruptor often ignored by the GQ types.

And Rich topped Beyonce without a top-notch camera crew for his cover image. Who did it better?

Tough one.

Word is Beyonce has the edge in the cover photo category. Oh well — John Rich has the better song.