It’s wakin’ up, bustin’ yur butt…
If you sang that line instead of reading it than you know exactly what we’re here to discuss but if you wondered what in the world I just typed out, let me introduce you to a “viral sensation” that’s been making waves in country music internet circles over the past few months.
Lane and Lawson Curtis are brothers from Batesville, Arkansas that make up the country music duo Lan Law. Late last year they began posting clips of some new music they’d been working on and it quickly picked up traction for all the wrong reasons.
Let’s listen to one of the original viral videos for “Country To The Bone”, shall we?
Check the comment section on that and you’ll quickly realize how they went from getting a few hundred views per video to hundreds of thousands on Instagram alone… I don’t want to be rude, heck I’m all for people making music and throwing it out to the world just to see what happens, but let’s be honest and say this was so heavily shared because people were making fun of it, plain and simple.
If this was nothing more than some guys having fun and writing songs just for the hell of it, I’d be here rallying to their defense, or more likely I wouldn’t be talking about it at all, but ever since those original videos blew up there’s been a wave of people trying to make a buck off two guys that don’t seem to understand why they all of a sudden got popular.
Lan Law’s Background
Their website says they signed a recording contract with Kent Wells Productions in February 2020 (Kent Wells produced Dolly Parton records back in the day) when Lane was just 19 and Lawson was 17, going on to share stages with Craig Campbell, Gene Watson, Barrett Baber, and even opened for FOZZY at TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville in 2019. During the Covid shutdowns of 2020, the brothers regrouped and began working on new material, including their debut single “Small Town America,” co-written by Pete Sallis, a co-writer on Maddie and Tae’s “Shut Up and Fish”.
They also became CMA Members a few months ago, which shows that it really doesn’t take a whole lot to be part of “Country music’s premier trade association”.
Pause for a second there.
For all the credit we give Nashville and today’s country music industry at large for the drastic improvements made since the 2013 bro-country trash fest days, you’re telling me the “experts” heard these guys and said “Yep, that right there is the future. Sign them up.” ? Apparently so… there has to be more to this origin story, maybe I’ll dig into it later, but this at least explains how they initially recorded some music. “Country To The Bone” and their two other singles available on streaming platforms were released under “LC Records,” which is both their initials (Lance and Lawson Caughron), so perhaps they’re doing it independently these days.
Popular Figures Take Notice
It didn’t take long for people in higher places to begin taking notice of the videos that kept appearing in everyone’s feed. I know I saw these guy a ton for weeks on end, often the exact same video being fed back to me multiple times a day.
The first example I saw of popular figures joining in was SportsCenter anchors Gary Striewski and Randy Scott lip-singing along to “Country To The Bone,” again clearly as a joke, but apparently Lan Law subscribes to the “any press is good press” mantra and collaborated on the post with them.
Okay, you can rationalize this by saying the SportsCenter guys were just having fun. It’s ESPN after all, not exactly some bastion of country music, so who really cares right? Well, things only escalated from there.
Just a week ago, Bobby Bones (yes, the most popular country music DJ on the planet) invited Lan Law to make a special appearance for his producer’s birthday party.
The stunned silence when Bobby yelled out that Lan Law was there speaks volumes. Clearly the guys had been laughing about their videos for some time and producer Eddie was shocked the actual guys behind the songs and videos were standing in front of him, because he viewed them as nothing more a punchline.
Naturally, they made them play an impromptu set, which was probably just “Country To The Bone” a time or two.
In the background of the Bobby Bones intro video you can hear him say that they’re playing a set shortly after, which was true. Lan Law played a random restaurant in their hometown to a packed house. Normally you hear “packed house” and are happy but, again, it seemed like nothing more than an internet joke making its way into the real world.
Just look at the crowd. It’s all super young, probably TikTok addicted kids who thought it would be hilarious to tell their friends and show their followers that they actually got to see the “Bustin’ yur butt” guys in person.
According to some comments online, they played this song at least 4 times because they’re not an actual band and only have like 3 songs. Who books an act that can’t fill 30 minutes, let alone the typical 3 hour bar set? A restaurant owner who wants to make a quick buck before the joke dries up.
What’s The Point?
It gets worse from here but before we go into that, why am I even calling these things out in the first place?
In case it isn’t abundantly clear, Lan Law is being paraded around like a circus clown, being made to “sing that funny song” for the enjoyment of people who care about nothing more than getting views and a laugh at their expense. True, Lan Law could put an end to it but the sad part is that I honestly don’t think they realize this whole thing is a joke, and it really, really upsets me how brazen so many people are being about it.
Thanks to Bobby Bones, SportsCenter and a social media algorithm that loves negative engagement, a ton of music venues have reached out to book Lan Law in hopes that crowds of kids not afraid to laugh right in the faces of Lane and Lawson will show up and spend a ton of money on beer and mozzarella sticks. They’re also set to play Country Radio Seminar and CMA Fest according to their website.
Truth be told, there’s only one way this ends and it’s not pretty. Lan Law will book a bunch of shows but the momentum of this whole thing will fall apart. Eventually, they’ll show up and practically no one will be there and that ones that are there will be the worse of the bunch, people who just can’t let it go. They’ll get drunk and scream at the guys to “play Bustin’ yur butt again!” and it will be an embarrassment for everyone involved.
Maybe I’m wrong. Hell, I’m just a guy typing on a keyboard, Lan Law is making (some?) money playing music, so who’s the real winner here?
But I stand by what I said and those who are parading them around, saying to their face that they love the music while laughing behind their backs, are the worst of the industry, willing to betray any semblance of morals just to make a small amount of money or increase their social engagement. Lan Law barely has over 10,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok combined and followers, rather than views, are a much better way to see if there’s any actual support behind an artist. No shortage of people have wracked up millions of views but if those views are just for laughs, how can you honestly tell Lan Law they have something going for them?
Lan Law… I’m sorry if this comes off as harsh, but someone had to say it.