On Thursday, Blake Shelton premiered a new, unreleased song, "Minimum Wage," on NBC's New Year's Eve.
Speaking to Carson Daly before the song's debut, Blake said, "I can't speak for everybody else, but I had a great 2020. Even though a lot of bad stuff happened personally for me, I got engaged to Gwen Stefani, and I don't care what else happened besides that. That made it a great year."
blake shelton in a cowboy hat you’re welcome 😍😍
The song, which seems to be a love letter to Gwen, definitely has an, uh, interesting chorus: "Girl, your love can make a man feel rich on minimum wage."
After the song's debut, Blake faced backlash for the lyric, considering that 2020 was a year of record unemployment and financial loss for people because of COVID-19.
Like, obviously a multimillionaire singing to his fiancé — another millionaire — about how her love makes someone on minimum wage feel rich did not sit well with some people.
And so, they called him out:
Does anyone else find Blake Shelton’s “Minimum Wage” song to be incredibly tone deaf to our country’s current state?
blake shelton singing “your love could make a man feel rich on minimum wage” just cements the fact that rich people have absolutely no fucking clue
This person pointed out the irony of Blake singing it, and how his audience might not appreciate or relate to the sentiment:
The irony of listening to a millionaire Blake Shelton singing about “love on minimum wage” at the end of 2020 might be lost on its target audience #NewYearsRockinEve
But people ultimately said that it was a very 2020-ish way to end 2020:
A mega millionaire romanticizing minimum wage is peak 2020. Blake Shelton can go fuck himself.
Losing my mind watching Blake Shelton, a man who has $100M, sing "Your love is money, you make me feel rich on minimum wage" to close out 2020