Singer Blake Shelton’s attempt to show his love for his fiancee, singer Gwen Stefani, through song has faced backlash due to its lyrics.
The music video for ‘Minimum Wage’ was debuted on a New Year’s Eve special on TV and features the line: “Girl, your love can make a man feel rich on minimum wage.”
“I can’t speak for everybody else, but I had a great 2020,” he told host Carson Daly over video. “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.”
However, not everyone in the US shared his outlook on life nor appreciated his usage of the term ‘minimum wage’. Many people commented on social media that the song was tone deaf amid the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent impact on jobs, businesses and the economy.
“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,” one user wrote, according to Fox News.
“Does anyone else find Blake Shelton’s “Minimum Wage” song to be incredibly tone deaf to our country’s current state?” another person tweeted.
“#BlakeShelton Singing about #minimumwage when you have a net worth of $100 million (as does Gwen Stefani) shows an arrogant disrespect for millions of underpaid workers who lost jobs and struggle to feed families while he jets around the country saying “all you need is love”,” another wrote.
However, some fans of the 44-year-old singer defended the song as a harmless expression of love.
“Just when I thought cry babies couldn’t get any more ridiculous... It’s. A. Song. about the way her love makes @blakeshelton feel. Nothing more, no matter how you whiny people try to spin it... Don’t like it? Don’t listen. It really is that simple,” one person wrote.
The song is not officially available to listen to and the music video has been removed.
Shelton and Stefani, hosts of ‘The Voice’, have been dating since 2015 and announced their engagement on October 27, 2020.