Charles Edgar Walker Hayes (1979-) is a Country Music singer from Mobile, Alabama.
He first hit Nashville, Tennessee in 2005 in search of a music career. Mercury Records picked him up, but dropped him before he could release anything. He then moved to Capitol Records for two singles, "Pants" and "Why Wait for Summer", intended for an album titled '"Reason to Rhyme''.
After losing his deal with Capitol, he got a job at Costco and had minor success on the songwriting front, with Colt Ford ("Dirty Side") and Rodney Atkins ("Eat Sleep Love You Repeat") recording his singles.
A deal with songwriter/producer Shane McAnally's Smack publishing company led to two extended plays, and then a contract with the then-newly re-established Monument Records Nashville. From this came the album boom. and his first top-10 hit, "You Broke Up with Me". However, follow-up singles struggled, with several never even making it onto an album.
Then in 2021, he experienced a viral hit with the unexpected smash "Fancy Like", a song which gained traction on TikTok and soared to the top of the country music charts.
Albums
- Reason to Rhyme (2011)
- boom. (2017)
- Country Stuff: The Album (2022)
Extended plays
- Walker Hayes (2010)
- 8 Tracks Vol. 1: Good Shit (2016)
- 8 Tracks Vol. 2: Break the Internet (2018)
- 8 Tracks Vol. 3: Black Sheep (2019)
- Country Stuff (2021)
Tropes present in his work:
- all lowercase letters: His album boom.
- Double Entendre: "Fancy Like" features the line "She wanna dip me like them fries in her Frosty".
- Early-Installment Weirdness: "Pants" and "Why Wait for Summer" have a more country-rock sound than his later efforts.
- Heavy Meta: "90's Country" is all about listening to, well, country songs from the 1990s.
- Humble Goal: "Fancy Like" is about how he just wants to have a good time and eat Applebee's with his wife.
- Product Placement: "Fancy Like" is pretty much a commercial for Applebee's. You know, before it literally became a commercial for Applebee's.
- Pun: "Trash My Heart" has the line "So Holiday Inn to you".
- Song of Song Titles: "90's Country" name-drops several song titles from the 1990s.
