Toby Keith Makes History as First Artist With 9 of the Top 10 on Country Digital Song Sales Chart
Written by djfrosty on February 13, 2024
Singer-songwriter and country icon Toby Keith, who passed away Feb. 5 at age 62 after a battle with stomach cancer, makes Billboard chart history as the first artist to claim nine spots in the top 10 of the Country Digital Song Sales survey (dated Feb. 17).
Keith passes the seven top 10s on the chart logged by Kenny Rogers (April 4, 2020, following his death) and Taylor Swift (Nov. 13, 2010, thanks to the arrival of her album Speak Now).
Keith’s 2018 track “Don’t Let the Old Man In,” which he performed Sept. 28, 2023, at the People’s Choice Country Awards, returns at No. 1 on Country Digital Song Sales with 27,000 sold (up 3,744%) Feb. 2-8, according to Luminate. The song first topped the chart (which began in 2010) last October, becoming his second No. 1. “Red Solo Cup,” one of Keith’s signature feel-good anthems, dominated for 14 frames beginning in November 2011.
Here’s a rundown of all nine of Keith’s top 10s on the latest Country Digital Song Sales chart.
- No. 1, “Don’t Let the Old Man In” (27,000 sold, up 3,744%)
- No. 3, “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” (11,000, up 6,298%)
- No. 4, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” (11,000, up 8,240%)
- No. 5, “How Do You Like Me Now?!” (7,000, up 6,791%)
- No. 6, “As Good as I Once Was” (7,000, up 6,241%)
- No. 7, “Beer for My Horses,” with Willie Nelson (6,000, up 6,080%)
- No. 8, “I Love This Bar” (6,000, up 5,176%)
- No. 9, “American Soldier” (5,000, up 8,208%)
- No. 10, “Red Solo Cup” (5,000, up 9,917%)
The only song not by Keith in the top 10: Luke Combs’ “Fast Car,” at No. 2, up 1,185% to 17,000 sold after he performed it – with its writer, Tracy Chapman, whose original version hit the Billboard Hot 100’s top 10 in 1988 – at the Grammy Awards Feb. 4.
Concurrently, Keith’s 35 Biggest Hits flies 38-1 on Top Country Albums. Released in 2008, the set earned 66,000 equivalent album units, up 953% from 6,000 the week before. The album initially entered atop the chart in May 2008, becoming Keith’s sixth of 10 leaders. On the all-genre Billboard 200, it re-enters at No. 1, after originally peaking at No. 2, awarding Keith his fifth chart-topper.
35 Biggest Hits contains 31 of Keith’s 42 top 10s on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, including 15 of his 20 No. 1s. Among them: his debut hit “Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” which led for two weeks in June 1993. It re-enters the streaming-, airplay- and sales-based list at No. 13 with 8.3 million official U.S. streams (up 326%) and 3.5 million airplay audience impressions (up 299%), in addition to its sales.
Four other Keith classics, all in the Country Digital Song Sales top 10, as noted above, return to Hot Country Songs: “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” (No. 15), “As Good as I Once Was” (No. 19), “Don’t Let the Old Man In” (No. 22, a new peak, and his 62nd top 40 hit) and “How Do You Like Me Now?!” (No. 23).