Billboard
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It’s a good time to be a country artist.
2023 has been an unusually exceptional year for country music. From Morgan Wallen to Luke Combs, Zach Bryan, Oliver Anthony Music and more, country acts are reaching historic highs across Billboard’s charts – including, most notably, on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 songs chart.
As of the latest list (dated Sept. 9), four country songs (defined as those that have also appeared on the Hot Country Songs chart) have hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 this year: Wallen’s 16-week juggernaut “Last Night,” Jason Aldean’s one-week leader “Try That in a Small Town,” Oliver Anthony Music’s two-week viral No. 1 “Rich Men North of Richmond,” and, as of this week, Zach Bryan’s “I Remember Everything,” featuring Kacey Musgraves. Dating to the Hot 100’s launch in 1958, only one other calendar year has brought four-or-more country No. 1s: 1975, when five reached the summit (listed below in chronological order of when they topped the Hot 100):
“(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song,” B.J. Thomas“Before the Next Teardrop Falls,” Freddy Fender“Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” John Denver“Rhinestone Cowboy,” Glen Campbell“I’m Sorry,” John Denver
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“Last Night” has been particularly historic, as its 16 weeks atop the Hot 100 from March to August mark the most weeks ever at No. 1 for a non-collaboration, and tie it for the second-most overall. It also became the first chart-topper by an unaccompanied solo male country artist in over 42 years, since Eddie Rabbitt’s 1981 hit “I Love a Rainy Night.”
Meanwhile, Luke Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” has spent eight weeks at its No. 2 high on the Hot 100, becoming his top-charting song. It has also crowned the all-format Radio Songs chart, Country Airplay and Adult Pop Airplay, and has reached the top 10 on Pop Airplay and Adult Contemporary.
Even further, 11 country songs have hit the Hot 100’s top 10 this year, almost quadruple the three that reached the region in all of 2022 (Combs’ “The Kind of Love We Make” and Wallen’s “You Proof” and “Don’t Think Jesus”). Three country hits also appeared in the top 10 in 2021 (Gabby Barrett’s “I Hope,” featuring Charlie Puth, Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” and Walker Hayes’ “Fancy Like”), after four did in 2020 (“I Hope,” Dan + Shay and Justin Bieber’s “10,000 Hours,” Combs’ “Forever After All” and Wallen’s “7 Summers”). “10,000 Hours” was the only country song to reach the Hot 100’s top 10 in all of 2019.
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Zach Bryan has also achieved historic heights. This week, he becomes just the second country artist to chart at least 18 songs on the Hot 100 in a single week, after Wallen. “I Remember Everything” also becomes the first song to ever to top the Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs charts. Before this week, his breakout song “Something in the Orange” climbed to No. 10 on the Hot 100 in January, later becoming the longest-charting country song by a male artist, spending 66 total weeks on the survey.
The genre’s 2023 success doesn’t end with Wallen, Combs and Bryan, though. Multiple other country artists have also scored their first Hot 100 entries this year, including Tyler Childers (“In Your Love”), Hailey Whitters (“Everything She Ain’t”) and Warren Zeiders (“Pretty Little Poison”).
As Billboard reported in July, country music consumption in the United States increased by 20.3% year-over-year in the first 26 weeks of 2023, according to Luminate. That’s a significant improvement from the 2.5% growth that it experienced over the same period in 2022. Only K-pop (up 46.2%) and Latin (up 20.6%) saw sharper growths. While that surge is driven mostly by Wallen, a whole new crop of country artists is also contributing, including Bailey Zimmerman, Jelly Roll, and Nate Smith.
As country music continues its chart domination into 2023’s fourth quarter, here’s a look at every country music milestone and record that’s been broken on the Hot 100 in 2023, recapped in chronological order.
Most Country Songs in the Top 50 of the Hot 100 in a Single Week
Zach Bryan lands his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart as his new self-titled set bows atop the tally (dated Sept. 9). The 16-song country-rock effort, his fourth full-length studio album, launches with 200,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 31, according to Luminate — the largest week for any rock album in four years. It’s also the first rock effort to hit No. 1 in more than a year. The set’s opening frame is largely powered by streaming activity — and the album boasts the biggest streaming week ever for a rock album.
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Beyond Bryan’s rock achievements, his self-titled set also marks the third country title to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2023, and garners the fifth-largest debut streaming week for a country album.
Country and rock albums are defined as those that are eligible for, or have charted on, Billboard’s Top Country Albums and Top Rock Albums charts, respectively. Bryan is among a handful of recent acts that have placed a genre-blending album on both the Top Country Albums and Top Rock Albums charts. Others include Jelly Roll, HARDY, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, and Koe Wetzel.
Bryan’s first No. 1 comes after sustained momentum on the Billboard 200 in the last year-plus from his previous studio effort, American Heartbreak. It debuted and peaked at No. 5 in June 2022 and spawned the top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hit “Something in the Orange.” Heartbreak has yet to depart the weekly top 40 of the Billboard 200 in its 67 consecutive weeks on the list (it climbs 16-14 on the new tally).
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Sept. 9, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Sept. 6 — one day later than usual due to the Labor Day holiday on Monday, Sept. 4, in the U.S. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Zach Bryan’s 200,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Aug. 31, SEA units comprise 181,000 (equaling 233.09 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 16 songs — the largest streaming week ever for a rock set, and the fifth-largest streaming debut week for a country album), album sales comprise 17,000 (it was only available to purchase as a digital download, as its CD and vinyl LP are due out on Oct. 13) and TEA units comprise 2,000.
As noted above, Zach Bryan is the first rock album to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in more than a year. The last to do so was Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Unlimited Love, which spent one week at No. 1 — its debut frame — on the list dated April 16, 2022. Zach Bryan also logs the largest week, by equivalent album units earned, for a rock album in four years, since Tool’s Fear Inoculum launched at No. 1 on the Sept. 19, 2019, chart with 270,000 units.
A little over a year ago, Bryan earned his first Billboard 200 chart entry with his third studio album — and major label debut — American Heartbreak, debuting and peaking at No. 5 on the June 4, 2022-dated list. The album has generated 2.6 billion on-demand official streams for its songs in the U.S. and has been a consistent streaming star since its debut. The set has been among the week’s top 20 most-streamed albums, by on-demand streams, in all but three weeks since its debut.
The Heartbreak single “Something in the Orange” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, reached the top three on the all-genre Streaming Songs chart, and hit No. 10 on the all-genre, multi-metric Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Following Heartbreak, Bryan placed five more titles on the list, including his new self-titled effort.
Four former No. 1s trail Bryan on the new Billboard 200. Travis Scott’s Utopia falls to No. 2 (91,000 equivalent album units earned; down 44%) after spending its first four chart weeks at No. 1. Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time dips 2-3 (83,000; down 8%), Taylor Swift’s Midnights rises 5-4 (49,000; down 8%) and SZA’s SOS vaults 11-5 (48,000; up 15% after increased sales and streams generated by its current single “Snooze,” including the release of its official music video and new remixes).
The Barbie soundtrack falls 4-6 (48,000 equivalent album units earned; down 14%) and Peso Pluma’s Génesis climbs 9-7 (43,000; down 3%). Swift has two more former leaders in the top 10, as Lover in a non-mover at No. 8 (43,000; down 8%) and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) dips 7-9 (41,000; down 14%). Rounding out the top 10 is Wallen’s chart-topping Dangerous: The Double Album, holding steady at No. 10 with 40,000 units (down 5%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
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Karol G and Trippie Redd see their latest projects debut in the top 10 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated Aug. 26), while Travis Scott’s Utopia continues atop the list with a big gain owed to bargain-basement sale pricing.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Utopia sold 99,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 17 (up 169%), according to Luminate. Utopia’s album sales grew in the set’s third week on the chart thanks in part to a promotional offer in Scott’s official webstore, which discounted the Utopia vinyl LP from $50 to only $5 for a limited time. Of Utopia’s 99,000 sales for the week, vinyl accounted for 93,000. That sum marks Utopia’s best week on vinyl yet, the seventh-largest sales week on vinyl for any album since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991, and the biggest week for an R&B/hip-hop or rap album on vinyl in that same period.
Taylor Swift’s chart-topping Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) rises 5-2 on Top Album Sales with 23,000 (up 14%) while NewJeans’ former leader 2nd EP ‘Get Up’ falls 2-4 with 20,000 (down 24%).
Karol G logs her highest-charting set ever on Top Album Sales (and second top 10) – with her largest sales week yet – as Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season) starts at No. 4 with 17,000 sold. The new collection was available as a digital download album, CD and vinyl LP. The latter sold about 3,500 copies and arrives at No. 14 on the Vinyl Albums chart.
Swift’s former No. 1 Midnights bumps 9-5 with 13,000 (up 26%), the Barbie soundtrack is a non-mover at No. 6 with nearly 13,000 (down 10%) and Swift’s former leader Folklore climbs 8-7 with 12,000 (up 12%).
Trippie Redd scores his fifth top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales as A Love Letter to You 5 debuts at No. 8 with 11,000 sold. He notched his first top 10 five years ago with the No. 5-peaking Life’s a Trip.
Rounding out the top 10 on the new Top Album Sales chart are a pair former No. 1s: Swift’s Lover (rising 12-9 with 11,000; up 28%) and Stray Kids’ 5-Star: The 3rd Album (11-10 with 9,000; down 5%).
In the week ending Aug. 17, there were 1.869 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 4.5% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.540 million (up 6.4%) and digital albums comprised 329,000 (down 3.6%).
There were 646,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Aug. 17 (down 1.4% week-over-week) and 885,000 vinyl albums sold (up 13.1%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 22.236 million (up 3.1% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 29.613 million (up 21%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 63.938 million (up 7.7% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 52.191 million (up 12.6%) and digital album sales total 11.747 million (down 9.9%).