Chart Beat

When country tracks ranked at Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in history, it happened in part as a result of reverberations from a significant change in consumption measurements 11 years ago. 

Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” succeeded on country radio before it spread to other formats. Luke Combs’ “Fast Car” is a remake of a 1988 pop single that earned airplay on multiple formats after it broke out via streaming. Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” owes its rise to streaming and downloads spurred by a video controversy.

A study by a Cornell researcher released earlier this year suggests that the introduction of Billboard’s multimetric Hot Country Songs chart in October 2012 changed the industry’s understanding of consumer behavior. In turn, it made gatekeepers and creators more accepting of crossover elements and widened country’s potential in the marketplace. It also allowed Aldean’s release, a song that is far from the most-played one on current radio playlists, to top the charts through other means.

“A Change of Tune: The Democratization of Market Mediation and Crossover Production in the U.S. Commercial Music Industry” — authored by Yuan Shi, assistant professor at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business — suggests that when the primary chart expanded from radio-only data to a list built on airplay, sales and streaming, consumers replaced broadcasters as the ultimate arbiter of the format’s most popular songs. Those fans are less apt to put boundaries on the definition of country.

“The chart change, what it really does is give more voice to the consumers,” Shi says. “The creators and labels can now see, ‘Oh, this is what consumers want,’ even though they may not get played on radio.”

Exemplifying that phenomenon is “Heartbroken,” a new track by producer/DJ Diplo,pop singer Jessie Murph and hip-hop artist Polo G. Though none of the acts are country-centric, the song fits current standards in the genre and debuted at No. 14 on the Hot Country Songs chart dated Aug. 5, despite a general lack of airplay.

It’s not that the chart single-handedly changed country. But it did reflect consumer interest generated by means other than the radio, where programmers filter the music that’s exposed on the station. Those programmers have a vested interest in maintaining a sound distinct to their format. Shi’s study, which used metadata from crowd-sourced MusicBrainz.com, evaluated 20,000 songs released from 2010-2014. It found that the crossover components of country records released in the two years before the 2012 chart change vacillated frequently. But within three months after the shift to multimetric measurement, the crossover elements in country records became consistently more prominent.

Other significant events occurred at that time. Nashville songwriters began writing more frequently around 2010 with laptops, which led to a larger volume of programmed drums and more acceptance of computer plug-ins, which in turn allowed a wider variety of sounds. Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” marketed to both pop and country, arrived in August 2012, and Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise,” enhanced by a remix featuring Nelly, was a trend-setting release that same year. “Cruise” topped Hot Country Songs a then-record 24 weeks, demonstrating a level of popularity beyond the three-week No. 1 it achieved on Country Airplay.

At the same time, increases in streaming expanded the titles that were exposed to existing country fans. Simultaneously, younger listeners, some of them attracted by the Swift and FGL singles, began adopting country.

“Gateway drugs — man, they’ll get to you,” jokes 615 Radio Promotions president/radio consultant Brian Jennings, noting that crossover records often bring new fans to the format.

Jennings points to the rise of Kane Brown as one of the early beneficiaries of Hot Country Songs influence. Brown’s early consumption was rooted in streaming, and country radio accepted his blend of ’90s country, hip-hop and pop only grudgingly. He is now one of the genre’s core artists, but might have been missed had the chart not reflected consumers’ interest. 

“It accurately tells the music makers, the music consumers and the music spreaders or radio stations that this format can be far more diverse than we’ve been treating it,” says Jennings. “The audience figured it out long before we figured out how to do the correct chart for it.”

The creators have definitely responded. Songwriters and producers were previously driven almost exclusively by the tastes of country broadcasters, who tend to make safe programming choices to avoid tuneout. With Hot Country Songs reflecting consumer enthusiasm, the increased acceptance of unusual sounds and pop influence have made creators feel more freedom to take risks.

“It’s impossible to say that you’re never thinking about genre,” notes songwriter Jordan Reynolds, a co-writer of Dan + Shay’s broadly influenced “Save Me the Trouble” (see page 10). “But when you’re not as concerned about where it may land, things can get interesting. It’s either going to be really bad or really good.”

The really good chart performances definitely get noticed. Reynolds says Wallen’s chart successes with a variety of styles have made country’s creative community less conscious of boundaries. Shi believes that increased variety has given the genre more entree into the playlists of non-country fans and made those other audiences more curious about country. And that 2012 chart change, while not the sole driver, likely influenced the Wallen/Aldean/Combs trifecta.

“It has gotten bigger — in my opinion, based on my study — in part because country music has now crossed over into these other genres,” Shi says. “It’s bringing together a lot of ingredients from other popular genres like pop, rock, hip-hop, dance, and to an extent, it also brings together the audiences associated with these genres. I think that’s a big driver of the popularity that we’re seeing and also the historic moment.”

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