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While Jason Aldean’s performance at the 2024 CMT Music Awards was fairly straightforward for the country hitmaker, his appearance on the network’s signature awards show had some people raising their eyebrows. Singing “Let Your Boys Be Country,” a twangy rocker from his 2023 album Highway Desperado and top 20 hit on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart, […]
The biggest names in country music headed to the Moody Center in Austin, Texas, on Sunday (April 7) for the 2024 CMT Music Awards hosted by Kelsea Ballerini. The 2024 CMT Music Awards red carpet boasted appearances from Ballerini, Trisha Yearwood, Jelly Roll, Brandi Cyrus, rapper GloRilla, Little Big Town, Keith Urban, Cody Johnson and […]
The 2024 CMT Music Awards are here!
Going into Sunday night’s (April 7) show, Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, Cody Johnson, Kelsea Ballerini and Megan Moroney all lead the nominations with three apiece. Ballerini returns as host this year for the show, which is airing live from Moody Center in Austin, Texas, on CBS and streaming live and on-demand via Paramount+.
You can follow along with all the night’s biggest winners as Billboard brings you coverage from the red carpet, the show and beyond. Find the 2024 CMT Music Awards winners below:
Video of the year Best video of the year; awarded to the artist (male, female, group/duo or collaboration). Final voting will be determined via social media and announced as the final category during the live show.
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Cody Johnson – “The Painter”
Jelly Roll – “Need A Favor”
Kelsea Ballerini – “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too)”
Female video of the year Best video by a female artist; awarded to the artist.
Ashley McBryde – “Light On In The Kitchen”
Gabby Barrett – “Glory Days”
Kacey Musgraves – “Deeper Well”
Kelsea Ballerini – “Penthouse”
Lainey Wilson – “Watermelon Moonshine”
Megan Moroney – “I’m Not Pretty”
Reba McEntire – “Seven Minutes In Heaven”
Male video of the year Best video by a male artist; awarded to the artist.
Bailey Zimmerman – “Religiously”
Cody Johnson – “The Painter”
HARDY – “Truck Bed”
Jelly Roll – “Need A Favor”
Jordan Davis – “Next Thing You Know”
Luke Combs – “Fast Car (Official Live Video)”
Morgan Wallen – “Last Night (One Record At A Time Sessions)”
Duo/group video of the year
Best video by a duo or group; awarded to the artists.
Brothers Osborne – “Nobody’s Nobody”
Dan + Shay – “Save Me The Trouble”
Old Dominion – “Memory Lane”
Parmalee – “Girl In Mine”
The War And Treaty – “Have You A Heart”
Tigirlily Gold – “Shoot Tequila”
Collaborative video of the year Best video from a collaboration; awarded to the artists.
Carly Pearce feat. Chris Stapleton – “We Don’t Fight Anymore”
Ella Langley feat. Koe Wetzel – “That’s Why We Fight”
Jon Pardi, Luke Bryan – “Cowboys And Plowboys”
Justin Moore & Priscilla Block – “You, Me And Whiskey”
Lukas Nelson + Promise of The Real feat. Lainey Wilson – “More Than Friends”
Mickey Guyton feat. Kane Brown – “Nothing Compares To You”
Old Dominion & Megan Moroney – “Can’t Break Up Now”
Breakthrough female video of the year, presented by Walt Disney WorldBest video from a female artist’s major breakthrough album; awarded to the artist.
Anne Wilson – “Rain In The Rearview”
Ashley Cooke – “your place”
Brittney Spencer – “Bigger Than The Song”
Tigirlily Gold – “Shoot Tequila”
Breakthrough male video of the year, presented by Walt Disney WorldBest video from a male artist’s major breakthrough album; awarded to the artist.
Chayce Beckham – “23”
Tyler Childers – “In Your Love”
Warren Zeiders – “Pretty Little Poison”
Zach Bryan – “Oklahoma Smokeshow”
CMT performance of the yearMusical performance on a television show, series or variety special on CMT; awarded to the artist (individual, group or duo).
Amber Riley – “R.E.S.P.E.C.T.” (from CMT Smashing Glass)
Bret Michaels & Chris Janson – “Nothing But a Good Time” (from CMT Crossroads)
Carrie Underwood – “Hate My Heart” (from 2023 CMT Music Awards)
Cody Johnson – “Human” (from 2023 CMT Music Awards)
Dierks Bentley – “Drunk On A Plane” (from CMT Storytellers)
Dustin Lynch feat. MacKenzie Porter – “Thinking ‘Bout You” (from CMT Campfire Sessions)
Hozier & Maren Morris – “Take Me To Church” (from CMT Crossroads)
Jelly Roll – “Need a Favor” (from 2023 CMT Music Awards)
Kelsea Ballerini – “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too)” (from 2023 CMT Music Awards)
The War And Treaty – “On My Own” (from CMT Smashing Glass)
CMT digital-first performance of the year
Musical performance from a production, series or livestream created for CMT digital / social channels; awarded to the artist (individual, group or duo).
Chase Rice – “Goodnight Nancy” (from CMT Studio Sessions)
Dylan Scott – “Don’t Close Your Eyes (Keith Whitley Cover)” (from CMT Digital Campfire Sessions)
Megan Moroney – “I’m Not Pretty” (from CMT Digital Campfire Sessions)
Nate Smith – “Whiskey On You” (from CMT Studio Sessions)
Stephen Wilson Jr. – “Year to Be Young 1994” (from CMT Studio Sessions)
Scotty McCreery – “It Matters To Her” (from CMT Stages)
The Castellows – “I Know It Will Never End” (from CMT Studio Sessions)
Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter gallops in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated April 13), debuting with 407,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending April 4, according to Luminate. It’s the superstar’s eighth No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200.
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With 407,000 units earned, Cowboy Carter claims the biggest week of 2024 and the largest since Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) bowed with 1.653 million units on the Nov. 11, 2023-dated list. Cowboy Carter’s launch is also Beyoncé’s biggest week, by units, since her Lemonade album debuted at No. 1 with 653,000 units (mostly from traditional album sales) on the May 14, 2016, chart. The new effort also lands Beyoncé her biggest streaming week ever.
Cowboy Carter also launches at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums, Americana/Folk Albums and Top Album Sales charts. She’s the first Black woman ever to have led the Top Country Albums list, dating to its January 1964 inception. Cowboy Carter also claims the biggest week for a country album, by units earned, since last July, when Taylor Swift’s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), opened at No. 1 on the July 22, 2023 chart with 716,000 units.
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Cowboy Carter was introduced by the singles “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” which were released during the Super Bowl festivities on Feb. 11. The tracks debuted and have peaked (through the charts dated April 6) at Nos. 1 and 9, respectively, on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, marking Beyoncé’s first entries on the tally. They have also reached Nos. 1, for two weeks, and 38 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 songs chart.
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 April 13, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on April 9. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of Cowboy Carter’s first-week unit sum of 407,000, SEA units comprise 232,000 (equaling 300.41 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs), traditional album sales comprise 168,000 and TEA units comprise 7,000. With 300.41 million on-demand official streams, Cowboy Carter earns Beyoncé her biggest streaming week ever and the fourth-largest for a country album.
Cowboy Carter marks Beyoncé’s eighth No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. She previously led the list with Renaissance (in 2022), Lemonade (2016), her self-titled album (2013), 4 (2011), I Am… Sasha Fierce (2008), B’Day (2006) and Dangerously In Love (2003). Beyoncé breaks out of a tie with Janet Jackson for the fourth-most No. 1s among women. Swift has the most, with 13, followed by Barbra Streisand (11), Madonna (nine), Beyoncé (eight) and Jackson (seven).
Cowboy Carter’s sales were supported by the album’s availability across a number of configurations, released on March 29. It was issued as standard 19-track edition on vinyl (across four variants, each pressed on different color vinyl [black, red, white and blue] with alternate back cover artwork), a CD with an additional song (“Flamenco”) and a digital download and streaming edition (both in clean and explicit versions, with three bonus songs “Flamenco,” “Spaghetti” and “Ya Ya,” plus two interludes). The CD edition was issued in four variants (each with different back cover art). Two of the variants were sold as stand-alone items, while two of the CDs were only available inside two deluxe boxed sets (each with a different branded T-shirt contained inside a branded box). All physical configurations of the album were sold exclusively through Beyoncé’s official webstore, while the digital download and streaming editions were widely available.
The vinyl edition of Cowboy Carter sold 62,000 copies (across its four variants combined), marking Beyoncé’s biggest week on vinyl and the largest week for any vinyl album in 2024.
Cowboy Carter boasts an eclectic lineup of billed guest artists, including Tanner Adell, Beyoncé’s daughter Rumi Carter, Miley Cyrus, Willie Jones, Tiera Kennedy, Linda Martell, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Post Malone, Reyna Roberts, Shaboozey, and Brittney Spencer. Among the many additional players on the album: 070 Shake, Jon Batiste, Ryan Beatty, Gary Clark Jr., The-Dream, Rhiannon Giddens, Paul McCartney, Pharrell, Robert Randolph, Nile Rodgers, Raphael Saadiq, Sara Watkins and Stevie Wonder.
Future and Metro Boomin’s We Don’t Trust You falls to No. 2 on the latest Billboard 200 after debuting atop the list a week ago. The set earned 131,000 equivalent album units in its second week (down 48%). Morgan Wallen’s former leader One Thing at a Time rises 4-3 with 69,000 (up 2%) and Ariana Grande’s chart-topping Eternal Sunshine dips 3-4 with 58,000 (down 19%).
J-Hope’s Hope On the Street, Vol. 1 debuts at No. 5 with 50,000 equivalent album units earned. It’s J-Hope’s second top 10-charting effort, and highest-charting set, following Jack In the Box, which peaked at No. 6 on the Sept. 2, 2023-dated list. Of Hope On the Street’s 50,000 units earned, album sales comprise 44,000, SEA units comprise 4,000 (equaling 5.7 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs) and TEA units comprise 2,000. The album’s sales were supported by eight collectible CD editions (including exclusive variants for Target, Walmart and the Weverse store), all containing branded paper merchandise.
Olivia Rodrigo’s former No. 1 Guts falls 2-6 on the new Billboard 200, with 49,000 equivalent album units earned (down 32%), Noah Kahan’s Stick Season descends 5-7 with 44,000 units (down 2%) and Taylor Swift’s chart-topping Lover falls 7-8 with 40,000 units (down 1%). Rounding out the top 10 are two former leaders: SZA’s SOS (6-9 with 39,000; down 3%) and Zach Bryan’s self-titled album (8-10 with nearly 39,000; down 1%).
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.
Parker McCollum notches his third leader on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart as “Burn It Down” rages 6-1 in its 44th week on the survey (dated April 13). The song advanced by 17% to 27.5 million audience impressions March 29-April 4, according to Luminate.
McCollum co-authored “Burn It Down” with Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna and Liz Rose, and Jon Randall produced it.
The song is the sophomore single from McCollum’s LP, Never Enough, which arrived at its No. 12 best on Top Country Albums last May. Lead single “Handle on You” hit No. 2 on Country Airplay the same month, awarding the Conroe, Texas, native his third of four straight career-opening top 10s. His first entry, “Pretty Heart,” led for a week in December 2020, followed by “To Be Loved by You,” which reigned for a week in March 2022.
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Currently on tour, McCollum makes his next stop in Edinburg, Texas, on April 5 with special guests Corey Kent and Catie Offerman.
Meanwhile, McCollum’s 6-1 vault marks the second such surge in a row on Country Airplay. On the April 6 chart, Chayce Beckham’s solely self-written “23” made the same move, becoming the 2021 American Idol champ’s first leader.
Since the chart began in January 1990, the biggest jump to the summit belongs to Ricky Van Shelton’s “Keep It Between the Lines,” which blasted 9-1 on the Oct. 12, 1991, survey.
Beyoncé & ‘Jolene’
Beyoncé debuts her second Country Airplay entry, as her reworking of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” begins at No. 56 (982,000 in audience). It’s the second song from her new album, Cowboy Carter, released March 29, to make the list — lead single “Texas Hold ‘Em” ranks at No. 37 (3.2 million, down 6%) in its eighth week, after reaching No. 33.
Jelly Roll and Bunnie XO aren’t having the smoothest trip to Austin, Texas, ahead of this year’s Country Music Television Awards. In a TikTok posted Thursday (April 4) by the Dumb Blonde Podcast host — who wed the “Son of a Sinner” singer in 2016 — the couple and their posse experienced a major setback […]
The buzz surrounding the March 29 release of Beyoncé’s country-inspired Act II: Cowboy Carter project, the second in a trilogy of albums following 2022’s Renaissance, has led to streaming lifts and a wave of recognition for several of the rising Black country artists featured on the project, including Shaboozey, Willie Jones, Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts and Tiera Kennedy. According to Luminate, Roberts’s catalog streams jumped 59%, followed by Adell (58%), Kennedy (56%), Spencer (41%), Jones (31%) and Shaboozey (16%).
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The wide-ranging Cowboy Carter folds in music including country, Americana, an Italian aria, songs made popular by Chuck Berry, The Beatles and The Beach Boys, as well as moments of Brazilian funk, and welcomes a spectrum of artists including pop hitmakers Miley Cyrus and Post Malone, spoken cameos from Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson and an interpolation of Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces.” Meanwhile, the album also pays tribute to pioneers such as Black female country trailblazer Linda Martell, while shining a light on country music’s Black roots and the legacy of Black country artists who have paved (and are paving) their own paths.
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While Adell, Kennedy, Roberts and Spencer offer up vocals mostly collectively on “Blackbiird,” and provide harmonies on other tracks, Shaboozey and Jones are each featured on separate tracks. Shaboozey, the Virginia-born artist known for his own genre-melding songs (including “Vegas,” “Beverly Hills” and his viral hit from 2023, “Let It Burn”), appears on two songs on Cowboy Carter: “Sweet Honey Buckiin’” and “Spaghettii.”
Shaboozey noted that like some other creators on the album, he spent time at a studio in Los Angeles. “It’s all collaborative,” he says of contributing his portion of songs to the project earlier this year. “Everyone’s working at the same time and different rooms and I came in a couple of days and recorded some parts. [Beyoncé] heard them later and liked them. It’s cool how you don’t know until the last moment if your part made it or not. We were waiting up until 9 p.m. PT [on album release day] to know if we made the cut.”
Martell, who was the first Black female country artist to perform on the Grand Ole Opry, does a spoken-word intro to “Spaghettii.” According to Luminate, she has since seen her catalog streams rise from a little under 5,000 streams during the weekend of March 22-24 to 61,000 streams from March 29-31, making a 1,100% surge. Shaboozey says when he began contributing to “Spaghettii,” he did not know about Martell’s segment.
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“That’s how Beyoncé, she likes to put things together, taking different parts of different things and different bridges, always experimenting with the sound, so very free-form over there,” he says, adding “I’m also a huge Linda Martell supporter and I admire her story. It’s cool how everything came together and I’m really honored to be on a song with these two incredible individuals.”
Shaboozey is also gearing up for the release of his own country album next month, with Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, out May 31 via Empire. The project follows his previous projects, 2022’s Cowboys Live Forever, Outlaws Never Die and his 2018 debut Lady Wrangler.
He describes his upcoming album as “a little bit of this genre that even Cowboy Carter created, just a bit of everything. A lot of country, but some hip-hop moments on there, too. But a lot of my personal story and journey into those records as well.”
Louisiana native Jones offers up vocals on “Just for Fun,” which was written by Beyonce, Dave Hamelin, Jeff “Gitty” Gitelman and Ryan Beatty. Jones competed on The X Factor’s second season, where he auditioned with a version of Josh Turner’s “Your Man.” He issued his first album Down for It in 2021 and was part of the 2022 documentary For Love and Country, which focused on the careers, journeys and struggles of Black artists in country music. This week, he released his rendition of Usher’s “OMG” as part of a new Apple Music Sessions EP.
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He notes that his favorite line in “Just For Fun” is “Time heals everything/ I don’t need anything, Hallelujah.” “I got in the studio and I heard the song and I related to it more than d–n near any song I’ve ever heard in my life. To be on the same track as Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter is definitely a check off my bucket list.”
“She’s bringing people back to themselves and doing a lot of introspective work,” Jones says. “She’s talking about growth, family and legacy and when life gives you lemons make Lemonade. Then after that, she gave us Homecoming and it’s like she’s saying, ‘Go back to your roots and get educated.’ Then she gives us Renaissance, like, ‘Let’s dance, let’s be free.’ So it comes to this album, too, with songs like ‘American Requiem,’ ‘Blackbiird,’ ‘Spaghettii.’ It’s cool to see everybody’s streams go up, just because Beyoncé believed in her legacy and her roots and her ancestors. She trusted the universe enough to walk by faith and not by sight and be humble and open. She’s transforming country music for the lost and found so we can find our way back.”
Jones also notes the impact he says Beyoncé has had so many genres of music. “I say Beyoncé is my favorite rapper. She jumped on [Megan Thee Stallion’s] ‘Savage,’ and you saw the rap girls get a moment. Then with ‘Black Is King,’ and dropped the album with Disney and you saw Afrobeats go. So she did the same thing with country. I hope she does that with R&B, I hope she brings that back, because I need a ‘Dream Girls Part 2.’”
Shaboozey sums, “It feels awesome. It feels great for someone like her to enter the space that me and a few others have just been building on and creating from for a long time. It’s just amazing. We’re so happy to have such a powerhouse of an artist that chose to take this journey to country, so it’s amazing to be a part of that.”
Country-rap performer Colt Ford is currently in the intensive care unit at the Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa, Arizona, after the artist suffered a heart attack on Thursday night (April 4) following a show at Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row in Gilbert, Arizona. At press time Ford’s team had no further updates on his condition. […]
From Beyoncé‘s “Jolene” cover to Jay-Z’s speech at the 2024 Grammys, Lily Allen has some thoughts about the superstar’s new album Country Carter — particularly its positioning in the country music landscape.
While speaking about the record on her BBC podcast Miss Me? on Thursday (April 4), the British singer-songwriter started by dissecting Bey’s revamped take on the Dolly Parton classic — which finds the “Texas Hold ‘Em” artist singing updated lyrics seemingly about her husband. For instance: “You don’t want no hеat with me, Jolene/ We’ve been deep in love for twenty years/ I raised that man, I raised his kids.”
“I read a comment from Azealia Banks where she was like, ‘Stop talking about Jay-Z as if anyone wants to f–k him,” Allen said, laughing. “Literally, no one’s even looked at him for about 10 years, relax.”
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When co-host Miquita Oliver asked Allen whether she personally found the Tidal founder attractive, she replied, “I mean, I’m attracted to power, so yes?”
“But maybe not physically,” added the singer, who is married to Stranger Things star David Harbour. “I don’t want my current husband to get upset, but it’s not really the physical I go for.”
The “Smile” artist went on to knock Bey’s choice to cover “Jolene” on Cowboy Carter, a move that was personally endorsed by the country icon. “It’s very weird that you’d cover the most successful songs in that genre,” Allen mused. “I just feel like it’s quite an interesting thing to do when you’re like trying to tackle a new genre and you just choose the biggest song in that genre to cover. I mean, you do you, Beyoncé, and she literally is doing her. Or is she doing Dolly?”
As far as the Cowboy Carter rollout goes, Allen thinks Bey’s pivot to country has been “quite calculated.” “The front cover is her in a cowboy hat, riding on a horse,” she said, noting that she thinks Jay-Z’s remarks at the 2024 Grammys about the Recording Academy continuously snubbing the Destiny’s Child alum for album of the year were “part of this campaign.”
“She was wearing a blonde wig and a cowboy hat [at the Grammys],” Allen said. “It’s a bit about challenging these institutions that have thus far rejected Beyonce as the icon and institution she is herself.”
“Now she’s the most played woman on country radio. No. 1,” she continued. “She’s coming for that market. I don’t really know why, but then, who am I to question it? Whatever floats your boat.”
Beyoncé is no stranger to lifting up her fellow Black artists, and she did just that with her recently released album, Cowboy Carter.
The project features Tanner Addell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts on Bey’s “Blackbiird,” a rendition of The Beatles’ 1968 classic. Linda Martell and Shaboozey are feaured on “Spaghettii,” while Willie Jones sings on “Just for Fun.” Shaboozey also makes an appearance on “Sweet Honey Buckiin’.”
To celebrate the talented Black artists that contributed to Cowboy Carter, Spotify launched a billboard in Los Angeles this week, noting that each of the featured artists received an impressive bump in streams and visibility on the streaming platform since the album’s release.
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Spotify x COWBOY CARTER Billboard
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According to Spotify, Beyoncé’s catalogue got a 395% in streaming since Cowboy Carter‘s release, Spencer’s music saw an increase of 37,220%, Reynolds saw an increase of 16,000%, Adell saw an increase of 3,200%, Kennedy saw an increase of 40,000%, Jones saw an increase of 5,650%, Shaboozey saw an increase of 1,350% and Martell saw a nearly 127,430% increase in catalog streams on Spotify.
Each artist also got a boost in first-time listeners. Beyonce’s first-time listeners increased by 85%, Spencer’s increased by 170%, Reynolds’ increased by 125%, Adell saw an uptick of 125% in first-time listeners, Kennedy’s increased by 110%, Jones’ increased by 75%, Shaboozey’s increased by 70% and Martell saw a nearly 1,145% uptick in first-time listeners on Spotify.
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On the day of its release on March 29, Cowboy Carter officially became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day in 2024.
See Spotify’s Cowboy Carter billboard in its entirety below.
Spotify x COWBOY CARTER Billboard
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