Country
Page: 199
A new study solidifies the belief that country radio has long been reluctant to play songs from women in general — and almost never plays two women artists back-to-back.
The study, by Jan Diehm of The Pudding and Dr. Jada Watson, is titled They Won’t Play a Lady-O on Country Radio: Examining Back-to-Back Plays by Gender, Race and Sexual Orientation. It pulls from the daily logs of 29 country radio stations in large market areas, analyzing 24-hour programming in each month of 2022 to see how often listeners of those stations could expect to hear back-to-back songs by women, artists of color and LGBTQ+ artists. Among the country radio stations included in the study were KKGO (Los Angeles), WUSN (Chicago), KKBQ and KILT (Houston), WKDF (Nashville) and WMZQ (Washington, DC).
The study found that at these stations, songs from women country artists were played back-to-back an average of 0.5% of the time. In data that is consistent with SongData’s findings regarding daypart programming, the majority of these back-to-back plays (46.1%) occurred in overnights (between midnight and 6 a.m.), while 19% were played during evening hours (between 7 p.m. and midnight) — time periods with lower listenership. In the intro to the study, an anecdotal sample is given, noting that if one had tuned into a particular (unnamed) station at 8:35 a.m. on Jan. 7, 2022, it would have taken over nine hours before hearing two consecutive songs from female artists.
“If you listen to this station non-stop from midnight to 11:59 p.m. today, you’d likely only hear three back-to-back songs by women, compared to 245 from men,” the report states.
“We’ve heard for many years that songs by women should not be programmed back-to-back — as we say in the study, it’s been part of industry rhetoric since at least the 1960s and was even written into programming manuals,” Watson tells Billboard via email. “But it’s one of those issues that is spoken about anecdotally and now we have this study to show not just that it’s true, but just how bleak it is for women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists at radio.”
The new report builds upon Watson’s earlier work, including her March 2021 study, Redlining in Country Music: Representation in the Country Music Industry (2000-2020), and an updated version released earlier this year.
“As a listener, it’s pretty easy to pick up on the bias in country radio when you can spend 20 minutes in your car and go without hearing a single song by a woman, let alone back-to-back songs by women,” Diehm tells Billboard via email. “So, I was expecting the worst, but it was so much worse than that. My hometown station is San Antonio (KCYY-FM), the station we used in the intro of the piece — [and] you know it’s bad when you start to think of a station that plays women back-to-back at 0.99% as one of the ‘better’ stations.”
Diehm added that while compiling the study, she and Watson brought in statistics professor Sara Stoudt, who ran 1,000 “coin-flip” simulations for each of the stations represented. “Even when accounting for the already low rate of plays for women, 17 of the 29 stations played fewer women’s songs back-to-back than you would expect them to if the plays were left up to chance,” she continues. “Not that I needed convincing, but it proved even further that these were absolutely programming decisions and not something that stations could talk themselves out of. That one-two punch of qualitative stories and quantitative data might just help move the needle.”
Moreover, the majority of songs from women that are played back-to-back are not current singles. “Gold catalog” songs (songs that are several years old) make up 36.2% of the back-to-back songs played by women, while recurrents (songs that have reached their peak on the station’s playlist but are still part of the station’s programming) account for 43.7%. Meanwhile, current singles from women artists accounted for just 20.1% of the small percentage of back-to-back airplay for songs performed by women.
The impact of current music from women being absent from country radio creates a harmful spiral that impacts other areas of women artists’ careers. It leads to fewer women signing to record labels, fewer women earning performance opportunities on major tours, festivals and awards ceremony slots and fewer women receiving awards nominations, the study asserts.
“It creates a culture where women are competing only against other women for an already teeny tiny amount of slots,” Diehm says. “Playing only ‘gold songs’ by women artists also means that you’re freezing them in time, not allowing them to grow or evolve, because heaven forbid we let a woman gain or hold power.”
Songs by women of color and LGBTQ+ artists were played even less on country radio — earning less than 1% of airplay last year. Songs by female artists overall earned 11% of last year’s airplay, with 10.97% of that low percentage of airplay going to white women and only 0.03% to Black and biracial women. The study further notes that only six solo Black women and one group of Black women have ranked on country radio charts since 1958. Meanwhile, LGBTQIA+ artists received just 0.13% of airplay in 2022.
“The bar for entry is high for new women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists. And then we’re left with this practice in which radio supports one woman at a time — and that duration for which white women are supported is becoming shorter,” Watson says. She adds that from roughly 2005 to 2014, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Taylor Swift received “sustained” support from radio and were responsible for a whopping 83% of the No. 1 songs by women during that period — and 55% of No. 1 songs by women over the last two decades in total.
While the above women artists still receive airplay (and Swift has transitioned to pop), Watson notes that since 2015, newer women artists like Kelsea Ballerini, Maren Morris, Carly Pearce and Lainey Wilson have received only “short periods of support,” adding that “the industry only lets one succeed at a time…This is a culture that limits space for white women and then tosses out their music once it’s peaked on the charts. They don’t even open the door to BIPOC women and LGBTQ+ artists.”
The report also offers historical insight, showing how female representation on country radio (specifically cataloged by Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart) rose from 6.5% in 1958 to a peak of 33.1% in 1999 (a time when the chart was based only on radio airplay). But in the decades that followed, charting songs by women artists plummeted to a low of 11.4% in 2015 (the same year that radio consultant Keith Hill made his now-infamous comments that compared female artists to the “tomatoes” in a male-dominated “salad”). The study notes that over the past seven years, the percentage of charting songs by female artists has averaged just 15%.
Though the Hot Country Songs chart now incorporates data beyond just radio airplay, the study shows that the numbers from the early 2000s correlate to Mediabase airplay data, which was used to calculate back-to-back rates of airplay in the study.
Going forward, Watson plans to continue studying the country radio format but is also interested in “thinking more broadly about the distribution ecosystem and exploring user engagement with Spotify’s recommender system.” She has also embarked on studying the Triple A format, which she notes has “a much different strategy for programming and is a format that has been a major launching pad for new artists of all genres.”
“Country music may be the closest to my heart,” Watson adds, “but examining representation in radio programming and charts of other formats is really important for understanding how these genre systems developed over time and work together within the larger industry ecosystem. Country isn’t the only format with these forms of inequity.”
Billboard has reached out for comment to a number of radio chains with country stations and will update the story as they respond.
Blake Shelton‘s 23-season run as a coach on The Voice came to a close Tuesday (May 23) with the singing competition’s season finale on NBC.
Shelton, a coach on the show since its first season, was celebrated by several celebs, including his wife, singer-songwriter Gwen Stefani. But he also earned a special shout-out from none other than Country Music Hall of Fame member George Strait, who sent in a video congratulating Shelton.
“Hey, Blake, I just want to say congratulations on the successful run you had on The Voice,” Strait said. “You really stole the show, man, you really did. So, congratulations on that and I wish you the best of luck in whatever you decide to do next. I’m sure it’ll be great, whatever it is, and I’ll see you out there on the road sometime.”
Shelton responded after watching the video, saying, “That’s the true king of country right there.”
The “Minimum Wage” singer has earned the most wins of any coach on The Voice, with nine of his team members taking home victories over the years, including Danielle Bradbery, Cassadee Pope, Jermaine Paul and Sundance Head. However, in Shelton’s final season, Team Blake wasn’t victorious; that honor went to Team Niall Horan member Gina Miles.
Reba McEntire has been named as Shelton’s replacement in the coach’s chair next season. The Voice season 24 coaches are McEntire, Stefani, Niall Horan and John Legend.
Shelton recently told Entertainment Tonight that he plans to spend more time focusing on his personal life after leaving The Voice.
“I want to finally have the opportunity to say yes to more stuff in my personal life and not say, ‘Let me check,’ or just flat-out no,” the singer said.
Check out George Strait’s message to Blake Shelton below:
“Wilder Days” hitmaker Morgan Wade will undergo a double mastectomy as a preventative measure in November, she has shared. Wade discussed the decision with Page Six.
“My mom had it, and my little cousin is going to get it, but I’ll be fine,” said Wade, who had been diagnosed with a mutation in the RAD51D gene. She also noted that she received the news of the gene mutation while on tour in Europe last year.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
On a lighter note, she added, “I’m feeling fine, I’m just pissed I won’t be able to work out because I really like working out. That’s my only qualm about it.”
According to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the RAD51D gene normally works to prevent cancer, though a mutation can cause the gene to stop working correctly. Inheriting a mutated variant of the gene can lead to increased risk of certain cancers, including breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
“Women with a RAD51D mutation have about a 10-20 percent lifetime risk for ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal cancer (these three cancers and their risks are related and are often referred to together as ovarian cancer),” Wade added in a social media post. “Women with a RAD51D mutation have about a 20-40 percent lifetime risk for breast cancer with a tendency for triple-negative breast cancer.”
On Aug. 25, Wade will release her new album Psychopath, on Sony Music Nashville, the follow-up to her breakthrough project, Reckless. On the new 13-song project, Wade reunites with her Reckless producer Sadler Vaden.
“Regardless of what people say about Psychopath, I’m proud because I feel like it showcases where I’m at with my sophomore album,” Wade previously said via a press release. “I have no choice but to be authentic. And I have to feel what I feel. And right now, I’m really feeling the music.”
Read Wade’s message about her decision to have a preventative double mastectomy below:
Bailey Zimmerman scores his second top 10 on both the Top Country Albums and all-genre Billboard 200 charts dated May 27.
The singer-songwriter’s new LP, Religiously. The Album., which was released May 12, bounds onto Top Country Albums at No. 3 and the Billboard 200 at No. 7. It opens with 47,000 equivalent album units earned through May 18, according to Luminate, a weekly career-high for Zimmerman.
The album follows his nine-song set Leave the Light On, which debuted at Nos. 2 and 9, respectively (32,000 units), in October 2022.
Religiously was produced Austin Shawn, and Zimmerman co-wrote 11 of its 16 songs. The first two singles, “Fall in Love” and “Rock and a Hard Place,” topped the Country Airplay chart for one and six weeks, respectively.
Zimmerman, 23, from Louisville, Ill., made history when “Rock” ruled Country Airplay for its sixth week, on the April 27-dated survey, as he became the first male artist to spend six weeks atop the chart just two or fewer promoted entries, in a lead role, into a career. Only one other act overall has achieved the feat: Carrie Underwood’s first promoted country single, “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” dominated for six weeks in January-February 2006.
Plus, on the multimetric Hot Country Songs chart dated Sept. 3, 2022, Zimmerman became the first artist to place three career-opening entries in the top 10 simultaneously, since the list began as an all-encompassing genre ranking in October 1958: “Rock and a Hard Place,” “Where It Ends” and “Fall in Love.” Zimmerman’s current single is the new set’s title track. On Hot Country Songs, it pushes 18-12 for a new best, with 9.5 million streams (up 34%) and 1,000 sold (up 36%). It leaps 40-29 on Country Airplay, up 62% to 3.9 million impressions.
Blake Shelton‘s exit from The Voice is imminent, and the country star is looking forward to taking time off once he leaves his spinning red chair for the last time. “I want to finally have the opportunity to say yes to more stuff in my personal life and not say, ‘Let me check,’ or just […]
At the 2021 Grammy Awards, much-heralded Nashville songwriter Brandy Clark and Americana stalwart Brandi Carlile were nominated for their collaboration “Same Devil.” Though the duet didn’t cinch a win that year for the two singer-songwriters (Clark has 11 Grammy nominations to date, while Carlile has nine wins), it did provide the genesis for Clark’s self-titled album, which released Friday (May 19).
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
“She leaned over to me and said, ‘Hey buddy, I’d love to produce a whole record on you.’ I was really taken aback and flattered,” Clark tells Billboard, noting the shared geographical roots between the two Washington state natives. “She said, ‘I like to think things through and I see it as your return to the Northwest.’”
Clark, who now splits her time between California and Nashville, has formed a reputation as one of Nashville’s most sought-after writers, one capable of penning songs that are both commercial and clever, including “Better Dig Two” (The Band Perry), the CMA song of the year-winning “Follow Your Arrow” (Kacey Musgraves) and the Grammy-nominated songs “Mama’s Broken Heart” (Miranda Lambert) and “Beautiful Noise” (Brandi Carlile/Alicia Keys).
In 2013, Clark issued her own debut album, the sterling 12 Stories, followed by 2016’s Big Day in a Small Town and 2020’s Your Life is a Record. The new album pairs the twin pillars of Clark’s songwriting muscle (and intimate vocal talents), with Carlile’s skills as a collaborator and producer. Carlile previously co-produced the Tanya Tucker project While I’m Livin’, which brought Tucker her first two Grammy wins in her decades-long career.
“She pushed me a lot. I’ve never been as challenged by a producer as I was by her,” Clark says, noting Carlile’s approach to narrowing down the songs that ultimately make up the album.
“I gave her like 18-24 songs and asked her to pick about a dozen. I liked them all, but I was surprised by some of her choices. She told me, ‘I chose the songs that I thought sounded like you wrote them in your bedroom, and not in the writing room.’ And that was a really good reminder for me, because when we all got into music it wasn’t because we needed it to be perfect; it was because it moved us.”
On this carefully constructed, eponymous project — Clark’s fourth album — she turns her detailed style of songcraft on her own stories, relying less on character sketches and instead excavating her own stories, familial influences and even emotional hesitancies as source material.
“Dear Insecurity,” is a musical letter to the self-critical hauntings, written with Michael Pollack (Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers”). “I knew from day one that I wanted that song to be on this record,” Clark says. “When we went into the studio, it was also on Brandy’s list. She suggested a duet and I instantly loved the idea.”
Carlile had a list of artists she had thought about bringing onto the record — names including Ed Sheeran and Lucinda Williams. But when Carlile sang on the scratch vocal, Clark was so moved by the sound of their intertwined voices across the vulnerable lyric that she decided to keep the duet with Carlile.
“We do share some similar insecurities, and that’s probably why it comes off the way it does. To me, it’s a great song, but when you add her to it, it makes it exponentially something else, just magic,” Clark says.
Carlile’s own longtime collaborators, Lucius, offer otherworldly vocals on the bluesy groove of “All Over Again” and are featured on “Tell Her You Don’t Love Her.”
“I don’t go to a ton of shows — I should go to more — but the last time I went to a show it was one of theirs,” Clark says. “When I mentioned that I love their music, Brandi was like, ‘They have to be on this record.’ She got them and her brother Jay [Carlile] to sing and give it that choir thing [on “All Over Again”]. I don’t know how we’re gonna pull it off live, because we don’t have that many voices onstage, but we’ll figure it out.”
“She Smoked in the House,” which was written about Clark’s late grandmother, vividly recounts a woman who unabashedly lit up cigs in the house and cut the mold off of cantaloupe and cheese.
“I used to write a lot in the car. I would take drives out to Leiper’s Fork in Nashville when I was blocked and songs would come to me. That song came when I was driving around and really on a Merle Haggard kick,” Clark says. “I was missing my grandparents and he always takes me back to that — I got stuck on ‘Are the Good Times Really Over’ for weeks — that would be the only thing I would listen to.”
Carlile started out attempting to craft “a big wide sweep about her generation,” writing numerous verses, though not enough that connected with her emotionally. “I kept thinking, ‘What’s wrong with this song?’ Then I remembered something Mark Sanders — who is a fantastic writer — told me early in my career. He said, ‘If you want to be general, you must first be specific.’ And honestly, the song was really about my grandma, so once I locked in on that, there weren’t a lot of throwaway lines. I can’t believe the texts that I’ve received from people who say, ‘She cut the mold off of cantaloupe — that’s my grandma, too.’”
A five-day writing retreat in September 2021 with Jimmy Robbins and Jessie Jo Dillon yielded two sonically disparate tracks — the bluesy murder story “Ain’t Enough Rocks” (featuring Derek Trucks), and the tender ballad “Up Above the Clouds.”
The former was written the first night of the retreat, and inspired by a famous scene in the 1994 movie Forrest Gump, where the character Jenny is throwing rocks at the home she once grew up in.
“She says, ‘Sometimes there’s just not enough rocks,’ and Jessie Jo said she had always wanted to write a song about that scene,” Clark says. “Jessie Jo, Jimmy and I have each known different people who were sexual abuse survivors, but it did feel a little weird to me to record it because, fortunately for me, I’m not an abuse survivor. But my way into it is that all of that song is the storyteller, but the last verse is ‘Some crimes don’t deserve a jury or a penitentiary.’ I believe that, so I can get into it from that point of view. I love that this song comes first, and then ‘Buried’ follows it, because the record has a whole palette of colors here.”
“Up Above the Clouds (Cecelia’s Song)” is a tender ballad dedicated to a child battling cancer, the niece of one of Clark’s best friends. “We sent the song to his brother, Cecelia’s dad, and his brother sent me a text about how much that song meant to them,” Clark says. “It was just the work tape, helping him to see the sunshine amongst all these clouds in their lives. It was heavy on my heart and I asked Jessie Jo and Jimmy if we could dedicate that song to her and Jessie Jo said, ‘Why don’t we just call it “Cecelia’s Song?”‘ I was really moved by that.”
Alongside crafting her new album, Clark has seen the long-awaited release of the musical Shucked, the project she and writer/producer Shane McAnally have been crafting for the past decade. At the recent Tony Awards nominations announcement, Shucked picked up nine overall nods, including original score. “I’ve never been involved with something that has taken on the life that this has; it’s been an incredible gift,” Clark says.
She was also a key contributor to Ashley McBryde’s collaborative album Lindeville, which musically tells stories from the different perspectives of the unique characters that reside in the fictional Lindeville (Clark also performed alongside McBryde on the recent ACM Awards). Moving forward, we could see more cinematic-flavored works from Clark.
“I’d love to write all the music for a movie. I’ve also had people approach me about — it’s never panned out — about turning one of my records into a series or a movie. I’d love to do that. I love writing visually, and I think more on a big-project basis even than writing songs and trying to get people to cut them. I did that for so long and I loved it, but now I gravitate towards full projects. I’d love to do music for a dark comedy, something like Raising Arizona. I also think I could do something animated. If I could do anything with musicals and movies, the thing I wished I could have done would be Charlotte’s Web. But [Shucked] has opened doors for me to things I probably can’t even dream.”
Riser House Records has signed LANCO, welcoming the group to its artist roster. Known for the two-week No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hit “Greatest Love Story,” from the group’s 2018 debut album Hallelujah Nights, LANCO also earned an Academy of Country Music Award for new duo or group of the year, in addition to nominations […]
Spotify will return with another top-shelf performers lineup for their marquee four-day country music showcase, Spotify House, at this year’s CMA Fest in Nashville, slated for June 8-11.
Spotify House will once again take over Blake Shelton and Opry Entertainment Group’s Ole Red music venue in downtown Nashville for the four-day music showcase, which will feature Brad Paisley, Brothers Osborne, Dierks Bentley, Hailey Whitters, Ingrid Andress, Jordan Davis, Luke Grimes, Mickey Guyton, Old Dominion, Lady A and Ruston Kelly on the Mainstage over the weekend.
The full Mainstage lineup also features Alana Springsteen, Ashley Cooke, Avery Anna, Brett Young, Brian Kelley, Chase Rice, Chayce Beckham, Chris Young, Colbie Caillat, Conner Smith, Dalton Dover, Danielle Bradbery, Dylan Marlowe, Dylan Schneider, Ella Langley, Ian Munsick, Jon Pardi, Josh Ross, Kameron Marlowe, Kylie Morgan, Lily Rose, Mackenzie Carpenter, Mitchell Tenpenny, Restless Road, Riley Green, Sam Hunt, Tanner Adell, Tenille Arts, Warren Zeiders and 49 Winchester.
The Mainstage’s daily (and nightly) lineup is presented by Spotify’s Nashville team and Spotify’s flagship Hot Country playlist. Spotify is also bringing back the Fresh Finds stage to further support their commitment to supporting rising musical talents, with the lineup to be announced in the coming weeks.
For fans who want to hit the dance floor, Spotify House will also offer exclusive late-night DJ sets, including Diplo Presents Thomas Wesley, as well as Cheat Codes + Friends.
“The Spotify House has become a CMA Fest staple and we couldn’t be more excited to be returning to Ole Red again this year,” said Jackie Augustus, lead, country & folk, artist partnerships at Spotify. “As always, we wanted the lineup to reflect the trends and discoveries that listeners have been making on platform. Every year the genre expands into new influences and sounds, so we’re looking forward to giving the fans an opportunity to experience 2023 country in its fullest. And as always, we have a few surprises up our sleeves, so you never know who might show up on our stage…”
Country music fans can stop by Spotify House on Thursday, June 8, through Saturday, June 10, from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. CT daily, and Sunday, June 11, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT. All shows will be open to the public, and space will be limited to first-come, first-served.
Nick Jonas looked back on his off-key performance at the 2016 Academy of Country Music Awards on Monday’s episode (May 22) of Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard. Appearing on the podcast with Kevin and Joe Jonas, the youngest member of the Jonas Brothers reflected on the viral moment his guitar solo went terribly awry during […]
Hailey Whitters is officially a Billboard Hot 100-charting hitmaker, as her breakthrough single “Everything She Ain’t” debuts on the latest list (dated May 27) at No. 94.
The song, released in January 2022 via Songs & Daughters/Pigasus/Big Loud Records, tallied 9.3 million radio audience impressions (up 4%), 3.9 million official streams (up 14%), and 1,000 downloads sold (up 45%) in the U.S. in the May 12-18 tracking week, according to Luminate.
The track also rises 28-25 on Hot Country Songs, in its 33rd week on the chart, and 24-22 on Country Airplay, in its 55th week. Notably, in the 33-year history of Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, only three songs by female artists have had longer runs than “Everything She Ain’t”: Priscilla Block’s “Just About Over You” and Tenille Arts’ “Somebody Like That” (both 64 weeks in 2020-21), and Maddie & Tae’s “Die From a Broken Heart” (59 weeks, 2019-20).
Whitters, 33, from Shueyville, Iowa, is a newcomer to Billboard’s charts as a recording artist. “Everything She Ain’t” is her first solo song as a billed artist to chart. Her first entry on Billboard’s rankings was with her 2022 album Raised, which includes “Everything She Ain’t,” on Big Loud. The set reached No. 9 on Heatseekers Albums.
In a 2022 interview with Billboard, Whitters said that “Everything She Ain’t” was a late addition to Raised. “This song was one of the absolute last songs we cut,” she said. “To be completely honest, in my mind, my record was done.” As for its content, in which Whitters playfully spells out to a prospective beau why she’d make a better girlfriend than his current one, “The world is heavy, and it was heavy when we were writing this and it’s gonna continue to be heavy,” she mused. “I’m not trying to change anyone’s life. I’m just trying to make someone’s day. I feel like this song does that in two minutes and 30 seconds.”
Whitters performed the song at the 58th ACM Awards on May 11, where she also took home the trophy for new female artist of the year.
Outside of “Everything She Ain’t,” Whitters is an accomplished songwriter, having written tracks for Alan Jackson, Little Big Town and Martina McBride. Little Big Town’s “Happy People,” which she co-wrote with Lori McKenna, reached No. 40 on Hot Country Songs and No. 46 on Country Airplay in 2017. She received a Grammy nomination for song of the year in late 2021 as one of eight writers of Alicia Keys and Brandi Carlile’s “A Beautiful Noise.”
Earlier this year, Whitters embarked on her first solo tour, the Raised Tour. She’s currently on the road as the supporting act on multiple treks: Shania Twain’s Queen of Me Tour, the Cody Johnson & Friends Tour, Eric Church’s The Outsiders Revival Tour and Luke Bryan’s Country On Tour.