Country
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Garth Brooks put forth a call for unity to radio programmers at Country Radio Seminar during a Monday (March 13) session, asking them to use their platform for good.
“How divided is this nation right now and who on the planet has a single voice to cover this entire nation? You do,” he said, in a session moderated by CRS executive director RJ Curtis. “Think about what you say when you open your mouth on those airwaves. Think about the music you play. Do the people listening to your station feel better about the future than they did [before]?”
He continued with a dire warning if cooler, more unified heads don’t prevail. “You’ve got a big voice. This country needs a big voice spreading the most important thing and that’s love. People, I’m telling you, with the Internet, people, if it keeps going the way it is civil war is waiting for this country again. It will be here before your children grow up,” he said. “Those are real voices behind those real microphones talking to those real people [at radio]. Unify them. Find that common ground. Amplify our similarities instead of our differences.”
He also gave programmers a tough love pep talk as terrestrial radio finds itself competing streaming.
“You guys have convinced yourselves for some reason you are the victim of streaming. You have convinced yourself that your time is coming to an end,” he said. “People, I am promising you radio’s time is not coming to an end. What radio has that streaming will never have is discovery. I can’t ask for anything new on Alexa. Alexa doesn’t know how to play anything new. You guys get to play it all and we get to hear if first through you.”
He then went on to tell an anecdote that flies in the face of the popularity of on-demand listening about turning to terrestrial radio while working on his truck and, as the hours go by, hearing a new song repeatedly that he grows fonder of each time he hears it until it becomes his favorite song. “If I had the option of going ‘next,’ I would never have heard the song. That’s a gift you have. Do not take it lightly,” he said. “You guys will forever be discovery. That’s the coolest part of this business.”
The purpose for Brooks’ appearance was to tout the Garth Brooks “No Fences” Award, which was announced in November and will be handed out at CRS starting in 2024. The award will honor someone in the country music community who has “defied traditional standards and practices, positively changed the face of the industry, and established higher standards for measuring success,” as well as raised country music’s profile on a national level for a sustained duration.
Curtis and Brooks looked back to the superstar’s first visit to CRS in February 1989, when his first single, “Much Too Young (to Feel This Damn Old),” was struggling at radio. Brooks and his team, including managers Bob Doyle and Pam Lewis, roamed the halls greeting programmers and handing out buttons, now collector’s items, with the song title on them.
By the time he returned to CRS a year later in 1990 to debut “Friends in Low Places” at a luncheon, he’d scored four top 10s, including No. 1s with “If Tomorrow Never Comes” and “The Dance.”
While much of the conversation was looking back on those early days, Brooks also gave hints at what is coming up for him, including his new Las Vegas residency at Caesars Palace that begins in May.
While he didn’t give a timetable for when his long awaited bar/entertainment space, Friends in Low Places, would open in Nashville, he said he “owed” Nashville the bar for all the town has given him. He also added, “If there was ever a song that described Lower Broadway…,” to strong audience laughter.
He also alluded to another attraction—“it’s not a museum because I’m not dead”—that will house his archives and will feature interactive exhibits, spanning his entire career. “We’re very fortunate that we own every bit of music that we’ve ever played. We own every frame of footage… we own everything we’ve ever done,” he said. In addition to static displays, he brought up that fans will be able to take photos with his record-breaking seven CMA entertainer of the year awards and with his nine diamond RIAA awards, the most of any artist, for sales of 10 million or more for an album or song. “It’s coming, that’s where the archives live,” he said.
Morgan Wallen has the first country genre No. 1 on Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart by a solo man, as “Last Night” shoots to the top of the March 18-dated survey.
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It’s also just the third country track to reach No. 1 in total since the chart launched in 2013.
“Night” accumulated 47.5 million official U.S. streams in the March 3-9 tracking week, according to Luminate. That’s a 59% boost over the previous frame (30 million Feb. 24-March 2), assisted by the release of Wallen’s new album One Thing at a Time, on which “Night” is featured.
Wallen’s first Streaming Songs No. 1 follows a previous high of No. 3, achieved twice. “Wasted on You” debuted at No. 3 on the Jan. 23, 2021, ranking and “Don’t Think Jesus” did the same on the April 30, 2022, tally, while “Night” itself previously peaked at No. 3 Feb. 18.
“Night” is the third country song in Streaming Songs’ 10-year history to reach No. 1. First was Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version),” which crowned the Nov. 27, 2021, chart, followed by Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” which scored its first week atop the ranking on Jan. 7.
In all, Wallen boasts 30 entries on the March 18-dated Streaming Songs, most of which come from One Day at a Time. As such, Wallen breaks Drake’s record for the most simultaneous appearances on Streaming Songs in one week. That’s a mark he had held since the July 14, 2018, survey, when 28 songs on which he was either the lead artist or featured ranked upon the release of his album Scorpion.
Most Simultaneous Appearances, Streaming Songs:30, Morgan Wallen (March 18, 2023)28, Drake (July 14, 2018)23, Bad Bunny (May 21, 2022)22, Kanye West (Sept. 11, 2021)22, Drake (July 21, 2018)21, Lil Baby (Oct. 29, 2022)21, Drake (Sept. 18, 2021)21, Drake (April 8, 2017)20, Taylor Swift (Nov. 5, 2022)20, Drake (May 21, 2016)
Four of those songs reach the top 10, with “Night” followed by “Thinkin’ Bout Me,” which earned 21.4 million streams. And of the 30, 29 are from Time, with the other, “Wasted on You” (No. 44, 13.1 million streams), from Wallen’s previous album, Dangerous: The Double Album.
Concurrently, as previously reported, “Night” reaches No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Time rules the Billboard 200.
Wade Jessen, an exacting and encyclopedic country music figure who oversaw the Billboard country charts for two decades, was announced March 13 as a 2023 inductee into the Country Radio Hall of Fame.
Jessen joined Billboard in December 1994, handling the genre’s charts during a difficult period of transition for the industry in which the introduction of streaming technology changed the way consumers experienced music. His work with Billboard included oversight of the Christian, gospel and bluegrass charts, and he played a role in the development of the groundbreaking Hot Country Songs chart — which blends airplay, sales and streaming data — reflecting significant changes in consumer behavior in 2012. Jessen died shortly after his 20th anniversary with the company, suffering a heart attack on March 5, 2015, less than a week after that year’s Country Radio Seminar concluded.
The Billboard charts job was the final entry on Jessen’s résumé, though it was hardly the only significant span in his work history. He held an on-air role in two different stints at KSOP Salt Lake City before taking the music director position at historic WSM-AM Nashville, the home of the Grand Ole Opry, in 1987. Even after he shifted to the chart position, Jessen continued to keep his radio voice in working condition, imparting his knowledge on SiriusXM’s classic country channel, Willie’s Roadhouse.
Jessen was one of six new members announced on the first day of this year’s Country Radio Seminar by Kelsea Ballerini along with the Hall of Fame’s co-chairs, consultant Joel Raab and Audacy/Detroit vp of programming Tim Roberts.
Joining Jessen as off-air inductees are Pam Green, Charlie Morgan and John Willyard. Newly announced on-air members are Trish Biondo and Dollar Bill Lawson.
Green came to prominence during a 13-year run as music director at WHN New York, a station that was among the genre’s first to employ research to connect with the nation’s most diverse local audience. She held a position with Raab’s consultancy and served as United Stations Radio Networks senior director of artist relations, continuing in the post after the company was absorbed by Westwood One. Along the way, she became one of country’s first female music directors.
Clockwise from top left: Trish Biondo, John Willyard, Charlie Morgan, Pam Green and Dollar Bill Lawson.
Courtesy of CRS
Morgan has a lengthy history with Country Radio Broadcasters, where he served as board president. He is the current board chairman for the Country Music Association. Morgan’s tenure was spent primarily in Indianapolis, where he worked on-air at WFMS, rising to program director for the station and country sister WGRL, en route to becoming vp/market manager for the Susquehanna cluster, now part of the Cumulus chain. Morgan shifted to rival Emmis/Indianapolis, including country WHLK, in 2009, adding stints at Emmis/New York and Apple Music, where he is global head of radio and music programming.
Willyard sets a precedent as the first inductee recognized primarily for voice acting and imaging. Boosted by 2012 Hall of Fame inductee Rusty Walker, Willyard became the central voice for more than 100 country stations, maintaining a similarly sized client list for more than 30 years. He has also handled the voiceover work for the Country Music Association Awards for two decades.
Biondo built her Hall of Fame credentials primarily at WUSN Chicago, beginning in research and promotion during college, segueing to board operator and eventually handling the microphone and the music director position. She spent 14 years in mornings before taking on the midday role. She also spent an early portion of her career in Nashville as an intern at MTM Records.
Lawson received the Tom Rivers Humanitarian Award during the opening-day ceremonies at CRS 2019 and returned to the winners circle this year for his work on-air in Birmingham, Ala. He spent 18 years at WZZK, with a decade in the a.m. daypart, and has held the same morning-drive role at WDXB since 2002.
This year’s class will be officially inducted during a dinner ceremony at the Virgin Hotel Nashville on July 10.
Before Leo Brooks and Andrew Millsaps teamed up to form the new country duo Neon Union, their careers were on decidedly contrasting paths.
Millsaps focused on writing songs and performing around his native North Carolina, at one point winning the MerleFest Chris Austin Song Contest and performing his original music during the roots music festival MerleFest.
Meanwhile, the bilingual, Miami-based Brooks spent years honing his talents playing bass on tour with Pitbull and Lauryn Hill. He also co-wrote Pitbull’s “Echa Pa’lla (Manos Pa’ribba),” which earned a Latin Grammy for best urban performance, and contributed to songs, including “Que Lo Que” (recorded by Sensato featuring Pitbull, Papayo and El Chevo) from the Grammy-winning project Dale. Along the way, he also played bass for artists including Mary J. Blige, Nas and John Legend.
But country music was a strong influence when he visited family on the Honduran island of Roatan. “The main music on the island was classic country and reggae music. My dad gave me a guitar and taught me to play George Jones and Hank Williams,” Brooks tells Billboard via Zoom.
When Pitbull realized Brooks’ own music had a country vibe, he connected him with “Freedom Is a Highway” hitmaker, songwriter and exec Jimmie Allen, who felt it was a match for Millsaps’ burly voice and energetic stage presence.
Millsaps and Brooks formed Neon Union and Allen subsequently signed them to his management and production company JAB Entertainment, which Allen launched with John Marks and Aaron Benward. They also collaborated with Allen on “Livin’ Man,” from the latter’s 2021 album Bettie James Gold Edition. In June, they inked a label deal with Red Street Records (led by Rascal Flatts member Jay DeMarcus), and landed their first entry on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart when “Bout Damn Time,” written by HARDY, Tyler Hubbard, Jordan Schmidt and Hunter Phelps, reached No. 60 on the chart.
“We want to kick the doors down and make a little noise,” Millsaps says of the song, which pays homage to the “farm tan crew” and “the ball cap boys with a six-inch lift.”
Brooks says of the song, “It represents everybody. We want everyone to be at our party.”
Neon Union is also one of a handful of multi-racial acts who have tried their luck in Nashville over the years, including duo Malchak & Rucker, who notched five songs on Billboard’s Country Songs chart in the 1980s, followed by trio The Farm with their 2011 top 20 hit “Home Sweet Home,” and more recently, the duos Exit 216 and 2 Lane Summer.
Neon Union talked to Billboard about their career journey, working together, touring with Allen — and Brooks’ impromptu wedding performance with George Strait.
Jimmie Allen brought the two of you together. What was that like?
Millsaps: I started playing in the bars during college Later, I had a job interview in Nashville and was staying at a hotel downtown. I randomly met Jimmie on an elevator at that hotel and we connected on social media. I didn’t think anything of it, but about six months later, I was playing at [Nashville music event] Whiskey Jam and saw him again. He liked my music, we exchanged numbers — and maybe two weeks later, he called and asked if I had ever thought about being in a duo, and introduced me to Leo.
Brooks: I played with Pitbull for 12 years, and was his musical director on tour, but I was the only one in the back of the bus listening to George Jones. Pitbull told Jimmie about me because I wanted to do my own thing, musically.
Millsaps: We briefly met over FaceTime. Leo flew into Nashville and we met at Jimmie’s house. Jimmie was like, “You guys have to be sure you want to do this.” We got some beers and hung out that evening and just clicked right away.
Brooks: It’s like a movie — so randomly put together, but we just get along so well.
How long after you met did you start recording together?
Millsaps: The next morning we were recording together. There were some nerves — I hadn’t even been in a full-fledged Nashville session at the time.
Brooks: I was just hoping this guy could sing. He did, and I was like, “Wow, OK.”
Millsaps: We started recording scratch vocals and cold chills just went over everybody. It sounded so good.
How did your deal with Red Street Records come about?
Millsaps: We started that day with a writing session and wound up with a record deal. We wrote a song and Leo had a flight scheduled that night. Then Aaron [Benward] called me up. He said, “Jay DeMarcus wants you to come by Red Street Records, like right now.” Leo canceled his flight and we drove over there and met in the conference room. We played like two songs and Jay said, “I want y’all to know I’ll have your record deal on the table by tomorrow.”
Brooks: Everyone over there, it’s just a great team of people.
Not only did Jimmie bring you two together to form Neon Union, but you were on his Down Home Tour last year.
Millsaps: Jimmie has been so supportive to us and getting us on that tour early. We didn’t really have any music out at the time. We got to meet a lot of folks in radio while we were on the road with Jimmie, which was great to give them that initial connection on the road — and then later as we put out this song, they remembered us.
What has being on radio tour been like for you?
Brooks: It’s a lot of travelling but we’re used to it. When I was with Pitbull, I was gone for months and home for a couple of days and then right back out. Here, we’ll travel for six days and then we’re home for a day or so. But it’s great having each other through all of it. You’re not just sitting by yourself in an airport, ever. We goof off and have fun. It is a lot of early mornings though — people will say, “See you bright and early.” Instead, we say, “See you dark and early.”
Leo, your first gig out of high school was playing with Lauryn Hill’s band. How did that happen?
Brooks: I picked up bass in high school, and I got the gig through one of my friends in Miami. He was auditioning for drums and she asked him if he knew a bass player. That’s when I came in and she loved it. I used to have a big old afro with a green bass [guitar]. The work with Pitbull came through the same drummer. I was always in New York and wanted to be closer to family in Miami, so I auditioned and met Pit and we became like brothers. I was just learning from him because Pit works hard and it’s nonstop. I would send him music for like seven years before I landed a song.
You are also bilingual. Would the two of you ever release a bilingual or Spanish-language song?
Brooks: Pitbull told me the other night, he was like, “We gotta do a song in Spanish.”
Millsaps: We also have already done another song, that we haven’t released yet, with Jimmie [Allen] and Pitbull, too, so that was sweet. You hear this country guy from Mayberry going, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Worldwide.” I was like, “Did I just get to say that?”
Where are you at in the album-making process?
Millsaps: We are starting to release new music by the end of March and just cut some songs with [producer] Dann Huff. We’re looking at releasing an EP this summer and hopefully a full-length in the fall. We’ve been out on the road playing so much that people are like, “Where’s your music?” We’ve got it coming.
What was the first concert you ever went to?
Millsaps: Kenny Chesney when Keith Urban was opening for him.
Brooks: Mine was No Doubt.
What did your parents do growing up?
Millsaps: My mom was a teacher and my dad owns a flooring cover store. I was third-generation coming up through a floor-covering business, and that’s what I started doing in Nashville at first. It’s still in my blood — I still look down everywhere I go. [Laughs.]
Brooks: My dad was a car painter and did body work as well, he had his own body shop. My mom was a nursing assistant.
If you could see any artist perform, who would it be?
Brooks: Metallica, for me.
Millsaps: I’ll say George Strait because I haven’t seen him in concert yet.
Brooks: I did play with him one time. There was a wedding I was doing and they were like, “George Strait is going to come here.” I was like, “Yeah, right” — but then he walks into this little party house in West Palm Beach, Florida. I was playing bass guitar and he came up and sang “Troubadour.”
Millsaps: Dang, I’m so jealous. That’s, like, one of my favorite songs.
Carrie Underwood offered fans a “birthday surprise” with her new song, while Tim McGraw offers a reflective new track. Megan Moroney heads to the honkytonk, and newcomer Tony Evans, Jr. delves into heartbreak on his smooth four-song EP.
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Carrie Underwood, “Out of That Truck”
Underwood released a “birthday surprise” in celebration of her 40th birthday on March 10, with this track she wrote with David Garcia and Lydia Vaughn. She muses that her former flame will have quite the challenge trying to erase the memory of their relationship — thanks to all the traces of herself left behind in her ex-lover’s stick-shift Chevy, from the scent of her shampoo on the headrest to a strawberry wine stain on the seat.
Thematically, the song shares DNA with one of Underwood’s previous releases, “Ghost Story” — though here, Underwood’s penetrating vocals are framed by free-spirited, ‘90s country-soaked instrumentals. A radio hit contender for sure, and another in a recent canon of songs about reminders of old relationships that linger in pickups, following Tim McGraw’s “7500 OBO” and Dylan Scott’s “New Truck.”
Tim McGraw, “Standing Room Only”
With 29 No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hits to his credit, including “Just to See You Smile” and “Something Like That,” McGraw has based his career on sturdy, timeless songcraft.
Along the way, he’s more than proven his prowess at uplifting and reflective songs such as “Humble and Kind,” and “Thought About You.” His latest muses on living life in a way that one’s funeral would be a “standing room only” affair, filled with those lives had been indelibly impacted. The song’s message is similar to McGraw’s Grammy-winning track “Live Like You Were Dying,” with his warm, accessible voice wrapping around a meteoric chorus and a message with an eye on mortality and legacy.
Parker McCollum, “Speed”
Texas native McCollum is poised to add to his arsenal of radio hits like “Pretty Heart” and “To Be Loved By You” with this ode to living life in the fast lane, complete with blistering guitar work paired with McCollum’s urgent vocal. He tips his hat to his hometown of Conroe in his new track, and acknowledges a youthful, hard-charging musician’s wanderlust and ambition.
“I remember shakin’ my head when my old man told me/ ‘Boy, one of these days you won’t always be so hung up on speed,’” he sings. McCollum teamed with Ryan Beaver for this track, which marks a first taste of McCollum’s upcoming album Never Enough, out May 12 via MCA Nashville.
Tony Evans Jr., Starless
Indie country artist Tony Evans Jr. offers a succinct, four song EP with Starless, produced by Ron Fair with distribution by The Orchard. The collection of tracks center around heartbreak and regret, elevating Evans’s warm, burnished vocal. The set includes the shimmering, harmonica-laced “If You’re Ever in Georgia,” and the uplifting “Need Somebody.” “Kids We Never Had” is the standout cut, as Evans muses about a relationship that never stood the test of time and what could have been, all in exquisite detail.
Gabe Lee, “Eveline”
Four years after releasing his debut single, “Eveline,” Gabe Lee reconceptualizes the song with a slightly more uptempo beat, propulsive banjo lines and sprightly fiddle. Lee’s evocative voice effectively sells this sparsely dreamy update to this song of regret, over the things he’s had to leave behind in a small town.
Thompson Square, “Without You”
Thompson Square’s Keifer and Shawna Thompson have previously released more than a dozen country radio singles and earned two No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hits with “Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not” and “If I Didn’t Have You.” Their latest release is a summer-ready track, featuring propulsive, banjo-fueled instrumentation that lends it an early Keith Urban vibe. Keifer’s gritty vocal is soothed by Shawna’s piercing, pure voice. Together they forge coolly cozy harmonies that perfectly set up this song, which explores who each would be with and without the other tackling life alongside them. Though the couple didn’t write the track (Anthony Olympia, Tim Nichols and Brent Rupard did), they certainly make it their own.
Megan Moroney, “Lucky”
Following her breakthrough single “Tennessee Orange” and the subsequent “I’m Not Pretty,” Moroney is gearing up for the release of her debut album Lucky (out May 5). The opening guitar riff has shades of the opening to Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee,” while the song overall feels a little bit Shania and full-on honkytonk, in a manner that would have sounded right at home on ‘90s country radio. Lyrically, it’s chock-full of quirky lines such as “Tonight my only ambition is to make a bad decision/ ’Cause me, my phone, and the neon’s buzzin’” as she makes it clear to her ex-lover that he’s lucky she’s drinking that night. Moroney wrote the song with Ben Williams, Casey Smith and David “Messy” Mescon.
A year ago, Country Radio Seminar (CRS) gave broadcasters a wakeup call.
With the 2023 edition of the conference, it should become clearer if the industry is facing a new day head on or if it simply hit the Snooze button.
Panelists in 2022 lamented a four-year decline in listenership, a drop that overlaps with a system in which singles often take over 40 weeks — sometimes as much as 60 weeks — to run their course. By contrast, labels are increasingly gearing their marketing plans to streaming platforms that expose wider arrays of music and target individuals’ playlists with greater specificity. On the final day last year, Country’s Radio Coach owner/CEO John Shomby gave a TED Talk-style presentation that chided broadcasters for a nagging sameness and called for a committee of radio and music business executives to figure out a reboot.
As Country Radio Broadcasters revs up CRS again March 13-15, that chat continues to echo in the agenda at the Omni Nashville Hotel. Shomby’s CRS Music Committee — which generated 60-70 respondents in its first hour, according to CRB executive director R.J. Curtis — has been segmented into four overlapping subcommittees that will likely make their first reports in an upcoming CRS360 webinar. Meanwhile, the CRS presentations include several topics that address the issues that have brought the format to a crossroads — “Radio & Records: Redefining the Relationship,” “Just Effing Do It: The Rewards of Taking Risks” and “Fred Jacobs’ Fred Talk: The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be.”
“CRS should be a reality-check moment,” Curtis says. “I don’t believe our purpose is to just shake each other’s hands and high-five and congratulate each other on another great year because not every year is great. We’re facing a lot of different challenges, and I think it’s important for us to own them and figure out how to solve them.”
Country music has a long history with radio. March 2022 marked 100 years since Fiddlin’ John Carson became the first hillbilly act to perform on-air, on WSB Atlanta, and Jan. 4 represented a century since country was introduced on the medium west of the Mississippi River, via The Radio Barn Dance on WBAP Dallas-Fort Worth. Still, the genre never had a full-time station until KDAV Lubbock, Texas, debuted in 1953.
Radio ultimately became the primary method of exposing the genre’s new music. It went largely unchallenged in that position until streaming took hold this century. The new medium operates differently — pressing a Skip button allows a streaming listener to skirt individual titles while still listening to the playlist, whereas skipping a song on the radio requires changing stations. To preserve listenership in this era, programmers generally relied on safe measures that had worked previously, cutting the size of playlists and/or hanging on to proven titles for longer periods of time. Those solutions tend to pay off in the short run, but over the long haul, they can discourage extended listening among the most passionate music fans.
“They’re just afraid of making a mistake,” says Shomby of programmers’ dilemma. “It’s like a football team that just hands the ball off to one guy and he runs up the middle, and then you hope that somebody opens up a hole. There’s no [taking chances] — there’s no throwing any long passes, you’re not doing any double reverses or anything like that. You just run left. And that’s kind of the way I feel like our industry is at this point.”
Actionable Insights Group head of research Billy Ray McKim was among the attendees who signed up for the CRS Music Committee last year after Shomby’s presentation.
“Plenty of people talked about it for days and weeks, and I continue to hear people refer back to it,” McKim says. “He managed to tie a bow on it.”
McKim is now overseeing the subcommittee studying the life cycle of songs, generally aiming to speed the march of singles through national radio charts and energize the format. The issue is complex.
“There was this idea that we would spend a year and find a finite solution and move on,” says McKim. “What’s become even more clear through this process is there isn’t a simple solution. So I think that this committee will continue to live and evolve.”
Changing aspects of the industry will get center stage through much of CRS. Digital streaming, for example, has a full day of convention programming. CRS also offers a panel on “expansive inclusion” and an examination of evolving demographics in “Okay Boomer! A Conversation With Gen Z.”
CRS will continue to offer some familiar elements. Garth Brooks and Kenny Chesney will be the focus of keynote artist Q&As, the annual research panel presents insights from a 700-song auditorium test, and the closing New Faces of Country Music dinner will feature Jackson Dean, Priscilla Block, Jelly Roll, Nate Smith and Frank Ray.
That latter event will include recognition of a new wrinkle in the convention. The last of CRS’ founders, Charlie Monk, died Dec. 19, and this will be the first year he is not at the seminar in some form or fashion. New Faces is expected to honor his influence, which is particularly fitting this year. Monk’s ability to process the past and anticipate the future should provide some inspiration for the industry as it moves forward: the “Mayor of Music Row” counted classic singer Frank Sinatra as his favorite artist, but often said his favorite single was whatever was No. 1 that particular week.
“He didn’t get stuck in one particular era, and that’s very evident by the amount of people much, much younger than him that called him a mentor and a friend,” Curtis says. “He sought out younger leaders in our format. He benefited from their knowledge and their way of doing business, and I think it was really impressive.”
Country music’s relationship with radio predates even Monk’s arrival. Programmers’ goal during CRS will be to create some forward movement for a platform that is still regarded as a key means of exposure for even the newest generation of talent.
“I come across a lot of young artists, and they still have that dream to be heard on the radio,” says Shomby. “I mean, it doesn’t get them as excited to have a song playlisted on Spotify as it does to hear their song on their local radio station. So there’s still something there that creates a passion for the format.”
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Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated March 18) with 501,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending March 9, according to Luminate. It’s the largest week of 2023 for any album by units earned, the biggest since Taylor Swift’s Midnights debut with 1.578 million (week ending Oct. 27, 2022; chart dated Nov. 5, 2022) and the largest week for a country album since Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version) opened with 604,500 (week ending Nov. 18, 2021; chart dated Nov. 27, 2021).
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A hefty 76% of One Thing at a Time’s debut-week total was powered by streaming activity. The set’s 36 tracks collectively generated 498.28 million on-demand official streams in the U.S. in the album’s first week – marking the fifth-largest streaming week ever for any album, and the biggest ever for a country album.
One Thing at a Time was released March 3 via Big Loud/Mercury/Republic Records and is the follow-up to Wallen’s chart-topping effort Dangerous: The Double Album, released in January 2021. The latter spent 10 weeks atop the Billboard 200 chart and ranks at No. 6 on the latest list — its 110th nonconsecutive week in the top 10. It now solely has the second-most weeks in the top 10 in the list’s 67-year history, surpassing 109 weeks for the soundtrack to The Sound of Music. (The original cast recording of My Fair Lady holds the record for the most weeks in the top 10, with 173.)
One Thing at a Time was preceded by the release of nine songs from the album as far back as April of 2022. Four of those tunes topped Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart: “Don’t Think Jesus,” “Thought You Should Know,” “You Proof” and “Last Night,” the lattermost of which has reigned for four weeks running (through the most recently published March 11-dated ranking).
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 March 18, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on March 14. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of One Thing at a Time’s 501,000 equivalent album units earned, SEA units comprise 382,000 (equaling 498.28 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 36 tracks), album sales comprise 111,500 and TEA units comprise 7,500. The album’s sales were powered by its digital download option (87,500; available as both a clean and explicit edition) while its double-CD (explicit only) sold 24,000. On the final day of the tracking week, the digital album was also offered in two alternative cover variants in Wallen’s official webstore for a discounted price. The set was not commercially released in any other formats.
One Thing at a Time has the second-largest week of 2023 by traditional album sales for an album, after the debut frame of TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: Temptation (152,000; chart dated Feb. 11). One Thing at a Time has the largest sales week for a country album since Red (Taylor’s Version) sold 369,000 in its first week (Nov. 27, 2021, chart).
As noted above, One Thing at a Time captures the fifth-largest streaming week ever for an album. The four largest streaming weeks for albums, by total streams earned, were all also debut frames. Drake’s Scorpion leads the pack, as it collected 745.92 million clicks for its 25 tracks in the week ending July 5, 2018. Scorpion is followed by the opening weeks of Drake’s Certified Lover Boy (743.67 million for its 21 tracks, week ending Sept. 9, 2021), Taylor Swift’s Midnights (549.26 million for its 20 tracks across its standard and deluxe editions, week ending Oct. 27, 2022) and Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss (513.56 million for its 16 tracks, week ending Nov. 10, 2022).
Certainly, the fact that One Thing at a Time has 36 songs helps its first-week numbers — as streaming activity for the chart is measured by taking the number of streams generated by each song on an album and adding them up to one overall total. Had the album been shortened to a length comparable to Drake’s 25-track Scorpion, it still would have had a big streaming figure. The top 25 most-streamed songs on One Thing at a Time generated 397.93 million on-demand official streams — which would made it the 10th-largest streaming week ever, and still the biggest among all country albums. Had One Thing at a Time’s tracklist been even shorter — as short as Drake and 21 Savage’s 16-track Her Loss, it still would have had a robust, but not quite as eye-popping, streaming start. One Thing at a Time’s top 16 most-streamed tracks collectively generated 294.65 million on-demand official streams — which would have ranked the set among the top 20 biggest streaming weeks of all time, though still the second-largest streaming week for a country album (behind the debut of Swift’s Red [Taylor’s Version], with 303.23 million for its 30 tracks).
In the last 12 months, One Thing at a Time has the most songs on its streaming album of any No. 1 on the Billboard 200, save for the 44-track Encanto soundtrack — although most of those 44 tracks are score and instrumental cuts, and the vast majority of the album’s streaming activity has come from the set’s nine focus songs, including the ensemble smash “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.” Including Encanto, in the last 12 months, the average tracklist length for the streaming edition of a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 has been 19. If we remove Encanto from the math, that average falls to 18. In the last 12 months, only four No. 1 albums have had fewer than 12 songs — and all were K-pop projects, powered largely by CD album sales, not streams.
A few last notes about Wallen… he is the first male artist with back-to-back country No. 1s on the Billboard 200 since 2019, when Thomas Rhett notched his second No. 1 in a row with Center Point Road, following Life Changes in 2017. Further, Wallen has the largest week for any country album by a male artist since the Billboard 200 began tracking by equivalent album units in December of 2014. In fact, only one country album has posted a bigger week in that span of time — Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version), with 604,500 units in its debut week in 2021. (Country albums are considered those that have hit or are eligible for Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart.)
Notably, since the Billboard 200 began measuring by equivalent album units in December 2014 (transitioning from an album sales-only methodology to a blend of album sales, SEA and TEA), only nine acts have registered a half-million units in a week for an album (with some having done so with multiple albums). They are: Adele, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott, Harry Styles, Taylor Swift and Wallen.
As No. 2 on the new Billboard 200, SZA’s SOS holds in place with 82,000 equivalent album units earned (down 5%). The set previously spent 10 nonconsecutive weeks atop the list. Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonito falls 1-3 in its second week with 60,000 units (down 36%).
Kali Uchis achieves her first top 10-charting album on the Billboard 200 as Red Moon in Venus debuts at No. 4 with 55,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 28,000, SEA units comprise 27,000 (equaling 35.49 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. The mostly-English-language project is the artist’s first album release since the breakthrough success of the mostly-Spanish-language single “Telepatía” in 2021 (from her last album, 2020’s Spanish-language Sin Miedo [Del Amor y Otros Demonios]). That track spent eight weeks at No. 1 on Hot Latin Songs (her first leader there) and marked her first top 40-charting hit on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 (peaking at No. 25 and spending 25 weeks on the list). Red Moon in Venus includes guest turns from Omar Apollo, Don Toliver and Summer Walker.
Six former No. 1s round out the top 10 of the new Billboard 200: Swift’s Midnights is stationary at No. 5 (48,000 equivalent album units earned, down 1%); Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album is a non-mover at No. 6 (46,000, down less than 1%); Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains is steady at No. 7 (40,000, down 4%); Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti rises 10-8 (39,000, up less than 1%); The Weeknd’s Starboy holds at No. 9 (35,000, down 13%) and Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss rises 11-10 (34,000, 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.
Luke Combs banks his 15th No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart as “Going, Going, Gone” leads the list dated March 18. In the tracking week ending March 9, it gained by 1% to 33.5 million audience impressions, according to Luminate.
Combs co-authored the song with Ray Fulcher and James McNair and co-produced it with Chip Matthews and Jonathan Singleton.
On the streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Hot Country Songs chart (dated March 11), “Gone” ranked at No. 6, after hitting No. 5 in January. It drew 9.1 million official streams and sold 2,000 downloads in the United States Feb. 24-March 2.
“Gone” is from Combs’ River House/Columbia Nashville LP Growin’ Up, which launched at No. 1 on Top Country Albums, becoming his fourth leader, last July. On March 24, Combs will release his new 18-song set, Gettin’ Old.
“Gone” follows Combs’ “The Kind of Love We Make,” which rose to No. 2 on Country Airplay in September. Before that, the North Carolina native rattled off a record 14 consecutive career-opening No. 1 singles on Country Airplay, from “Hurricane,” which dominated for two frames starting in May 2017, through “Doin’ This,” which led for a week in May 2022.
‘Wild’ Ride
Corey Kent lands his first Country Airplay top 10 with his first entry on the chart, “Wild as Her.” It lifts 12-10 after increasing by 6% to 18.6 million in audience.
Born in Bixby, Okla., Kent competed on NBC’s The Voice in 2015 (as Corey Kent White). He signed with Sony Music Nashville’s RCA division last July.
Forever Young
In its 68th week on Country Airplay, Brett Young’s “You Didn’t” rises 13-12 for a new high (16.8 million, up 1%) and rewrites the record for the longest stay on the survey.
The song, which Young co-wrote, debuted at No. 60 on the chart dated Dec. 4, 2021, and passes Travis Denning’s “After a Few,” which spent 67 frames on the list. Denning’s lone No. 1 so far reached the summit in its 65th week in June 2020.
In third place, Michael Ray’s “Whiskey and Rain” spent 66 frames on Country Airplay, hitting No. 1 in January 2022 (also in its 65th frame, tying Denning’s record ascent to the top).
Notably, the 20 longest runs on Country Airplay have all occurred since 2020.
Tim McGraw returns with an introspective new song, “Standing Room Only.”
“I wanna live a life … like a dollar and the clock on the wall don’t own me,” McGraw sings on the new track, with a live-life-to-the-fullest message similar to that of his 2004 hit “Live Like You Were Dying.” The lyrics to “Standing Room Only” elevate forgiveness and human connection — or as the song goes, “Live a life so when I die/ There’s standing room only.”
“Standing Room Only” was written by Craig Wiseman, Tommy Cecil and Patrick Murphy, with production from Byron Gallimore and McGraw. Wiseman also co-wrote “Live Like You Were Dying,” which spent seven weeks atop Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart.
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McGraw recently talked about “Standing Room Only” on The Bobby Bones Show, saying, “Lyrically, there’s not a wasted line anywhere in this song. It’s such an impeccably written song, and then the melody I love. When you get into the studio to record, you’re scared to death that you are going to go in and screw up a song. ‘Humble and Kind,’ I had that song for a year before I recorded it, because when you hear [“Humble and Kind” songwriter] Lori McKenna sing with just an acoustic guitar, it just doesn’t get much better than that.”
McGraw added, “It’s rare to find a song that has this much lyrical content and this much meaning, it says so much, but still have this sort of high energy. It’s rare to find that combination of not quite a ballad, not quite an up-tempo, but still deep, lyrically.”
The song is the title track to McGraw’s upcoming 17th studio album, set to release on Big Machine Records.
“I’m finishing up the album now, all the final mixes,” he said during his visit to The Bobby Bones Show. “I cut around 30 [songs] probably. That’s hard, too, because I don’t take anything in unless I like it, so to cull them down to the ones that don’t make the record — I always leave stuff on the floor that I love.”
Watch his interview with Bobby Bones below:
In the first trailer for the upcoming Apple TV+ series My Kind of Country, executive producers Kacey Musgraves and Reese Witherspoon break down the reason they decided to hop into the reality singing competition lane.
“When we got together a long time ago we were talking about how country music should stop limiting people and start opening doors… it’s music brought over from all over the world,” Witherspoon says in the two-minute sneak peek that dropped on Friday morning (March 10). “The bluegrass, the folk, the gospel. There’s so many threads woven through country music,” Musgaves adds.
The series that will pit 12 contestants against each other in a bid to become the next country star will feature a diverse group of singers from around the world trying to impress ground-breaking country stars Jimmie Allen, Mickey Guyton and Orville Peck. Each scout has picked a diverse roster of up-and-coming acts who they think have that special something and invited them to Nashville to showcase their unique sound.
In keeping with that theme, each artist’s team is packed with acts that span the globe, with Allen’s featuring singers from Mexico, India, North Carolina and South Africa, while Guyton’s squad has two Nashville and South African performers and Peck’s players from India, South Africa and California.
The winner of the competition will receive what is described as a “life-changing” experience from Apple, which will include global exposure across the Apple TV+ and Apple Music platforms.
My Kind of Country will debut on March 24.
Check out the trailer below.