Country

When Warner Records signed Zach Bryan in 2021, it didn’t initially seem a particularly momentous move. But the Oklahoma rock/country singer has since become one of the biggest stars — country or otherwise — to emerge in recent years, selling out arenas and scoring No. 1 albums on both the Billboard 200 and Top Country Albums charts.  And in hindsight, his signing signaled a watershed moment. 
Bryan wasn’t the first country-leaning act signed by a major coastal label, but his massive success has proven that an act no longer necessarily needs the usual Nashville methods, including country radio, to break through. “The marketplace has provided an avenue for these artists who are working outside the traditional system of the Nashville-driven machine,” says Tom Corson, Warner Records’ co-chair and COO. 

Three years later, the reverberations continue as Nashville labels face increasing competition from their coastal counterparts while country streaming numbers continue to soar. With the trend showing no sign of abating, Nashville record companies are also dealing with how Los Angeles and New York-based labels are driving up signing costs. 

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The result is the breakdown of previously recognized genre lines and a plethora of opportunities for new acts. It has also left Nashville labels re-examining how business has been done for dozens of years and re-thinking some established practices.    

As one Nashville label executive tells Billboard, “I can’t figure out if this is an existential crisis or not.” 

THE BEFORE TIMES 

Prior to the pandemic, Nashville labels generally had a lane to themselves when it came to signing country artists, with their relationships at country radio giving them almost exclusive access within the genre. But once COVID hit and touring slammed to a halt, labels became laser-focused on data and analytics as the only available metrics to gauge an act’s success. “There was no such thing as seeing artists play live, having them come into the office,” says Ben Kline, who last week stepped down as co-chair/co-president of Warner Music Nashville after a decade with the company. “All the indicators were on hold except for one: the digital numbers that people saw.”  

And the numbers were good: The country audience was surging due to the mainstream success of acts like Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs.  New York and Los Angeles labels began signing country-leaning acts with strong streaming numbers and high TikTok engagement rate, including Warren Zeiders (Warner Records), Koe Wetzel (Columbia), BRELAND (Atlantic), and, more recently, Dasha (Warner Records) and Wyatt Flores (Island).  

“It’s the Russian oligarchs coming in and buying half of London,” says one Nashville executive.  

“Any time something explodes, everyone’s going to say, “Let’s go invest,’” says another Nashville executive. “It’s like there’s oil down there — let’s start drilling.” 

It was more than numbers; it was also that acts like Bryan are “moving culture,” says Warner Records co-chairman/ CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck, who adds there was also a healthy dose of common sense involved. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that country has been a genre that’s been on its way to having a moment for a couple of years now.”  

 As country soared — consumption rose 20% in 2023 over 2022 in the U.S. and is up another 5.9% this year, according to Luminate — hip-hop’s share of the market began to wane and coastal labels needed new music that could replace that revenue, making expanding into country all the more appealing. “It makes sense if you are running a record label; you’re constantly looking at how to grow your business and market share particularly for [publicly traded] Universal and Warner Music Group,” says a Nashville executive.  

This isn’t the first time country music has exploded: In 1980, the movie Urban Cowboy caused a major craze and when “hat acts” like Garth Brooks, Clint Black and Alan Jackson arrived in late ‘80s and early ‘90s, country soared in popularity. But this time is different because there are fewer gatekeepers.  

“In those days, there would be curiosity from the coastal labels, but it was such a tight community and country radio played such a gatekeeper role, the barriers to entry were higher,” says Jon Loba, BMG president of frontline recordings for North America, who continues to oversee the Nashville division. “Now, when to an extent you can go around those, it makes it easier for the coasts to run in.” 

However, Ian Cripps, senior vp of A&R at Atlantic, home to country artists including BRELAND, Sam Barber and Mason Ramsey, as well as the successful country-dominated Twisters soundtrack, says the coastal labels’ creep into country isn’t that calculated. “I don’t think there was a conscious decision made that we need to target more signings in the country space,” he says. “It’s just there’s a lot of great artists in country music right now, a lot of great storytellers and our job is to find the best songs, best artists.” 

TIES THAT BIND 

The deals come in many forms and are driven by different goals. Country’s global outreach is growing and some artists sign with a coastal label because they feel the label has a greater international footprint than a country one. Luminate surveyed a 12-week period covering June through early September for the past four years and found that on-demand audio streaming of country music outside the U.S. has been steadily rising each year, from 22.5% in 2020 to 30.4% in 2024. (The 2024 numbers include Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion.) 

After Megan Moroney released viral hit “Tennessee Orange” independently in 2022, pop and country labels began sniffing around. The international streaming numbers on the song made Moroney’s co-manager Juli Griffith decide that the rising star should partner with both a country and a pop label, selecting Sony Nashville and Columbia Records. 

“I love our Nashville label, but I felt like we needed a bigger reach, and I still do,” Griffith says. “We work with both sides daily.” Columbia handles streaming for Moroney, including country playlisting with DSPs, and the international push, while Sony Nashville oversees country radio promotion and several other functions. 

Griffith says it’s “not easy” to make sure nothing falls between the cracks and advises that any artist signed to two labels “has friends inside those teams [who will] warn you of any pitfall before it happens.”

“No doubt there were bumps in the road bringing these two companies together, but in the end, we figured it out and we’re having really good success with it,” says Sony Music Nashville chairman/CEO Randy Goodman.

Similarly, Bailey Zimmerman signed to Warner Music Nashville, but because of Elektra’s experience in the digital space and internationally, the sister labels partnered to develop the budding superstar.  

Warner Music Nashville and Warner Records also linked to sign country sibling act The Castellows together. Since then, Warner Music Nashville, which previously reported to outgoing Warner Music Group CEO of recorded music Max Lousada, has shifted under Warner Records, and now reports through Corson and Bay-Schuck. On Sept. 24, Warner Music Nashville announced that Kline would be leaving with Elektra’s Gregg Nadel coming in as co-chair/co president alongside Cris Lacy. 

One of the savviest labels in partnering with Nashville imprints is New York-based Republic Records (and its Mercury imprint). Republic paired with Big Loud four years ago to distribute Morgan Wallen, Lily Rose and Dylan Gossett, and earlier this year, Mercury/Republic expanded the deal to distribute all of Big Loud’s roster. Additionally, Miranda Lambert switched from Sony Music Nashville to Republic, with country radio promotion and marketing efforts handled by Big Loud. Republic has also partnered with BMG Nashville for Jelly Roll’s next album, out Oct. 11.  

Other times, coastal labels sign the act solely, then hire a Nashville counterpart to approach country radio. Columbia signed Wetzel in 2020, but it wasn’t until earlier this year that it partnered with RECORDS Nashville to take him to country radio for the first time with this summer’s “High Road.”  

Bay-Schuck suggests that often Nashville labels weren’t initially chasing some artists the coastal labels have signed because they didn’t fit into the traditional mainstream country mold, though Nashville labels are now opening up their rosters to a broader range of acts. “Warren [Zeiders] was an artist that we signed directly [in part] because the way he was moving felt like a pop or rap artist — his activity online, the frequency with which he posted, the frequency with which he was teasing music — that was behavior not really seen at that point by traditional country artists,” he says.   

Zeiders, whose “Pretty Little Poison” topped Billboard’s Country Airplay chart earlier this year, says he deliberately didn’t sign with a Nashville label in 2022.  “I want[ed] to be bigger than just what country music is,” he says.  

Still, he says signing outside of an established country label “put a certain target on my back in the early process because there was so much, ‘Why didn’t you sign in Nashville? What’s wrong with Nashville?’ That kind of conversation. Now it’s become so much more of a normal process.” He also praises how Warner Records and Warner Music Nashville have worked together, especially with the Nashville label working his music to country radio. He now feels he is “just as much of a priority in Nashville as other Nashville-signed Warner artists.”   

SHOW ME THE MONEY 

Coastal labels are driving up the cost of label deals, often offering more than $1 million to sign an act, while Nashville labels still tend to offer south of that with a few exceptions, sources say. 

When coastal labels see “any traction by any artists on TikTok or Instagram or anything, they’re throwing out ridiculous numbers to them,” says one manager who has acts signed to both coastal and Nashville labels.  

“It’s convenient [for an artist] to say, ‘Oh I really like their digital team’; the reality is, if a check is five times bigger, the other stuff tends not to matter as much,” says a Nashville executive. “The prices have gone up without question. It makes the margin for error even more thin. The coastal labels have certainly changed the economics.”  

Nashville A&R budgets are smaller than coastal label budgets, “and that is one reason [Nashville labels] are scared,” says a coastal executive. “Those coastal labels that are now buying their way into this genre are overpaying for deals. Country artists’ deals are now becoming as pricey as pop artists and rappers and that is making it difficult for Nashville labels.” 

A Nashville label exec says given the success country acts are having, country labels are increasingly able to convince their bosses to occasionally match a coastal label offer. “At the end of the day, my boss is going to say you’ve got a certain amount of money in your net talent budget. Do you want to spend it all on this one act?” (As perhaps a taste of the coastal labels’ medicine, most of the country labels have started rock imprints, though none have yet yielded the kind of success the coastal labels have experienced with their country acts).  

Now, coastal labels are putting boots on the ground in Nashville.  

In June, Warner hired Kelly Bolton as vp of A&R as its first full time hire in Nashville. Bolton, who was senior vp of A&R for Tape Room Music, won’t be the last, predicts Bay-Schuck, who opened Interscope’s Nashville office in 2014 when he was president of A&R there. Additionally, Republic has reportedly hired former Warner Music Nashville and Spotify executive Mary Catherine Kinney, with potential other hires in the rumor mill. Capitol is also working with Shaina Botwin as a consultant in Nashville. 

CHANGING TIMES 

With no real competition for years other than among themselves, Nashville labels had perhaps grown set in their ways and a little slow to embrace change, while outsiders viewed the Music City labels as provincial.   

“We’ve always had to fight to get people’s attention,” Goodman says. “Maybe it’s our cross to bear, but I think people have certain perceptions of Nashville labels holding on to certain ways of marketing or developing  projects that are not even considered significant in other genres, so maybe part of it is we allowed this to happen because we weren’t being as progressive or aggressive as we needed to be.” 

“Whether it was in the transition to CDs, the transition to iTunes, the transition to streaming or otherwise, we tend to be a couple years behind,” Kline says. “In the space of data and digital, we had a little bit of catching up to do and the increased competition forced that timeline to get sped up even more so. The smart labels in town have invested in those very areas. I don’t think anyone in Nashville is naive to what differentiation the coastal labels sell versus what we sell. It’s incumbent upon us each to determine how we counter that.” 

To put it bluntly, “You’ve had it your way for a long time and now people are trying to eat your lunch, so go to a different place for lunch,” Corson says of Nashville labels. “There’s so much good music out there. Figure it out. Get your hustle on. We’ve all had to do it. If you stand still, you’re behind.” He adds that Nashville labels have stepped up their game. “Just because we had a head start in what we needed to do from an A&R perspective with data, social media and virality, the bicoastal labels were ahead of a lot of practices in Nashville, and they’re caught up now,” he says. 

Throughout the growth spurt, the Nashville music business remains a tight-knit, insular community that prides itself on operating by its own rules, where a publisher puts a song on hold for an artist sometimes for months just with a handshake, songwriters are put on pedestals and labels spend years developing acts. (Nashville’s called a “10-year town” for the time it takes from arrival to breakthrough for an artist.) For decades, those tenets drew artists and songwriters to Nashville looking for a sense of community.   

“My biggest fear is losing that,” Loba says. “We are a lifestyle, culture and community. It’s the fear of many of us that we end up in a pop-type disposable cycle, because ultimately that’s not good for anyone.” 

Though some Nashville executives cynically believe that the coastal labels will lose interest in signing country artists when the current country bubble bursts, both Bay-Schuck and Goodman say that ultimately the coastal labels’ involvement is a healthy thing for however long it lasts. 

“I think rather than anybody feeling threatened about somebody encroaching on their territory, this is an opportunity to make a really special genre and amazingly special crop of artists be appreciated and consumed in a way that they never have before,” Bay-Schuck says. “I don’t know what the negative is about country music becoming more ubiquitous than it ever has before.” 

“The bottom line is it’s about this music that we make here and, thank God, the world is now paying attention to it,” Goodman says. “What [Nashville] should be doing is saying, ‘This is an amazing, historical, beautiful moment. How do we embrace it as best we can?’”  

Additional reporting by Jessica Nicholson.