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Dolly Parton‘s Dollywood Parks & Resorts experienced flash flooding on Sunday (July 28) as a heavy thunderstorm hit the area in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., over the weekend.
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The park released a statement saying, “This afternoon, Sunday, July 28, a strong thunderstorm caused flash flooding at Dollywood. With the assistance of Pigeon Forge Police and Fire Departments, park personnel directed guests to safety during the storm. At this time, one minor injury has been reported.”
The statement continued, “Dollywood is supporting guests whose vehicles were affected by this weather event, and cleanup crews have been deployed. The park is currently scheduled to open at noon on Monday, July 29. Park officials will continue to assess conditions and updates will be posted to our social media pages as additional information becomes available.”
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Billboard has reached out to Parton’s representatives for comment.
Video footage posted to social media showed the conditions at the park as attendees made their way out of Dollywood to their cars, with many walking through nearly waist-deep water. Other footage showed floodwaters running through the park’s main walkways.
Some news outlets reported that north of 4.5 inches of rain fell in the region in a short period of time, leading to the flooding at Dollywood. On Sunday, the Pigeon Forge Police Department noted that McCarter Hollow Road at the Dollywood entrance was briefly closed due to a road collapse.
Since 1986, Dollywood has drawn visitors from across the globe to experience the theme park rides, music shows and exhibits. The entertainment park has origins reaching to 1961, when Rebel Railroad first opened; the park then expanded and grew to become Dollywood. In 2023, Dollywood earned five Golden Ticket honors, with wins for best park, best guest experience, best kids area, best family coaster (for Big Bear Mountain) and best Christmas event (for Smoky Mountain Christmas).
See Dollywood’s statement about the flooding at the park below:
This week’s crop of new country music finds Post Malone continuing his winning collaborative ways with a new track with Luke Combs, while Wyatt Flores and The Castellows also team up for the new track “Sober Sundays.” Furthermore, Jordan Davis trades in his signature sentimental tunes for a dusting of flirtatious attitude in his new song, “I Ain’t Sayin’.”
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Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of the best country songs of the week below.
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Post Malone feat. Luke Combs, “Guy For That”
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So far, the songs Post Malone has released to preview his upcoming country debut F-1 Trillion have been uptempo heaters including the Morgan Wallen hit “I Had Some Help” and the Blake Shelton collab “Pour Me a Drink.” He continues his high-octane, stadium-sized slate of anthems with this Luke Combs collaboration, in which a heartbroken guy muses that over the years, he’s amassed a network to help with almost everything — from resoling boots to designing rifles — but there’s no high-profile connection that can do the life-transformational work of changing to help convince an ex-lover to return. Post’s and Combs’ voices pair mightily and they are both co-writers on the track (with Charlie Handsome, Ernest, Hoskins, James McNair and Louis Bell). This song seems poised to join his previous collabs in surging up the country charts.
Wyatt Flores and The Castellows, “Sober Sundays”
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Two of country music’s brightest new upstarts team up for this gorgeous, piano and mandolin-inflected track. “I’ll steady your hands/ Even when they shake,” they sing, as this song centers around offering a supportive, non-judgmental refuge as a friend navigates a journey toward sobriety. Wyatt Flores has steadily been establishing his reputation as a formidable singer-songwriter with a slate of open-hearted, relatable songs such as those on his EP Half Life, while sibling trio The Castellows, with their winsome vocal blending and roots-driven arrangements, are providing a fresh, down-home, Americana-influenced sound for a new generation. Flores wrote the song with The Castellows’ Powell, Eleanor and Lily Balkcom.
Jordan Davis, “I Ain’t Sayin’”
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With previous releases such as “Buy Dirt” and “Next Thing You Know,” Jordan Davis has established a reputation for singing earnest love songs, but on his new breezy toe-tapper, he serves up a potent reminder that he knows his way around a song with some attitude, too. This sleek, groovy summer song finds Davis singing a tale of a guy who finds a lonely young woman at a bar, and he has no trouble reminding her that while he may not be a long-term lover, the guy who left her spending her time alone sure isn’t, either. Travis Wood, Steve Moakler, Mark Holman and Emily Reid crafted the song, with production from Paul DiGiovanni.
Greylan James, “Who Broke Up With You”
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Knoxville, Tennessee native James has steadily ascended the ranks as one of Music City’s top tunecrafters, penning songs recorded by artists including Kenny Chesney, Cole Swindell, Darius Rucker, Chris Janson and more, as well as his work as a co-writer on the Jordan Davis hit “Next Thing You Know,” which also earned James his first CMA nomination for song of the year. But James also possesses a voice capable of translating his songs in his own relatable, laid-back vocal. He previously released his debut single, “Young Man,” and follows it with this uptempo track that centers around someone who meets a potential lover on the dance floor and is bewildered that anyone would break up with her. “I’d hate to be him when he comes to his senses and he figures it out,” he sings over a latticework of electric guitars and relentless percussion, proving that he can not only craft hits — he can sing them just fine, too.
Tigirlily Gold, Blonde
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This sister duo was raised in North Dakota and spent years playing all-nighters, honing their sound in Nashville’s downtown bar scene. Now, they celebrate their first full-fledged album, Blonde. Scattered across the album’s 10 polished, contemporary country tracks are sassy romantic kiss-offs (“Leroy,” “Stupid Prizes”), breakup anthems (“I Tried a Ring On”), rowdy night-on-the-town soundtracks (“Shoot Tequila”) and even an ode to both Marilyn Monroe and Dolly Parton (“Blonde”). Threading all of them together is an energetic confidence and buoyant charm, while the album is underpinned by a stout adherence to heart-on-the-sleeve, slice of life songwriting.
Ryan and Rory, “This Town”
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Nashville native Ryan Follese teamed with North Carolina native Rory John Zak to create their debut, six-song EP, on which Follese co-wrote every song, five of those with his parents and fellow hit songcrafters, Keith and Adrienne Follese. Meanwhile, Zak further elevated these song constructions with his instrumental contributions, layered with swirling production and the duo’s warm, effervescent harmonies. Among the standouts on the project is “This Town,” packed with feelings of young love and wanderlust, and a desire to flee their overly-familiar hometown to “Get way on out where the lost get found.” A promising effort from this new duo.
Jeannie Seely, “Suffertime”
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Seely had a full-circle moment in recording “Suffertime” in tribute to her late friend and fellow artist, Dottie West, at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio B; she had her first recording session at the same studio, nearly six decades ago. At 84, Seely still retains much of the “country soul” style of singing; on this harmonica-laced track, she turns in a raw, forlorn vocal rendering of someone who returns to the same old places that she frequented with a one-time lover. Backed by a slate of ace musicians, she makes this 1966 West classic sound simultaneously intimate, fresh and timeless.
Twisters: The Album enters the Billboard 200 (dated Aug. 3) at No. 7. It’s the first country-dominated soundtrack to a theatrically-released film to make the top 10 on the all-genre chart since Country Strong, which reached No. 6 in January 2011.
“Twisters” is only the second country soundtrack from a theatrically-released film to debut in the top 10, after Hannah Montana: The Movie, which opened at No. 2 in April 2009. The album, which reached No. 1 three weeks later, featured star Miley Cyrus’ pop/country crossover hit “The Climb.”
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Other country-dominated film soundtracks to reach the top 10 include Urban Cowboy (No. 3 in 1980), George Strait’s Pure Country (No. 6 in 1992), Hope Floats (No. 4 in 1998), Coyote Ugly (No. 10 in 2000), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (No. 1 in 2002) and Walk the Line, from the Oscar-winning Johnny Cash biopic (No. 9 in 2006).
Twisters has already climbed higher than the soundtrack to the original Twister, which peaked at No. 28 in 1996. That Warner release was mostly rock and featured such artists as Tori Amos, Van Halen, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham.
The new album, released on Atlantic, features such established country artists as Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Kane Brown, Lainey Wilson, Shania Twain and Jelly Roll, as well as such rising stars as Bailey Zimmerman, Breland and Tanner Adell. (Notably, both albums came from the Warner Music Group family of labels.)
Twain also had a track (“No One Needs to Know”) on the Twister soundtrack. She was one of the few non-rock artists on board for that album, along with k.d. lang and Alison Krauss & Union Station. On the new album, she teams with Breland to perform “Boots Don’t.” She is the only artist to appear on both albums.
The arrival of Twisters ends a notable drought in recent months for soundtracks. Three weeks ago, the highest-ranking soundtrack on the Billboard 200 (Barbie: The Album) was way down at No. 172. That marked the first time that the highest-ranking soundtrack on the Billboard 200 had ranked that low in the more than seven years that the Billboard 200 and the Top Soundtracks chart have adhered to the same chart formula.
Since Feb. 11, 2017, both charts have ranked 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).
Twisters is the first soundtrack from any genre to appear in the top 10 since Barbie: The Album (which, like Twisters: The Album, was released on Atlantic) ended its top 10 run in September.
This marks the first time that no soundtracks appeared in the top 10 in the first six months of a calendar year since 1987. The first soundtrack to make the top 10 that year (Beverly Hills Cop II) did so in the issue dated Aug. 1.
There are only two other years since 1956 – when the Billboard 200 bowed as a regular, weekly feature – where no soundtracks appeared in the top 10 in the first six months of the year. In 1972, the first soundtrack to make the top 10 that year (Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly) did so in the issue dated Oct. 7. In 1976, the first soundtrack to make the top 10 that year (Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same) did so in the issue dated Nov. 6.
Soundtracks have been a big part of the album market since the introduction of the Billboard 200. On the first chart – March 24, 1956 – soundtracks to Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals held two of the top three spots. Oklahoma! and Carousel were No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. (A non-soundtrack, Harry Belafonte’s Belafonte, was No. 1.)
At least one soundtrack appeared in the top 10 every week from that first chart on March 24, 1956 through Dec. 22, 1958. In the mid-1960s, there was an even longer winning streak. At least one soundtrack appeared in the top 10 every week from July 25, 1964 through June 10, 1967.
Twisters ranked No. 1 at the boxoffice last weekend, but falls to No. 2 this weekend behind the new Deadpool & Wolverine. The original Twister was No. 1 for two weekends in May 1996. Isaac Chung directed Twisters, which stars Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Jan de Bont directed the original Twister, which starred Helen Hunt and the late Bill Paxton.
Zach Bryan had an unexpected visitor during his Thursday (July 25) The Quittin’ Time tour concert in New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome.
During Bryan’s set, one fan rushed the stage while Bryan was performing.
Though notably surprised, Bryan seemed to played it cool, removing his in-ear monitors, and then shaking hands with the fan. As other members of Bryan’s band then stepped between Bryan and the fan, the fan held his hands up in triumph, leading the crowd to cheer and some audiencemembers to raise their hands and hats into the air as well. The bandmembers then nudged the fan back toward the stage exit.
Bryan then walked to the microphone and said, “I got no f–kin’ idea who that was.”
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The “I Remember Everything” hitmaker also said, “Don’t sneak on this stage man,” but quickly added, “That kid is a legend,” before continuing on with his set.
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Bryan’s The Quittin’ Time Tour launched in March with shows at Chicago’s United Center, and will wrap in December with shows at Tulsa, Oklahoma’s BOK Center. Among the artists opening for Bryan throughout the tour on various dates are Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Sheryl Crow, Turnpike Troubadours and Sierra Ferrell.
Bryan isn’t the only artist who had a fan rush the stage last night. Jason Aldean was performing in Savannah, Georgia at the Enmarket Arena on his headlining Highway Desperado Tour, when a fan rushed the stage while Aldean was performing. The fan was quickly carried offstage by security guards, while Aldean remained center stage at his microphone.
Aldean’s Highway Desperado Tour launched in May in Oklahoma, and will run through October. The tour features guests Hailey Whitters and Lauren Alaina in select cities as well as Chase Matthew, Austin Snell, and Dee Jay Silver across all dates.
Post Malone‘s upcoming debut country project, F-1 Trillion, will release on Aug. 16, and the singer-songwriter has been steadily releasing collaborations from the project, including his collabs with Morgan Wallen, Blake Shelton, and his latest, “Guy For That,” with Luke Combs.
Still, fans have been wondering who else will be featured on the album — and they seem to have gotten their answer, thanks to a photo included on a listing for a vinyl version of the project, which was posted to Target’s website. The photo for the vinyl listing was soon amended to not include the featured artists, though multiple Billboard staffers saw the list of featured artists before the photo on the listing was amended. Others on social media have also shared screenshots of the original photo.
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Target’s vinyl listing highlighted the artists featured on the album, and in addition to the previously-known artists including Shelton, Combs, Wallen, Sierra Ferrell and HARDY, the listing includes Lainey Wilson, Dolly Parton, Brad Paisley, bluegrass luminary Billy Strings, Jelly Roll, Ernest, Tim McGraw, Chris Stapleton and Hank Williams Jr.
During Post Malone’s recent collaboration with Bud Light for his “A Night in Nashville” show at Music City’s Marathon Music Works, fans got to hear Post Malone preview new music with HARDY (“Hide My Gun”) and Ferrell (“Never Love Again”) and hear him perform the previously-released “Pour Me a Drink” alongside Shelton. Also appearing at the show was Joe Nichols, who joined Posty for Nichols’ 2002 hit “Brokenheartsville.”
Earlier this year, Post Malone earned a six-week Billboard Hot 100-leading hit with this Wallen collaboration “I Had Some Help,” and followed with the Shelton collab “Pour Me a Drink,” which is currently at No. 24 on the Country Airplay chart.
In June, Post Malone joined Wilson, songwriter Ashley Gorley and Ernest at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe for a songwriter’s round, though Wilson, Post Malone and Ernest largely performed their own individual hits and new releases. Paisley previously performed with Post Malone during this year’s Stagecoach festival, as did Sara Evans and Dwight Yoakam.
Reps for Target and Post Malone had not responded to Billboard’s requests for comment by press time.
Even before “Something in the Orange” propelled genre-fluid singer-songwriter Zach Bryan into wider public awareness, he has been a consistent force on multiple Billboard charts.
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With his latest album, The Great American Bar Scene, just released, Billboard dives into Bryan’s journey on the Billboard charts. Bryan was born in Okinawa, Japan, but was raised in Oklahoma. He began writing songs in his teens, and enlisted in the U.S. Navy at age 17; he made music in his spare time while serving in the Navy, and finished serving at age 25. He started in music by uploading videos to YouTube in 2017.
Bryan’s first appearance on a Billboard chart was in 2020, when his second album, Elisabeth, landed on the Heatseekers Albums chart, while the set’s “Heading South” became his first entry on Billboard‘s Hot Rock and Alternative Songs chart, peaking at No. 27.
In May 2022, the success of Bryan’s songs “From Austin” and “Highway Boys” aided him in earning the No. 1 spot on Billboard‘s Emerging Artists chart. Another of his potent songs, “Something in the Orange,” became his first Billboard Hot 100 hit, peaking at No. 10 with 66 weeks on the chart. Since then, he’s amassed 42 Hot 100 entries, including a trio of top 10 hits on the chart, while his Kacey Musgraves collaboration “I Remember Everything” became both artists’ first Hot 100 chart-topper.
Bryan’s latest single, “Pink Skies,” peaked at No. 6 on the Hot 100, while he’s earned 21 top 10 hits on the Hot Rock and Alternative Songs chart to date, including his collaboration with The War and Treaty, “Hey Driver,” and “Sarah’s Place” featuring Noah Kahan.
Bryan’s genre-fluid style has earned him hits in multiple genre charts, including a dozen top 10 hits on the Hot Country Songs chart, including “East Side of Sorrow” and “28.”
He’s released a string of albums and EPs over the past few years, and made his Billboard 200 debut in June 2022 with his album American Heartbreak. In 2023, his self-titled album debuted at No. 1. In July 2024, he released The Great American Bar Scene, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and took the top spot on the Top Country Albums chart, the Top Rock and Alternative Albums chart and the Folk/Americana Albums chart.
Given Bryan’s prolific nature thus far, it seems likely that he will soon add to these Billboard stats with more music.
Watch the Billboard Explains video about Zach Bryan above.
Shaboozey scores his first No. 1 in his first appearance on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart as “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” ascends to the top of the tally dated Aug. 3. It increased by 14% to 31.4 million audience impressions July 19-25, according to Luminate. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts […]
Machine Gun Kelly and Jelly Roll get some serious help from their significant others in the emotional video for their new team-up, “Lonely Road.” In the Sam Cahill-directed clip for the song that pays homage to John Denver’s iconic 1971 hit “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” KellyRoll — as they’ve dubbed themselves — are joined by MGK’s girlfriend, actress Megan Fox, and Jelly’s wife, Bunnie Xo, who both have prominent roles in the tear-in-your-beer storyline.
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KellyRoll play a pair of old pals struggling to provide for their families in the visual that opens with the duo clad in all black at a funeral before jumping to footage of the pair grinding away at an auto shop in matching tan jumpsuits. “I probably could’ve saved us/ But instead I let us crash/ Cuz I don’t trust no one to love me back,” MGK sings while strumming an acoustic guitar. “But she say I do/ And this is not the place for you.”
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As the past due notices continue to pile up, we see MGK kiss one-time fiancé Fox’s swelling belly and Jelly Roll standing in a field singing about using alcohol on the road to fill the hole of loneliness he feels when he’s thousands of miles from his love. “Will our home ever be the same/ I hear the devil wears Prada, but I couldn’t read the tags/ And your horns started showing when I see you mad,” he sings as he and Bunnie console each other after receiving a letter confirming an infertility diagnosis.
The storylines are particularly poignant and personal for both men, as Jelly revealed last month that Bunnie, 44, is undergoing IVF as they try to conceive their first child together and in November, mother of three Fox opened up about the “very difficult” miscarriage she suffered with MGK.
After the two couples share a quiet home meal together, MGK tries to rope Jelly into a scheme to make some quick money, a road the “Save Me” country star says he can’t go down anymore. Following one more shot of MGK kissing Fox’s stomach, the rapper-turned-rocker-turned-country crooner hops on his motorcycle and pulls off a bank heist that ends with his arrest as he’s kissing his love and their unborn child goodbye one last time.
Cut to eight month later and Jelly, Bunnie and Fox are all cooing over the baby, who MGK kisses through the glass in the prison visiting room.
The long and winding road to “Lonely Road” has taken more than two years, with MGK recently saying that the duo have been working on the track over “2 years, 8 different studios, 4 different countries, [and] changed the key 4 times.”
Watch the “Lonely Road” video below.
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When Miranda Lambert revealed the tracklist for her upcoming album, Postcards From Texas, earlier this week, among the 14 tracks was a collaboration with one of her fellow Texans and country artists, “Pretty Heart” hitmaker Parker McCollum.
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Lambert’s Postcards From Texas is out Sept. 13 and includes the McCollum duet, “Santa Fe.” The song was written by Lambert, Jesse Frasure, Jessie Jo Dillon and Dean Dillon.
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On July 24, McCollum wrote on X, “Absolutely honored to be a part of this album. Been a huge fan of Miranda since I was just a kid so to have the opportunity to collab with her is truly a dream come true. One of the greatest talents this business has ever seen.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time the two have collaborated; on McCollum’s 2021 album Gold Chain Cowboy, Lambert co-wrote the song “Falling Apart” with McCollum and Jon Randall. McCollum also previously opened shows for Lambert on her 2019 headlining Wild Card Tour.
In July 2023, McCollum also praised Lambert after watching one of Lambert’s Las Vegas residency shows, writing on X, “Saw Miranda Lamberts show in Vegas tonight. Bought a ticket, went in through the front and enjoyed the show as a true fan. Even bought some merch. Absolutely remarkable performance. And an even better person. Deserves nothing but respect.”
To date, McCollum has earned three No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hits: “Pretty Heart,” “To Be Loved By You” and “Burn It Down.” Last year, he released his fourth full-length album, Never Enough.
With Postcards From Texas, ACM Triple Crown winner Lambert will celebrate her first album since signing with Republic Records earlier this year. To date, she has earned seven pinnacle-reaching albums on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, and has won a trio of Grammy trophies, as well as 14 Country Music Association Awards. Lambert is also the most-awarded artist in Academy of Country Music history, and is poised to add to her considerable accolades with her new music.
Olivia Rodrigo had a surprise for fans during her Guts World Tour stop in Lexington, Ky., on Wednesday night (July 24), when she welcomed Tyler Childers to perform his Grammy-nominated single “All Your’n.” Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news During the show at Lexington’s Rupp Arena, the crowd […]