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The Country Radio Broadcasters/Country Radio Seminar board of directors has made two significant updates to the eligibility and selection criteria for its annual New Faces of Country Music Show.
Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart has been introduced as a qualifying measure for New Faces eligibility, joining the existing Mediabase Country Chart published in Country Aircheck. The expanded chart criterion incorporates digital sales and streaming data alongside terrestrial radio airplay to offer a more comprehensive view of music performance metrics.
RJ Curtis, executive director at Country Radio Broadcasters, said in a statement: “The revised New Faces Show chart criteria more broadly reflects how our music is being exposed and consumed in 2024, and how its performance is measured. While radio airplay continues to be the critically important calculation for artist success, digital sales and streaming data are also important, accurate factors in identifying the rising New Faces and voices in country music.”
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The second update places the responsibility of determining artist eligibility and management of the submission process on record labels and artist representatives. Representatives will now confirm that artists meet the minimum criteria, submit their names for ballot inclusion, and verify artist availability and willingness to perform if selected.
This shift is also aimed at increasing the level of industry involvement and accountability, ensuring artists chosen reflect the current and future landscape of country music. The new criteria are in effect for the Nov. 1, 2024, to Oct. 27, 2025, qualification period, which will impact the New Faces of Country Music Show lineup for the Country Radio Seminar 2026.
Artists must have at least one but no more than five top 25 singles on Country Aircheck‘s Mediabase Country Chart or Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart during the qualification period. Voter eligibility requirements state that “voters must be full-time employees in programming, promotion, or distribution of country music, excluding those with vested interests in individual artists.”
The ballot will include all qualifying artists submitted by their representatives, with artists listed in alphabetical order. Ballots will be reported to and approved by the Country Radio Broadcasters executive committee before final selections are made.
The 2024 New Faces of Country Music Show, held during March’s Country Radio Seminar, featured artists Megan Moroney, George Birge, Dillon Carmichael, Corey Kent and Conner Smith. Since its inception in 1970, the show has put some of country music’s brightest new talents in the spotlight, including Tim McGraw, George Strait, Taylor Swift, Faith Hill, Keith Urban, Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert and Jelly Roll.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Lupe Fiasco has one of the more storied journeys in Hip-Hop, starting off in Chicago as an upstart MC to becoming one of the genre’s most respected lyricists. In a new interview, Lupe Fiasco shared why the Child Rebel Soldier, or CRS, supergroup with Kanye West and Pharrell Williams never took off.
Sitting down with Donwill of Tanya Morgan fame for his The Almanac of Rap series with Okayplayer, Lupe Fiasco shared details of his early days in Chicago, his travels in the music industry, and who he is as an artist today.
The CRS supergroup was one of many announced groups that caught the attention of Hip-Hop fans considering the acts involved. At the time of their forming in 2010, Kanye West and Pharrell Williams were buzzing acts and Lupe was still signed to Atlantic Records at the time.
In the chat, Lupe said that the idea for CRS started with him rapping over samples of songs made by the Radiohead band and recording a song with Skateboard P. Ye happened to hear the work and added that he wanted in on the track, prompting Williams to suggest they get together as a group.
Lupe says that Pharrell named him the “Child” of the group while Ye was the “Rebel” with the Virginia producer giving himself the “Soldier” tag. The trio did record the track “Don’t! Stop!” and the remix to N.E.R.D.’s “Everybody Nose” but that would be the end of it.
As the interview went on, Lupe, without naming names, said that one of the members, presumably Ye, “got rich and crazy” before trailing off into laughter.
The clip in question with Lupe Fiasco can be viewed below. Also, we’ve got the full The Almanac of Rap video as well.
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Photo: ANGELA WEISS / Getty
With radio programmers spread across the country, it’s not often that artists have a chance to interact with the programmers and personnel who have aided them in their respective journeys to earning their first country radio hits — at the same time, all in one room. But each year, they do get that chance when radio programmers — along with plenty of label personnel — gather in Nashville for the Country Radio Seminar.
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On Friday (March 1), following three days of radio and streaming-focused panels and label luncheons, the conference concluded by highlighting five highly-promising new artists.
This year’s class featured Records Nashville’s George Birge, Riser House’s Dillon Carmichael, Sony Music Nashville/RCA’s Corey Kent, Sony Music Nashville/Columbia’s Megan Moroney and Valory Music’s Conner Smith.
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The night’s performances were tightly focused, with artists largely running through their familiar breakthrough hits, while also offering glimpses into what lies ahead musically.
First up was Kent. In an introductory video that played on the main screens prior to his performance, Kent began by thanking country radio for “helping us to deliver the biggest axe blow we’ve ever had,” in making his single “Wild as Her” a top 5 Country Airplay hit. “There will be many more to come,” he promised. Taking the New Faces stage, Kent introduced his set with the brooding “Gold.”
“If you know anything about me, you know this. I believe tomorrow isn’t guaranteed and what you do today matters. What we do tonight is take a few risks … you either getting busy living or you’re getting busy dying.”
He then offered his most recent radio single, “Something’s Gonna Kill Me,” a churning, freewheeling song which made great use of his rock-woven, rugged voice. From there, he offered his breakthrough hit “Wild as Her.” He largely stayed close to center stage throughout his set. Not that he needed to roam the stage — his voice, full-bodied and shot through with rock influences, permeated the room.
“Thank y’all so much, country radio!” he told the packed ballroom of radio executives, before offering a preview of a new song, titled “This Heart,” which Kent noted will soon impact country radio.
Next up was Birge, who reached No. 2 on the Country Airplay heart earlier this year with “Mind on You.” Microphone in hand, he stalked the stage as he offered the hard-rock influenced “Hard on the Bottle.” He later gave the audience an early look at new song “Damn Right I Do,” and concluded with “Cowboy Songs.”
“I’ve dreamed about this day for a long, long time and damn it did not disappoint,” he said. “I couldn’t come here and not play the song that you changed my life with,” he added before taking up a guitar to perform “Mind on You.”
“Thank you for believing in me,” he told the audience. “I don’t take for granted for one second that I get to be up here on this stage and it’s because of you guys.”
Before Nashville native Smith took the stage, screens on both sides of the stage showed home videos of Smith as a young child, around five or six years old, performing covers of hits from Kenny Chesney and Montgomery Gentry, followed by footage of Smith earning a standing ovation during his Grand Ole Opry debut in 2022.
Smith, clad in a white shirt and black leather jacket, began his high-octane set with “Smoky Mountains,” the title track from his January-released full-length album.
He noted that he’s attended the New Faces of Country Music Show a few times. “I would always watch and just pray that I would get a chance to be on this stage,” he said, thanking the crowd. “It means so much more than you know.” He then rolled into another song from the album, “Heatin’ Up.”
He also offered up with the tender, fiddle-laced duet “Roulette on the Heart” (though his duet partner on the song, Hailey Whitters, wasn’t in attendance). Still, Smith’s solo rendition connected with the audience just fine, thanks to his warm, smoothing vocals.
Smith also thanked country radio for changing his life by making the revved-up “Creek Will Rise” a hit. “It’s like Luke Bryan says — rain is a good thing,” Smith said before launching into the careening, rock-fueled, slightly bluesy track. ”Long live country radio!” he said, exiting the stage.
Kentucky native Carmichael, who is currently out on tour opening shows for Cody Johnson, launched his set with “Raised Up Wrong.”
“What an opportunity this is. Thank you for giving us a chance,” he said, before launching into his breakthrough hit “Son of A.” “In order to even qualify to be voted for to be a new face, one of those qualifications is you have to have at least a top 25 at country radio, so I want to thank my team for continuing to push this song we are about to play … and for country radio all of you who kept playing it … it means so much.”
He concluded with another uptempo track, one perfect for getting crowds to lift up their cups and enjoy some levity, with his current top 40 Country Airplay hit, “Drinkin’ Problems.”
The evening included a special moment to remember the life and career of the late country star Toby Keith, who died last month at age 62 following a battle with stomach cancer.
“He lived life fully, right to the end,” CRS Board of Directors president Kurt Johnson said, noting that Keith had planned to perform during Country Radio Seminar this year. CRB/CRS executive director RJ Curtis noted that 30 years ago that night, Keith made his New Faces Show debut in 1994. Then screens on either side of the main stage showed clips from Keith’s CRS New Faces of Country Music Show debut, including a performance of “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” and a short interview clip of Keith from his New Faces debut.
The lone woman on this year’s New Faces bill, Moroney closed out the lineup that evening. She is also one of the most-celebrated newcomers, thanks to her breakthrough hit, “Tennessee Orange,” and her debut album, Lucky.
“Anybody feel lucky?” she asked as she took the stage, clad in one of her signature sparkly, brightly-colored dresses to perform the title track to her album Lucky, as images of horseshoes, four-leaf clovers and boots crisscrossed the screen behind her.
Moroney’s star power was undeniable from the first song. From there she sailed through southernism-tinged kiss-off “I’m Not Pretty” and new release “No Caller ID” (which debuted at No. 13 on the Hot Country Songs chart earlier this year), led by her warm-hued voice, which cracked in all the right places, letting the emotional nuances of each song seep through.
“I have a lot of new music coming out this year that I’m excited for you to hear,” she teased, later adding, “Thank you for your support of me and my songs. I love writing songs. I love to do this and I get to do this because of you,” she said. In a departure from earlier performers on the bill, Moroney’s set offered its share of ballads, including the introspective song from Lucky “Girl in the Mirror.” Moroney closed with a faithful live rendering of her hit “Tennessee Orange.”
Since its inception in 1970, the New Faces of Country Music Show has put some of country music’s brightest new talents in the spotlight, with the members of the Class of 2024 joining the list of past New Faces performers including Tim McGraw, George Strait, Taylor Swift, Faith Hill, Keith Urban, Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert and Jelly Roll.
On Thursday (Feb. 29), three-time Grammy winner Trisha Yearwood led a conversation with reigning CMA entertainer of the year Lainey Wilson, as part of the 2024 Country Radio Seminar in downtown Nashville.
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Among the topics they discussed were the importance of women artists standing up for themselves, the similarities in their respective career paths, and battling imposter syndrome.
Both have carved out multi-faceted careers, with No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hits, awards accolades and work in television. (Wilson was featured on the series Yellowstone, while Yearwood is known for her Food Network cooking series Trisha’s Southern Kitchen, as well as roles in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, the live television musical The Passion and a recurring role on the military drama JAG).
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In May 1991, Yearwood’s debut single “She’s in Love With the Boy” appeared on the Country Airplay chart; by early August that same year, it had reached the pinnacle. In 2021, Wilson earned her first No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hit with “Things a Man Oughta Know,” and has followed with a string of chart-toppers.
They discussed their rapid career rises, with Yearwood recalling that time period surrounding the radio success for her debut radio single, “She’s in Love With the Boy” feeling like “a dream come true,” but she also described it as “holding onto a runaway train and just trying to keep up. And a lot of it is a blur, until I made myself figure out how to be in the moment.”
“I’m in the process of that right now… the last few years have been a whirlwind in the best kind of way,” Wilson responded, adding, “Somebody was telling me — I think it was back in 2017 when I signed my first publishing deal — they told me, ‘It’s going to feel like you’re being drug behind a ski boat for years.’”
Taking on country radio
Wilson (who earned her first Grammy this year for her album Bell Bottom Country) has earned four No. 1 Country Airplay hits: “Things a Man Oughta Know,” the Jelly Roll collaboration “Save Me,” the two-week chart-topper “Never Say Never” (with Cole Swindell) and the three-week solo No. 1, “Watermelon Moonshine.”
But Wilson recalled how when she was first taking her music to radio, there was at least one difficult encounter with a radio exec, pointing out the importance of not taking no for an answer.
“Radio tour, it was hard. It was really, really hard, I’m not going to lie to y’all,” Wilson said. “It taught me a lot. I made a lot of friends along the way that I still text and we talk all the time. But I do remember one specific stop: I go in and we waited in the foyer. He brings us into his office and he said, ‘Play me what you got.’ This was my first single, ‘Dirty Looks.’ He said, ‘You should have left your guitar in the car. I don’t want to hear you play. I want to hear what it sounds like through the speakers.’ Well, he had like 1997 computer speakers, so of course you couldn’t understand anything that the song was saying. He listened to it twice, back-to-back. I was just sitting there and he let the second time finish. He leans across his desk and he said, ‘Lainey, you’re just not that good.’ And I leaned across his desk and I said, ‘So-and-so, out of the 10 years that I’ve been in Nashville, you telling me that don’t mean s–t.’”
She went on to add, “It did light another fire underneath me. After I left there, I was like, ‘Okay, at the end of the day you put yourself out there. Not everybody’s going to like you or love you … I think moments like that, they’re not fun. But if anything, they do build character. They give you fun stories to talk about with Trisha Yearwood.”
Yearwood, who has earned five No. 1 Country Airplay hits, offered up her own difficult encounter during one radio interview, when a radio interviewer brought up a fake story about Yearwood that had been in a tabloid.
“I was doing a show and went to the radio station that was sponsoring the show,” Yearwood recalled. “The DJ thought it was funny..and said, ‘Let’s talk about this.’ I said, ‘I can’t believe you would ask me that question.’ And I left, and I’ve never done anything like that.” She went on to add that, “They were very apologetic, but to say to you — and I don’t know if you’ve had that experience yet — but I wish I had learned earlier. I was about your age that I was like, ‘I’m kind and I’m nice, but there’s some things that aren’t okay.’ It’s okay to say that’s not right.”
Leading with purpose — and advice from Dolly
Yearwood also noted the importance of being selective in the projects you agree to take on, to make sure they are in alignment with an artist’s goals.
“I never said, ‘I want to have a cookbook. I want to have a cooking show,’” Yearwood said. “But I was open for the opportunities when they came. And I’ve said no to a lot more stuff than I said yes to. But I say yes to the things that feel right to me. And that’s always the bar to follow. People can read through things when they know it’s not genuine.”
“There’s definitely been times where I felt like I was doing it all,” Wilson said, relating some advice she received from Dolly Parton. “I asked her, ‘How do you decide everything that you’re doing?’ She said, ‘It has to be something that I’m really passionate about and excited to do. It that’s not the case, then I don’t do it.’”
Navigating Social Media
Wilson also shared advice she wrote down shortly after meeting Yearwood for the first time. “She said, ‘For y’all right now, the line between being loved and hated by the world is getting smaller every day. I was like, ‘Oh, Lord’ — because sometimes people love you, people hate you, and then sometimes people hate you because people love you.”
“That’s true: There’s this whole thing of everybody rooting [for you], then when you get to the top of the heap, now we got to figure out a way to make her not superhuman. Now we got to take her down a peg,” Yearwood said. “I guess that’s human nature and the social media aspect makes the world bigger, and smaller.”
She added, “Every time I used to read the comments — good God, don’t do that. I used to read and I’d just get so upset by things and I would call my people and go, ‘We’re getting off of social media.’ And they were like, ‘Actually, you can’t really do that.’ I wanted to interact, but then I realized that I also needed to protect my mental health.”
“Yeah, because even if you put your eyes on it for a split second, it still pings your heart … you’re still human.”
Battling Imposter Syndrome
They also fielded questions from the audience, including one about staying centered as a person during a career rise, and battling imposter syndrome.
“I have a lot of people in my life who remind me of my hard work,” Wilson said. “Even folks like Luke Combs. The day after the CMAs, he texted me this huge novel, and he’s like, ‘Lainey, I just want you to remember that you’re that girl that moved here and lived in that camper trailer and I knew you back then. I’m so proud to see your hard work being recognized and don’t you start thinking that you didn’t deserve this for one second.’ It’s keeping people like those close people who lift you up — also just talking to the Lord. At the end of the day, I got to keep those things close really, really close because this business is hard.”
It’s telling that one of the most emotional moments during the Country Radio Seminar came when Darius Rucker and Brad Paisley led a large cast of artists in a cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain” at the close of the Universal Music Group Nashville (UMGN) showcase at the Ryman Auditorium on March 14.
Just the day before, Garth Brooks had addressed the divisiveness in modern America and encouraged country broadcasters to use their place at the microphone to bring people together: “Unify. Find common ground. Amplify our similarities instead of our differences.”
In “Purple Rain,” the assemblage demonstrated what that looked like, bridging genres and backgrounds to deliver a song that obliquely embraces connection as the world comes to an end. The arrangement included fiddle and Dobro, a significant cross-format augmentation of a song with anthemic pop/rock qualities. Rucker and Dalton Dover brought Black voices to the performance, notable in a genre that went decades with Charley Pride as its lone African American star. And covering Prince meant that Paisley — who had performed a dark track about opioid addiction less than a half-hour before — was now playing an extended guitar solo on a tune originated by a man who had died of an opioid overdose.
Just as important was the mass of people onstage: Vince Gill, Tyler Hubbard, Parker McCollum, Kassi Ashton, Sam Hunt and Catie Offerman were among those lined up behind the lead voices. And while most of the nation has regained some level of normalcy after the pandemic, every sign of people feeling safe to get together remains heartening.
A year ago, CRS attendees were chided for slow-moving charts and a lack of individuality. The format hasn’t changed significantly since then, though a committee is working to resolve those issues.
Meanwhile, 2023’s three-day conference, based at the Omni Nashville Hotel, found programmers in seemingly better spirits. Some 57% of country listeners believe the music is better than it was just a few years ago, according to a NuVoodoo study. Even 52% of consumers who have been country fans for over 10 years — the kind of listener most likely to complain that current music pales in comparison with the good old days — say the new music is better. Jacobs Media president Fred Jacobs, in a “Fred Talk” titled “The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be,” also noted that 62% of respondents in a 2023 survey cited their appreciation of the on-air talent as a motivating factor for listening to AM/FM. That exceeds the 55% of respondents who cited the music as a contributing factor to their radio consumption.
Stations would be wise, Jacobs suggested, to develop on-air talent that successfully connects with the audience.
As technology becomes ever more dominant in daily life, it appears that interactions with people have greater value. Syndicated Audacy personality Josh “Bru” Brubaker, a Los Angeles-based 26-year-old whose radio background and TikTok skills have built a following in the millions, said in an “Okay Boomer” panel that simply being real goes a long way.
“Vulnerability and relatability has never been more important to our audiences, especially in Gen Z,” he said. “That’s something that we’ve been doing in radio ever since it’s been around, so play on our strengths. I think we overthink a lot of things. But those core things are what Gen Z is looking for. And we can use that to reinvigorate our audiences.”
That word “reinvigorate” is important, given that time spent listening to radio has dropped since the advent of streaming services. Brubaker recalled meeting a young fan who asked him, “What is radio?”
The medium, once dominant in American entertainment, faces a crowded field that includes audio and video streaming, satellite radio and broadcast and cable TV, plus streaming TV services and online games. The future will only grow more complicated.
Automobiles, where radio once dominated, are undergoing significant change. Jacobs showed images of pillar-to-pillar dashboards that manufacturers are designing with more in-car options than ever. FM radio, he noted, will need to up its visual game — taking advantage of logos and other graphic opportunities — to remain appealing to commuters. But AM radio faces a much bleaker future with the accelerating shift toward electric vehicles. The engines create interference problems, and AM is increasingly being booted from car interiors. Jacobs cited Ford specifically, though news site Axios indicated in a March 13 story that eight automakers — including BMW, Mazda, Tesla and Volkswagen — have dropped AM radio from their electric cars.
“After hanging around with automakers for the past 15 years, I don’t think they give a shit,” said Jacobs. “I think they’re going to make whatever they’re going to make, and AM radio is not a part of the future for them.”
One other change that could create structural issues for broadcasters is the adaptation of subscriptions. Detroit is toying with recurring payments, Jacobs said, that would bill owners monthly for heated seats, map updates or driving assistants. And he believes over-the-air radio could become yet another optional service rather than a standard feature.
Country’s future, as always, was on display at CRS. Mackenzie Carpenter infused ultra-Southern phrasing in the hooky “Don’t Mess With Exes” during the Big Machine showcase. Avery Anna fielded a tuneful kiss-off with “Narcissist” on Warner Music Nashville’s lunchtime stage, and Offerman applied a warm, intimate voice to the confessional “I Killed a Man” at the UMGN show.
Programmers were encouraged repeatedly during CRS panels to take risks and “think outside the box.” Much of the industry, it appears, is of a mind to simply make the box larger. The genre’s widening cultural representation and increasing blend of music styles suggest that country and its real-world stories have the potential to fulfill Brooks’ challenge, to become a unifying voice.
Whether that potential is fully realized is a question that can only be answered in that uncertain future.
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Kenny Chesney made an appearance at Country Radio Seminar in Nashville on Tuesday (March 14), offering insights into the key decisions that shifted his career into overdrive — propelling Chesney from a struggling singer-songwriter to a four-time CMA entertainer of the year winner, and one of country music’s most successful touring acts ever.
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During a session moderated by Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton, Chesney detailed the competitive mentality — influenced in part by his love of sports — that has led him to earn 32 No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hits and 11 CMA Awards wins. Chesney played to over 1.3 million fans on his 2022 Here and Now Tour, and is slated to begin his I Go Back 2023 tour later this month.
“The one thing that I think that’s helped me … sustain any kind of success is the idea that you either get better or you get worse,” he said, sharing advice he received from big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton. “He said, ‘You get 1% better or worse every day…’ I’ve tried to get 1% better as a writer, a person, a producer. That’s the mentality I’ve had over the years.”
Tennessee native Chesney also discussed his early career years, when he first signed with the country division of Capricorn Records and issued his debut album, 1994’s In My Wildest Dreams. Sony Music executive Joe Galante heard Chesney’s music and soon signed him to Sony’s BNA Records imprint, where Chesney released his sophomore project, All I Need to Know, a year later.
“Joe had never seen me perform, never saw me live,” Chesney said. “And thank God … I wasn’t comfortable in my skin as an artist then. And Joe signed me off of that [record].”
During the discussion, Chesney also recalled his disagreement with Galante over releasing “Don’t Blink” as a radio single. The song would be come a four-week Country Airplay No. 1 hit in 2007.
“When we released that song, Joe [Galante] and [former Sony Music A&R executive] Renee Bell really wanted that song released, and I hated it,” Chesney said. “I felt like it just touched every button you could possibly touch to get somebody to like a song and I hated it. We were at ABC Radio Networks in Dallas, and we were on the plane there, and I was in Joe’s ear the who two-hour ride about how much I hated this single choice: ‘It’s never gonna work, this is going to be the end of everything. I’ve worked really hard to be here and you’re gonna cut my legs off with ‘Don’t Blink.’’ I did my interviews and we are coming down the escalators and the lady at the front desk tells me, ‘I just love “Don’t Blink”!’ I looked at Galante and said, ‘You told her to say that.’” (“Don’t Blink” ended up being a four-week No. 1 on Country Airplay.)
Chesney noted that early in his career, even though he was notching hits, he had yet to set himself apart as a unique artist. “I was a lot like a lot of artists, honestly,” he recalled. “I was trying to be the newer version of George Strait. I think Garth [Brooks] would tell you the same thing, he loved George. That was the bar. I wore a belt buckle. I was trying to be that.”
By the time he released a Greatest Hits album in 2000, he had earned several top 5 hits and No. 1 hits. But he needed to make some key changes to stand out from the crowd. “Everybody knew the songs, but they didn’t know me,” Chesney said. “I had 16 songs in a Greatest Hits package, and then I would go play a fair or whatever and people would go, ‘Oh, that’s the guy that sings that song. Oh, he sings that, too.’ So they hadn’t really connected yet. But the moment I stopped trying to be George Strait, that was the moment my life changed. I started really writing songs. And my life in the Virgin Islands, I spent a lot of time writing out there.
Helton noted that from 1993, Chesney released a new album nearly every year, until a two-year gap between 1997’s I Will Stand and 1999’s Everywhere We Go, and a three-year gap to 2002’s No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems — with a cover conveying some of the beach lifestyle, “Island Kenny” branding fans would come to associate with Chesney.
“At one point you told me you were watching CMT and you saw video after video of male singers — hat, belt buckle — and you knew something had to change,” Helton noted.
“This isn’t a slam toward anybody, but I realized there were acts out there that felt the same way I did,” Chesney recalled. “We were all trying to reach for Strait. I didn’t have as good of a song as Tracy Lawrence had, with ‘Time Marches On.’ I just felt I wasn’t truly being authentic as an artist during that time. There was a phase, after Garth hit, where everybody wore the same shirt.”
Chesney said spending time in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he filmed music videos for songs including “How Forever Feels” and “I Lost It,” provided creative inspiration.
“I found myself writing songs about the characters and the people I met, their stories. As much of a marketing ploy as it looks like, it really wasn’t. It was just a huge part of my life.”
Chesney also discussed the balance of making music and also keeping his personal life private, in the era of artists documenting their lives 24/7 on social media.
“I just don’t feel comfortable going down that road,” Chesney said. “I work really hard to be this person, and I want to keep some sort of dignity and integrity intact, and not feel like I’m selling my soul to get higher in the consumption chart. I realize that, the person I am today, some things are fair game. One of the reasons I’m so private is when my life started to change and people started caring at a different level, the only thing I could keep to myself was the intimate details of my life. Now everything else is fair game. Can people talk about you? They make stuff up, they run with it, the media runs with it. People are really curious to know those intimate details, I get that. But the reason I’m so private is that if I don’t keep those details to myself, where do I go? What else do I have?”
Helton asked if the media attention surrounding Chesney’s marriage and subsequent annulment to actress to Renee Zellweger in 2005 heightened his sense of privacy.
“That changed a lot,” Chesney said. “What is interesting is we were playing stadiums already, and after that … I didn’t have social anxiety before that, [but] then you add our success and then you add that to your life and you have a little bit of social anxiety. And now, dealing with the way the world is today and how social everything is, and how information is transferred — yeah, you’d have to be crazy to want to be a celebrity today.”
Asked whether he enjoys being a celebrity, Chesney replied, “Not really. I enjoy certain things about it … I shy away from the celebrity thing. I say no to a lot of things that come my way that a lot of people might say yes to — it’s too celebrity-oriented in nature. I would rather be creating.”
Chesney signed with Warner Music Nashville in 2018, and is currently creating his next album for the label, noting that he’s nearly halfway done with the project.
“The next record is important — they are all important,” Chesney said. “No matter who you are or where you’re at in your career arc, every album is important. You want somebody to do something, you want somebody to be happy, you want somebody to chase their own dreams because of your music.”
Asked if he already has a first single prepared from the project, Chesney said, “Well, I could, but I’m trying to beat it.”
As Chesney nears his milestone 55th birthday on March 26, Helton asked how long he plans to keep touring at this level.
“I feel great and I still have the fire to go out there and give people every single thing I have,” Chesney responded. “Yes, as long as I can be creative and do what I do at the level that I do it.”
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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With Country Radio Seminar just a week away, key showcases are taking shape, with three record labels unveiling their lunchtime performance lineups and CMT announcing a handful of acts appearing at the first evening’s opening reception.
Brad Paisley, making his first CRS appearance since signing with Universal Music Group Nashville (UMGN), will play during the label’s annual takeover of the historic Ryman Auditorium. Brantley Gilbert, Vince Gill, Sam Hunt and Cody Johnson are among the major acts officially in the mix during the three-day seminar March 13-15 at the Omni Nashville Hotel.
Newly announced entertainment lineups include:
• Warner Music Nashville sponsors the March 13 lunch that offers Johnson, Chase Matthew and Ian Munsick, with additional acts promised.
• The March 13 happy hour opening event will feature four acts associated with CMT’s Next Women of Country: Julia Cole, Ashley Cooke, Miko Marks and O.N.E the Duo.
• At least 14 acts are appearing at the lunchtime UMGN Ryman gig on March 14: Gill,Hunt,Paisley, Kassi Ashton,Boy Named Banjo,Brothers Osborne,Dalton Dover,Caylee Hammack,Tyler Hubbard,Parker McCollum,Kylie Morgan,Catie Offerman,Josh Ross and Darius Rucker.
• Big Machine Label Group hosts the March 15 lunch that will feature Gilbert, Danielle Bradbery, Mackenzie Carpenter, Riley Green, Chris Janson, Justin Moore, Shane Profitt and Conner Smith.
CRS previously announced the lineup for the closing New Faces Show: Priscilla Block, Jackson Dean, Jelly Roll, Frank Ray and Nate Smith.
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