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Bolstered by acts like Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan and Luke Combs, country music in 2023 experienced its biggest growth spurt in more than 30 years — way back when Garth Brooks soared to superstardom. Already, this year seems on track to continue that explosion, as country stars and pop icons alike are capitalizing on the genre’s recent boom.
In February, Beyoncé became the first Black woman to top Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart with her galloping hit, “Texas Hold ’Em,” from her upcoming Act II, expected to be a full-on country album, out March 29. Post Malone has teased a duet with Combs on social media and written with other genre stars including Wallen and HARDY for his upcoming country album. And Lana Del Rey — who declared that her fall album, Lasso, will be a country set — recently posted a snippet of a song that she worked on with noted Nashville songwriter-producer Luke Laird.
CMT senior vp of music strategy and talent Leslie Fram views the influx as a sign of “overwhelming respect for the storytelling and the songwriting in Nashville,” but predicts that noncountry artists taking up slots at terrestrial country radio “is going to be a major topic of conversation … If [a core country artist] has spent 30 to 50 weeks trying to climb up a chart and, all of a sudden, they’re replaced by someone who is not in the genre, I do believe there will be concerns.”
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However, Simon Tikhman, co-founder of The Core Entertainment, which manages Nickelback and country upstarts Bailey Zimmerman and Nate Smith, sees the possible radio displacement as a good sign overall. “We were on a call with Nate’s Sony team talking about adds at radio, and No. 1 was Beyoncé and No. 2 was Nate,” he says, adding that The Core Entertainment co-founder Kevin “Chief” Zaruk “and I were like, ‘This is amazing that she sees what’s going on over here.’ She’s as brilliant as a performer gets, and she wants to be part of this. It just goes to show how powerful the genre is right now.”
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As Alan Jackson famously sang in his 1994 hit, “Gone Country,” for decades, any artist who released such music but who hadn’t moved to Nashville or put in the time building a country audience and courting country radio was considered a carpetbagger. But now, many insiders see it as a sign that borders between genres have fallen and that country’s recent surge in popularity has made it extremely appealing to artists who have fallen in love with the music, too.
And unlike in the past, when artists might explore country only as their pop career dwindled, today’s infiltration and interest are coming from names at the peak of their pop prowess. “It isn’t like the heritage artists before that wanted to do a country record. These are artists at the top of their game,” Fram says. Olivia Rodrigo attended Megan Moroney’s Los Angeles show last year and posted photos backstage together. And in November, Post Malone made his debut performance at the Country Music Association Awards.
Plus, fandom aside, it’s smart business. “The pop labels are seeing the success of a Morgan Wallen,” Sony Nashville chairman/CEO Randy Goodman says of the country superstar, whose smash “Last Night” and album One Thing at a Time logged the most weeks of any song or album on the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200 last year, respectively. He adds: “The biggest female artist in the world is Taylor [Swift], who started in country. I don’t think that’s lost on any of the labels.”
Range Media Partners co-founder Matt Graham, whose company manages Jack Harlow, Midland and Saweetie, believes the pop transplants could help expand country’s global audience. “It’s good for making the genre international,” he says, noting that acts like Wallen and Combs have already helped country grow worldwide. “This has the potential to blow that wide open.” He predicts streaming numbers for country artists, which were already up nearly 24% year over year in 2023 domestically, according to Luminate, will “drastically” increase this year and beyond.
And the genre-flipping isn’t just flowing one way: Country artists are finding success in other formats, too. Combs had a massive crossover hit with his cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” and Wallen topped Billboard’s year-end Streaming Songs Artists chart, the first time a country act had achieved the feat. Meanwhile, Jelly Roll and HARDY — both of whom are considered primarily country artists — reached No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock and Hard Rock charts, respectively.
Like 21-year-old Rodrigo, younger music listeners don’t “put music in a box,” Zaruk says, noting Zimmerman’s November duet with the Jonas Brothers. “For years, country fans didn’t really listen to hip-hop and rap and rap fans were not listening to country,” he continues. “We’re genreless now.”
This story will appear in the March 9, 2024, issue of Billboard.
The late Jimmy Buffett deeply loved New Orleans. After graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi, he moved to the Crescent City for a year and his time there informed the rest of his musical life.
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He played New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at least a dozen times, adored New Orleans legendary composer/artist Allen Toussaint (who wrote a song called “I’m Gonna Hang with Jimmy Buffett”), recorded and toured with local icons The Neville Brothers, and when asked by a journalist if he thought “there would be a Jimmy Buffett if there wasn’t a New Orleans,” Buffett replied, “I don’t think there ever would have been.”
On his final album, Equal Strain on All Parts, which was released Nov. 3 via Mailboat/Sun, two months after his Sept. 1 death, Buffett again professed his love for New Orleans and what the city meant to him on the rollicking “The College of Bourbon Street.”
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In the video for the autobiographical anthem, which premieres above, Buffett, with a little help from the renowned Preservation Jazz Hall Band, chronicles his history with the city. Anchored by footage of a grinning Buffett recording the song in the studio last year, the video also includes decades of photographs and clips of Buffett performing in New Orleans and just enjoying the multitudes of delights the city has to offer.
He’s shown leading a second line, busking in the French Quarter with a sign in his guitar case that reads “will play for gumbo,” hanging out with fans at Margaritaville, playing at Jazz Fest and excitedly getting ready to sample some gumbo. The video does everything to reinforce the notion that Buffett lived and loved every moment to the fullest in his 76 years on earth.
Buffett wrote the song with Will Kimbrough, who told Buffettnews.com that he “started writing ‘The University of Bourbon Street’ on my couch Dec 19, 2022, after Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefers sent me one of his ‘are you ready for some homework? messages.” He then joined Buffett in the studio last January to record the song. “One of the most profound experiences of this time period was rewriting the lyrics from beginning to end right there in the studio with Jimmy” he told the website. “No pressure! But we did it. Despite his illness, he was 100% on and energetics, lighting up the room with that smile. Making everyone feel comfortable and laugh.”
Kesha is ready to begin again. The singer who was locked in a battle with former producer/label boss Dr. Luke for nearly a decade over her claims that he raped and emotionally abused her posted a snippet of new music and hinted an her new era in a post on Wednesday (March 6); Luke (born […]
True: Olivia Rodrigo has a Guts-themed cookie available on certain Crumbl shelves. False: She’s a Mexican artist whose last name is Rodriguez. Need some context? A TikTok user named Dre recently went viral for his video review of the 21-year-old pop star’s custom pastry, during which he called her “Olivia Rodriguez” and asked his followers: […]
Jack Antonoff is the producer behind some of the biggest pop records of the past decade, two of which — Taylor Swift‘s Midnights and Lana Del Rey‘s Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd — earned album of the year nods at this year’s Grammys. (Midnights ended up taking home the prize.)
And in an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music 1 released Wednesday (March 6), the musical mastermind opened up about some of his most magical moments working with the “Anti-Hero” singer and “Summertime Sadness” musician. “Every time we do something new, I joke, ‘I guess we still got it,’ because there’s no reason for it to keep coming the way it does,” he told Lowe.
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“There’s a lot of magic there,” Antonoff continued. “I feel that way with Taylor, I feel that way with Lana … It’s almost like, the more we do, the less I expect it. Because I often think to myself, well, how much longer could we really keep having this spark? And I’m just grateful that it’s there, and I don’t know where it comes from or where it goes, but the one thing that I’ve noticed is that anyone who claims to know where it comes from and where it goes burns out pretty quick.”
Reflecting on making “Mariners Apartment Complex” for Del Rey’s acclaimed album Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Antonoff described the surreal experience of watching the singer writing the chorus in real time. “She just got behind the mic, she just sang that part,” he recalled. “She heard it, I heard it. And if anyone didn’t hear how brilliant it was, they’re a moron.”
He also touched on the whirlwind moment he and Swift wrote the bridge to the pop star’s Reputation track “Getaway Car,” which the pair captured on video. Fans loved the clip so much, Antonoff re-created it with Swift onstage during a surprise guest appearance at the Eras Tour last year.
“I remember the moment that Taylor was sitting in my apartment and we were doing ‘Getaway Car,’ and it’s like, these things, they tell you what they are, and they’re pretty unimpeachable,” he told Lowe. “So I guess that’s what I look for, or that’s why I know I could do something with someone, is if that’s all we’re looking for, is this feeling.”
Antonoff’s new album Bleachers arrives March 8.
Since her Billboard Hot 100 debut with the Mac Miller-assisted “The Way” back in 2013, Ariana Grande has evolved into a generational pop titan. Her awe-inspiring vocal prowess and fearlessness to move through the myriad subsects of pop, R&B, dance, hip-hop and musical theatre have resulted in a discography that is as creatively fulfilling as it is culturally and commercially impactful.
From her Victorious and Sam & Cat days — she didn’t say she couldn’t sing, after all! — it was glaringly obvious that Grande’s voice would carry her to unimaginable career heights. After a few false starts (“Put Your Hearts Up,” anyone?) she eventually found her footing with Yours Truly, the R&B-laced debut LP that announced her as pop’s next superstar. From the jaunty “Popular Song” to her work with key producers and songwriters such as Victoria Monét, Tommy Brown, Leon Thomas III and Babyface, Yours Truly laid the groundwork that Grande’s entire catalog stands upon.
From there, she embarked on five consecutive albums of Top 40 domination. 2014‘s My Everything boasted four Hot 100 top 10 hits, 2016’s Dangerous Woman housed genre-bending collaborations with everyone from Macy Gray to Future, 2018’s Sweetener found Grande expanding her horizons by tapping Pharrell Williams, 2019’s Thank U, Next spawned a pair of career-defining No. 1 hits in its title track and “7 Rings,” and 2020’s Positions reignited her R&B influences and launched two monster hits in its chart-topping title track and “34+35” (No. 2). According to Luminate, Grande has shifted 19.4 million album units in the U.S. and earned over 23.6 billion streams across lead artist credits, as of Aug. 25, 2023, the ten-year anniversary of Yours Truly.
At the top of 2024, Grande made her grand return to the pop music scene with “yes, and?” A house-tastic kiss-off to her detractors, the Max Martin-helmed track serves as the lead single from Eternal Sunshine — Grande’s seventh studio album and first in three years. By the tail end of January (chart dated Jan. 27), “Yes, And?” launched atop the Hot 100 — her eighth chart-topper and sixth to debut at the pole position — and received a Mariah Carey-featuring remix five week slater.
As the two-time Grammy winner prepares to unleash Eternal Sunshine and enter her Wicked era, now is the time to take a trip down memory lane. From latex bunny ears to that low, blonde ponytail, here’s our ranking of every Ariana Grande studio album.
My Everything (2014)
As pointed out by Alex Cooper on the latest episode of Call Her Daddy Wednesday (March 6), a lot of drama ensued after her guest, Camila Cabello, left Fifth Harmony to pursue a solo career back in 2016.
Perhaps most notably, the X Factor-generated girl group made a clear dig at their ex-bandmate when Ally Brooke, Normani, Dinah Jane and Lauren Jauregui, freshly a band of four, depicted a faceless fifth member being yanked offstage just before their performance at the 2017 VMAs. Later on, Cabello would say that the move “definitely hurt [her] feelings.”
Flash forward to her interview on Cooper’s podcast, and the “Bam Bam” musician says she’s now able to look back fondly on her time with 5H. “I feel like I can really focus on and remember the really joyful times,” she said between sips of red wine. “I grew a lot in that group.”
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Cabello also explained what led to her departure from the quintet, noting that she’d started privately writing songs on her own that she originally debated passing along to other artists. “It turned into, ‘No, actually, I want to sing these songs by myself,’” she recalled. “I started distancing myself from the group vision. They were still really passionate and into that.”
“I was just like, ‘I’m not happy here anymore. It doesn’t feel aligned,’” added The Voice alum. “It’s like any breakup, yeah. It sucks.”
The remaining four members of Fifth Harmony would eventually announce their hiatus in 2018. They’ve all nurtured solo careers in the years since, and Cabello joined her former bandmates in congratulating Normani on announcing her long-awaited debut album, Dopamine, last month.
One of Cabello’s first moves as a soon-to-be soloist back in 2015 was duetting with Shawn Mendes on “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” years after which she and the Canadian artist would date for about two years, ending November 2021. In 2023, they briefly got back together before splitting once again, another topic Cabello discussed with Cooper.
The “Havana” singer also gave details about her headline-making trip to Turks and Caicos with Drake in December, which at the time led many to suspect there was something romantic happening between the two stars. But according to Cabello, she was just there to show her upcoming album to the “God’s Plan” wrapper, who she says inspired a lot of her new music.
“It was vacation plus work,” she told Cooper. “But I will say, you know what? I love that man. I love him. We all love him. First of all, we did not go on vacation. This was like a homie, friends trip. I really felt like he would like my album, and so I DM’d him and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m just gonna put it out there.’ We hung out, I played him my album. He loved it.”
As for the record itself, which Cabello hasn’t yet announced — although she did recently share a teaser for a new track on social media — the musician says that making the project has been “such a journey.” “It started off with me really having that intention of going back to how it started with me,” she said. “Sitting with myself, and really getting back to that first passion of songwriting.”
Watch Cabello’s Call Her Daddy interview below.
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As the release of Everything I Thought It Was draws nearer, Justin Timberlake is treating fans to yet another “One Night Only” experience. On Wednesday (March 6), the “Selfish” singer announced an exclusive show at The Wiltern in Los Angeles. “LA ➡️ THE WILTERN 3/13,” Timberlake simply captioned a carousel that include a picture of […]
Sure, most 20-year-olds have not starred in a globally beloved Netflix sci-fi series as well as half a dozen big-budget films. But like seemingly everyone on the planet these days, Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown is totally obsessed with Taylor Swift. During a visit to the Kelly Clarkson Show on Wednesday (March 6), MBB […]
As winter comes to a close, the sun is starting to hang around in the sky for a bit longer with each passing day. For Ariana Grande, however, sunshine is eternal. In anticipation of Eternal Sunshine — which is out on all platforms on Friday (March 8) — Grande has taken to her social media […]