Tracy Chapman
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The iconic singer Tracy Chapman appeared at the Grammy Awards to perform her hit song “Fast Car” with Luke Combs, moving the crowd to a standing ovation.
On Sunday night (Feb. 4), the 66th Grammy Awards began with a duet performance by singer and songwriter Tracy Chapman and country star Luke Combs of Chapman’s now-iconic song “Fast Car.” Dressed in an elegant black shirt and slacks with her silver locs tied behind her, Chapman played the memorable first bars on her guitar singing the first verse as the crowd cheered.
Combs joined in, singing the second verse. They went back and forth singing and joined in on the chorus, leading the star-studded audience to deliver a rapturous standing ovation as the song ended with Combs bowing to Chapman. “The legendary Tracy Chapman, everybody,” host Trevor Noah said at the end, overjoyed. “Thank you so much for that! Thank you so much for that.” Oprah Winfrey could be seen jumping up and down in excitement in the audience, with Taylor Swift and Kasey Musgraves also expressing their joy during the ovation.
The 59-year-old singer’s return to the Grammy stage in 35 years was propelled by Combs’ faithful cover of “Fast Car” last year on his Gettin’ Old album. It captivated the public, obtaining the second spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and a nomination for Best Country Solo Performance at this year’s Grammys in addition to winning the Country Music Award for Song of the Year last year – making Chapman the first Black songwriter to get that honor. “It’s truly an honor for my song to be newly recognized after 35 years of its debut,” she said in a statement at the time. The duet thrilled many at home watching as well, inducing fans to push the song to No. 1 on the U.S. iTunes chart shortly after the performance aired.
The appearance was also the anniversary of Tracy Chapman’s debut at the Grammy Awards in 1989, a year after her self-titled debut featuring “Fast Car.” She would win Best Female Pop Vocalist that night, where she also performed before the audience. Before that, Chapman hadn’t done many public performances since her last tour ended in 2009, and she had appeared on Late Night With Seth Meyers during the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election performing “Talkin’ Bout A Revolution.”
Kane Brown released “Heaven,” a love-drunk single that practically radiates romantic bliss, in the fall of 2017. The following May, the track topped Billboard’s Country Airplay chart and climbed to No. 15 on the Hot 100. Despite this success, “we never tried to cross it over” to pop radio, says Martha Earls, who manages Brown. “In what world would you have an almost Diamond-certified single that you didn’t try to take over to pop? It was a different time. Back then, that opportunity just was not there.”
Today, Earls says, conditions are different — she “absolutely would” have promoted “Heaven” to the Top 40 format. “Let’s take it to pop [radio] tomorrow!” she jokes.
This summer, country singles are finally starting to fare better on the Billboard Pop Airplay chart: Morgan Wallen‘s “Last Night” is at No. 5 on the latest ranking, while Luke Combs‘ “Fast Car” hit No. 20. (They also sit at No. 1 and No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.) “Most Top 40 programmers are protective of pop music sounds,” says Steven Shannon, music director at KZFN in Moscow, Idaho. “It’s unusual to have two country songs out at the same time that are in the Top 20.”
With that in mind, “it’s nice to see more people being open to our format,” adds Chris Kappy, who manages Luke Combs. “I appreciate the fact that people can look at country music just like they look at any other genre.”
In the past, pop radio has flirted with country periodically but never really embraced the genre, suggesting that the success of Wallen and Combs could be another temporary blip. (Pop radio’s arms-length approach to country is part of the reason why, before this year, the last track to top both Country Airplay and the Hot 100 was Lonestar‘s “Amazed” in 2000.) “I guarantee that most Top 40 programmers are resistant” to adding country to their playlists, Shannon says. Sure enough, one pop PD tells Billboard, “I’d rather be playing hip-hop.”
As a result, country executives say they still only consider attempting a pop radio campaign in special cases. But shifts in the music landscape could point to a bigger role for country in the pop airplay mix moving forward. The genre’s audience is surging — country’s consumption has increased by a whopping 20.3% year-over-year in the first 26 weeks of 2023, according to Luminate, making its popularity tough to overlook. (By contrast, pop is up by 7.6%.)
Country singles get to shine on pop radio roughly once a decade, according to Guy Zapoleon, a veteran radio consultant. He is known in radio circles for his “10-year music cycle” theory, which divides pop airplay into three distinct periods: the birth phase, the extremes phase, and the doldrums phase. Terrestrial radio is currently very much in the doldrums — “the worst doldrums of all times,” Zapoleon declares — and during these periods, it’s customary for Top 40 programmers to cast around for hits elsewhere, roping in singles from country or the format known as “adult contemporary.”
In the past, Zapoleon says, this has led to increased airplay for country at Top 40 for periods lasting two to three years. In 1963, Johnny Cash, Skeeter Davis, and Bobby Bare were beneficiaries of this trend; in 1974, programmers embraced Glen Campbell, Charlie Rich, and Mac Davis; in the early 1980s, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, and Eddie Rabbitt were added on to Top 40 playlists, boosted in part in the wake of the success of John Travolta’s 1980 film Urban Cowboy.
This context suggests that Wallen and Combs may be helping Top 40 through a rough patch, but that the dalliance won’t last. “If history is an indication, I think maybe this [playing more country at Top 40] might be just a trend,” says Matt Mony, program director for WYOY in Jackson, Mississippi. “It’s sort of like what we saw with all the sample-songs that we were playing” — think Bebe Rexha and David Guetta’s “I’m Good (Blue)” — “that’s starting to lighten up a bit.”
Country artists seeking Top 40 airplay don’t just have to win over pop programmers, they also have to worry about country programmers’ possessiveness. “In the past, there was a sense that if an artist crossed over from country they were leaving the format,” Earls acknowledges. With Brown, “we almost created two careers,” she adds. “We would have a song go to Top 40” — including collaborations with Marshmello, blackbear, and Swae Lee — but also “make sure that we released music to super-serve the country fans too.”
Adrian Michaels, vp of innovation, radio, and streaming at BMG’s Stoney Creek Records, has been on an impressive streak with Jelly Roll, a 38-year-old who spent time in prison for dealing drugs, got out and built a budding rap career, and then turned into a country breakout. Jelly Roll is now starting to receive some pop airplay after enjoying success at both country and rock radio. “It definitely bruises some [programing] people when they see” artists move to other formats, Michaels says. “I get yelled at a lot. But the audience has a much bigger voice than a gatekeeper saying, ‘this belongs on this station only, because we’re the ones who broke them.’”
And that voice has gotten a lot louder lately. The runaway success of “Last Night” and “Fast Car” is taking place amidst an eruption of interest in the genre that Wallen and Combs call home. “We’re seeing a global moment for the genre right now, and that is opening up some space at other formats,” explains Stacy Blythe, svp of radio promotion at Wallen’s label, Big Loud.
Those other formats may not be able to continue to look past country if that growth continues. “What I hope happens is that [pop radio programmers] see the numbers coming in on streaming, and if this [country song] is streaming as much as this [pop single], obviously that shows there are people out there listening,” Kappy says. “It’s contemporary hits radio. They should be playing the contemporary hits of the day.”
In addition, terrestrial radio’s role in the music ecosystem has shifted dramatically in the last decade in ways that might make the pop airwaves more hospitable to country. One key difference is that many young listeners have abandoned radio for streaming services and TikTok; a recent survey from the consultancy Jacobs Media Strategy found that the average age of radio listeners is around 55 years old.
This bodes well for the cross-format popularity of country, which the radio industry historically views as a genre favored by more mature listeners. “Another reason country is working so well at Top 40 right now is because we’re dealing more with women 25-plus, and that’s a really good fit for that genre,” Mony says.
And “as the Top 40 format continues to age up, programmers should consider country crossovers,” adds Cat Collins, a radio consultant and former vp of Top 40 and Hot AC for Townsquare Media.
Some radio experts also believe that the pop format has strayed from its roots in the past decade-ish as a platform that elevates all the hits, regardless of their origin. “The theoretical ideal of Top 40 is to play hits from across the spectrum of music, a notion that has largely faded, as most Top 40s have been sticking to a very narrow lane,” says Larry Rosin, president of Edison Research. Recent country singles that did well on pop radio — like Dan + Shay‘s 2021 hit “10,000 Hours” and Gabby Barrett‘s 2020 smash “I Hope,” both of which cracked the top 10 — gained access in part by incorporating Top 40 mainstays (Justin Bieber and Charlie Puth, respectively).
Top 40 stations are going through a brutal period of low ratings; could the “narrow lane” approach be adding to the format’s troubles? For Zapoleon, it’s simply a matter of numbers: Country singles accounted for more than 20% of the year-end Hot 100 in 2022, but around 1% of the year-end Mediabase Top 40 chart. “That’s a lot of country hits Top 40 isn’t playing,” he says. “Hopefully they wake up.”
SiriusXM’s Hits 1 is one of five Top 40 stations already testing “Need a Favor,” a growling, lighters-up power ball from Jelly Roll that has spent multiple weeks atop the rock radio chart and is inside the top five at country radio. “We’re not waiting for campaigns to come in our direction,” says Alex Tear, vp of music programming for SiriusXM and Pandora. Too often, “radio is late to the game.”
His peers may be more receptive to Jelly Roll this year than in years past. “I don’t want to jinx anything, but don’t be surprised if, by the time this comes out, you see [Jelly Roll] really popping up at Top 40,” Michaels says. “It’s a wonderful feeling for us to take somebody from Music Row here and have this much reach.”
When Luke Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” reached No 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (dated July 8), it marked several firsts.
The song, a remake of Chapman’s 1988 classic, became the first remake of a pop hit to reach No. 1 on the chart in 15 years, since Blake Shelton topped Country Airplay with his version of Michael Bublé’s “Home.” It was also the first time in 24 years that a cover of a song that originally reached the top 10 of the Hot 100 — Chapman’s tune peaked at No. 6 — summitted on the Country Airplay chart. The last to do so was Mark Chesnutt’s “I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing,” which led Country Airplay list in 1999, after Aerosmith’s original topped the Hot 100 in 1998.
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But most significantly, it becomes the first song with a Black woman as the sole writer to top the chart. In fact, it marks only the second time since Country Airplay’s debut in 1990 that a Black songwriter has reached No. 1 credited as the only writer on a track. And like with “Fast Car,” the only time it has happened before was on a cover of a previous hit: For the chart dated Aug. 4, 1990, Dan Seals’ remake of Sam Cooke’s “Good Times,” penned solely by Cooke, reached No. 1. Cooke, who released the song originally in 1964, took his version to No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.
As Rolling Stone first noted, three Black women have reached No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart as co-writers: Allison Randall was the first to do so, as co-writer on Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s & OOO’s (An American Girl),” which hit No. 1 on the chart dated Aug. 10, 1994. In 2021, Lady A took “Champagne Night,” co-written by Ester Dean, to the summit — while later the same year, Dan + Shay reached No. 1 with “Glad You Exist,” which Tayla Parx co-wrote.
A number of Black and biracial male artists have taken songs they have co-written to No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart, including Darius Rucker, Kane Brown, BRELAND and Jimmie Allen. Additionally, a handful of Black male songwriters, including Shy Carter, Steven Battey, Anthony Smith and Jamie Moore, have co-written songs that have topped the chart.
For pure longevity on a country chart though, no one tops Ted Jarrett. In 1955, Webb Pierce’s take on the Black singer-songwriter’s “Love, Love, Love” spent 13 weeks at No. 1 on the Most Played by Jockeys chart, nine weeks atop the Most Played in Jukeboxes chart and eight weeks at No. 1 on Best Sellers in Stores for all “Country & Western Records.”
Assistance preparing this story provided by Tom Roland and Jim Asker.
Luke Combs has driven his “Fast Car” to the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 – and Tracy Chapman is riding shotgun.
The surprise success of Combs’ cover has been a minor windfall for Chapman, the sole songwriter of the 1988 hit from her breakthrough debut album. Billboard estimates that Combs’ version has generated about $500,000 in publishing royalties globally from its March 17 debut through June 8. Chapman alone is pocketing a sizable portion of that total.
Most of the royalties have come from 154 million U.S. on-demand audio streams from services such as Spotify and Apple Music from March 17 to June 8, according to Luminate. During that period, “Fast Car” also had 6 million video streams and 28 million programmed audio streams in the United States. The track has also been purchased 86,000 times, while the album on which it appears, Combs’ Gettin’ Old, has been purchased 68,000 times in both digital and physical formats. The United States accounts for more than three quarters of the song’s global consumption — a high ratio not atypical for a country artist.
What’s more, Combs’ success with “Fast Car” has also given Chapman’s original recording a boost. Weekly consumption — measured by track sales and streaming converted into equivalent track units — increased 44% since Combs’ version was released, while average weekly radio spins improved about 11%. That’s resulted in a boost in U.S. recorded revenues of about $54,000, with $13,000 coming from publishing royalties, Billboard estimates. (Warner Music Group’s Elektra Records, not Chapman, owns the recorded music rights.) Interest in Chapman herself appears to have increased, too: U.S. Google searches for the singer almost tripled from the weeks ended March 18 to June 3, according to Google Trends.
“Fast Car,” the first single for Chapman’s eponymous debut album, has been covered by the likes of Sam Smith, Khalid, Black Pumas and English producer Jonas Blue, whose dance version reached No. 2 on The Official U.K. Singles Chart and No. 98 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2016. But in the United States, Combs’ version became the most successful to date by reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 (dated June 17), surpassing Chapman’s original which reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1988, and helped her debut album reach triple platinum within a year of its release.
Combs’ “Fast Car” peaked at No. 1 on the Country Digital Song Sales chart (dated June 10) and No. 2 on the Country Streaming Songs chart (dated April 29). It also reached No. 6 on the Country Airplay chart (dated June 17) in just its eighth week on the tally and hit No. 2 on the Hot Country Songs chart (dated May 6), which combines radio airplay and streams. North of the U.S. border, “Fast Car” reached No. 2 on the Canadian Digital Song Sales chart (dated May 6), No. 5 on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 chart (dated May 27) and No. 36 on the Canada All-Format Airplay chart (dated June 10).
Tracking the ownership of “Fast Car” is like a brief lesson in the history of major publishing dealmaking of the last four decades. Chapman signed a publishing deal with SBK Entertainment prior to signing with Elektra Records in 1987. SBK was acquired by EMI Music Publishing in 1989. Citi took control of EMI in 2011 after private equity firm Terra Firma defaulted on its debt from a 2007 acquisition. A consortium of investors led by Sony Music Entertainment acquired EMI Music Publishing in 2012. In 2018, Sony Corporation bought out the remaining 60% of EMI Music Publishing. But the rights to “Fast Car” reverted to Chapman a few years ago, according to a Sony Music Publishing spokesperson. As sole owner of the songwriting and publishing rights, Chapman can pocket all royalties generated from “Fast Car” and other songs in her catalog, less any fees paid to a third party for administration services.
“Fast Car” is a rarity in an age of sampling, interpolations and Taylor Swift’s re-recordings. Outside of holiday music, cover songs rarely appear in the top 10 of the Hot 100 singles chart. In fact, the last time a cover entered the top 10 of the Hot 100 was Anna Kendrick’s version of “Cups,” a folk song written in 1931 and recorded by Hendricks for the movie Pitch Perfect that reached No. 6 in 2013. Prior to “Cups,” two cover versions from the TV show Glee appeared in the top 10: “Don’t Stop Believin’” (originally by Journey) in 2009 and “Teenage Dream” (originally by Katy Perry) in 2010. Chapman earns some royalties when “Fast Car” is sampled or used in an interpolation – Chris Brown‘s 2017 song “Runaway,” for example — but she keeps 100% of the songwriting and publishing royalties of cover songs.
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