Country radio is in a ratings slump. And no, not just due to streaming. “When it becomes harder to distinguish who’s who and there’s an increase of pop sounds in the music, this tends to be the result … We need balance. That’s the key, and hard to do if so much of the music has that pop sound,” one expert says.
Once again a major periodical has presented a completely false timeline for the removal of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” from the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in an attempt to pin the inspiration for the removal on Saving Country Music. The ‘Bitter Southerner’ article written by Dr. Joycelyn Wilson, PhD published on June 13th….
It’s now been over five weeks since Saving Country Music exposed numerous incidents of outright false reporting by multiple major news outlets when it came to the removal of Lil Nas X’s song “Old Town Road” from the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, including from the supposed “newspaper of record” in America.
“We policed the excessive number of ‘snap tracks’ and drinking songs, and we were increasingly more selective over which new songs got added and exposed,” says the program director. “In addition, we re-introduced a number of older gold titles back into the mix to try and achieve a better ‘mainstream’ country music mix.
A sports program is coming to the most historic and iconic radio station in country music to fill the critical afternoon drive slot. 650 WSM-AM—The Home of the Grand Ole Opry and one of the primary reasons country music even exists as a popular enterprise—has hired long-time Nashville sports talk personality George Plaster.
In an article titled “Want To Hear A Woman On Country Radio? You’ll Have To Sit Through 44 Songs By Men First,” Refinery 29 not only falsely represented the study’s findings, this incorrect title and information was then rebroadcast through both the Yahoo! and MSN news networks, along being tweeted and retweeted.
An article posted in the two major publications claims listeners will hear 44 men on country radio before they hear a woman. But the real number was supposed to be 4.4. The next question is how did a title and an article this egregiously false get published in two major American periodicals?
“Old Town Road” is now the #1 song in all of music. However it wasn’t just the infectiousness of the track that got it there. It was also due to indisputably incorrect and biased reporting by major media outlets, from legacy music magazines such as Rolling Stone, all the way up to NPR and The New York Times.
The debate about what is country music and what isn’t is an eternal one. But a 1:53-long viral “song” that is really nothing more than an internet meme entitled “Old Town Road” by rapper “Lil Nas X” has rekindled the debate anew, with critical implications behind it.
“Stunning” is the only way to put this. “A shot out of the dark” might be another. “Awesome” would be a third. But however you want to put it, “King” George Strait is back on country radio, and in a big way with his brand new single “Every Little Honky Tonk Bar.”
Congratulations to Kacey Musgraves and all involved in the Grammy wins. But this is no time to rest on laurels. And luckily, they’re not. It’s time to take this Grammy momentum, and make some inroads into radio. And that is exactly what Musgraves and MCA Nashville are trying to do with “Rainbow.”
When it comes to the hottest acts in mainstream country music at the moment, it’s the tale of three names: Kane Brown, Dan+Shay, and Luke Combs. And as a conscientious country music fan, if you had to root for one of them to succeed above the others, without hesitation you would have to go with Luke Combs.
“Some Of It” was written by Eric Church with common collaborator Jeff Hyde, along with Clint Daniels and Bobby Pinson. The song explores how you gain wisdom and knowledge as you go through life, some through experience, some from what you read or learn, some that you pick up and cherish for life…
The Americana Music Association has released the Top 100 Albums and Songs for 2018 according to the amount of radio play each album and song received. The annual report gives listeners a glimpse into the albums, songs, and artists that gained traction in the format over the year, and is a good tool to see what you missed.
This story has been updated. The big news in country music on Wednesday (12-5) was how for the first time in the nearly 30-year history of Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, there wasn’t even one woman represented in the Top 20. By Billboard’s charting methods, this is true. And regardless of whatever other clarification points proceed […]
When the Pistol Annies sent the first single from their new record Interstate Gospel to radio, it came with a letter from the chairman and CEO of Sony Music Nashville, Randy Goodman. In that letter, Mr. Goodman made a personal plea to radio programmers to give preferred treatment to the Pistol Annies in their playlists.
The good news is that country music legend Loretta Lynn is doing fine after a recently experiencing a short stomach flu. The bad news is that a string of fake news stories have made it across the internet that the 86-year-old’s health has gone through a major setback.
“As far as government politics, hell no!” said original ‘Rolling Stone Country’ Senior Editor Beville Dunkerley in May of 2014, assuring readers the publication would not engage in political discourse as part of its country music coverage. Now that has all changed.
With the crush of new music constantly barraging consumers, the essential function of a single is to make one song a centerpiece representation of an artist’s work to draw further attention to their overall efforts and career. This is the tried-and-true system that has been in place for popular music for nearly a century.
The original assertion remains and is now underscored by this latest article: Vulture and others did a disservice to the public, to country music, and to Kacey Musgraves by setting up unrealistic expectations of her work with irresponsible hyperbole, tried to use her record to create a political and cultural wedge.
A couple of days after Carrie Underwood called out country radio for not supporting strong women, it’s become official that Carrie Underwood’s latest single “Cry Pretty” is done at radio, will be the worst-performing single of her career, and has tanked two weeks ahead of her new album being released.
Country isn’t the only music community scratching its head while a fairly innocuous and forgettable pop song rewrites history by hitting record marks for its time at #1 on a genre specific chart, or a performer or group who doesn’t even seem to belong in the genre dominates that genre’s most important chart metrics.
Music journalism has been integrated by acolytes of the gender bias in language school who believe music should be dealt with using the same set of guidelines as the business professional world. But there are multiple dilemmas this creates in the world of creative expression that is fundamentally different from the professional world.
It remains stupefying why pop star Maren Morris continues to be portrayed as a leader, feminist, and groundbreaker, etc. in country music by fawning media members who’ve been rendered starry-eyed simply because they’re find guilty pleasure in some of her tunes.