During its first week of “adds” as they say in the radio business, Drake Milligan’s “Sounds Like Something I’d Do” came in at an impressive #2 in country this week, with 26 official adds according to Mediabase, and 33 total stations showing commitment to the song. This is an extremely positive sign.
When Jamey Johnson stood on the stage Friday, August 12th in Lincoln, Nebraska, and barked profanities at the local radio station KX 96.9, he wasn’t just angry they had used “his” stage to promote their station, he was venting the pent up frustration many independent, Red Dirt, and Texas music artists feel.
A 7-year-old song receiving some 95 million streams in a year is quite remarkable. But as we’re seeing all across music and country music specifically, consumers who are just not connecting with new music today are finding favor with the back catalogs of artists that sometimes they’re just discovering.
Yes, just a day after Saving Country Music posted a long-winded rant about why trying to court mainstream country radio is a fool’s errand, not one, but two interesting anomalies have popped up on the format that are worth remarking about, and keeping a close eye on.
In 2015, we couldn’t imagine artists not supported by mainstream country radio selling out arenas, and minting multiple Platinum singles without the help of Music Row. Here in 2022, Tyler Childers is considered one of the top artists in the entire country music industry, and now we have Zach Bryan.
Sunny Sweeney is starting a new gig. And don’t worry, it doesn’t mean she’s ending her old one as a badass performer of country music. Getting ready to release a new album on September 23rd called ‘Married Alone,’ this week Sunny Sweeney also launched a brand new radio show on Sirius XM.
For going on five years now, Jaime Wyatt has been one of the most important and entertaining artists in all of independent country music. Her 2017 album ‘Felony Blues’ about her time in a California State Correctional Facility was one of the best releases of that year.
Another major market in the United States will no longer have a major country music radio station. New York City lost its final station in October of 2021 when WNSH 94.7 Nash FM switched formats. Now the San Jose-based Country 95.3 KRTY has been sold.
There was a pretty catastrophic oversight by both the ACM Awards and Amazon in their streaming awards show experiment, and one that alienated the most key demographic for a presentation such as the ACM Awards: country fans who live in the country.
Not only did Morgan Wallen make the $100,000 donation, the singer also toured the location that opened in 2019, and the museum was given the opportunity to, “share our mission with Morgan as he was eager to learn more in a sincere effort to grow.”
If you feel like you’re experiencing déjà vu with Gary Allan lashing out at country music’s radio system, it’s because you’re more dialed into the doings of country music than the writers over at Rolling Stone. Yes, we have been at this exact spot with Gary Allan before.
For 21 years, the Country Music Critics Poll published in Nashville’s alternative newsweekly the ‘Nashville Scene’ has been one of the leading indicators of critical consensus about a given year’s songs, albums, artists, and performers in the country music space.
These are pop stars using the country format for attention and notoriety. And no different than Bebe Rexha, Gwen Stefani, Pink, and other pop stars who collaborated with more native country acts and usurped attention from country’s women, their appearance on country radio is problematic.
Maybe pigs can fly. Maybe monkeys will fly out of Mike Myers’ butt. And maybe mainstream country radio will play Cody Jinks if it’s just given a chance, or a choice. The effort to bring Cody Jinks to the mainstream country airwaves has already born fruit.
Like so many media outlets native to the print realm, Rolling Stone has experienced hard times over the last decade-plus while transitioning to the digital world, and also trying to evolve beyond their original baby boomer readership. Rolling Stone is still one of the most recognized media brands in music and culture, but what it’s […]
I know what you’re going to say. “NeW yOrK CiTY!” like that guy in the old Pace Picante Sauce commercial. Or if you pride yourself in having any sort of semblance of taste, maybe you’re wondering why anyone in 2021 would still be listening to mainstream country radio at all.
Instead of doing the actual work to truly verify whether the donations had been made by Morgan Wallen, and/or being patient enough to wait until the information could be fully revealed, ‘Rolling Stone’ ran with the working assumption that the donations weren’t delivered at all
“You will be happy to hear that I have never received the amount of unsolicited positive feedback as I have from this show,” Dave Parker reports. “I have since expanded it to three hours, and now commit a consultant’s daily sin of featuring it in our middays. I am guardedly encouraged…”
Multiple country music radio stations owned by the Cox Media Group are being affected by a potential ransomware attack that occurred on Thursday, June 3rd. Though the radio stations are still able to broadcast, the live feeds on their websites and streaming networks have been disabled.
There are only a handful of truly powerful positions in country music where one individual can make or break a career, or influence the direction of the genre at large. The Global Director of Country Music at Spotify is most certainly one of them.
Maybe you heard the news, or maybe you didn’t. Maybe you recognize the name, or if you’re not dialed into the country radio scene in Dallas/Fort Worth, likely you don’t. But most anyone who considers themselves a fan of Texas and Red Dirt music, or country music in general, will likely recognize the famous names […]
A long-time morning DJ at one of Texas music’s premier stations has been accused of rape by a teenage girl after she attended a New Year’s Eve party at his Fort Worth-area home. Justin Frazell was the award-winning weekday morning DJ of 95.9 The Ranch out of Fort Worth since 2009.
A name once tied closely to progressive values, an independent approach to journalism and music, and transparency in media is continually graying the line between what is an ad, and what is an article. It does not bode well for one of the recognizable brand’s in music journalism.
Eric Church is one of those rare animals that is able to straddle the line between the independent and the mainstream, commercial success and grassroots support, and put a massive crowd of fans together regardless of how radio is treating him at the time.