George Strait, Willie Nelson & Garth Brooks Make Poll of Favorite Artists

garth-brooks-george-strait-willie-nelson

Harris Interactive has just released a new poll that queried the American public about their favorite music artists, musicians, and bands, and some noteworthy country music names made the list. When pollsters asked for unprompted responses to the question, “Who is your favorite singer/musician or band?”—George Strait was the 5th highest answer, and the highest amongst country music stars. Garth Brooks also made the top 10, coming in tied for 7th with The Eagles, Celine Dion, and Neil Diamond.

Willie Nelson also made the top of two of the lists broken down by demographics, even though he did not make the top 10 overall. Willie was the favorite artist of “Mature Adults” (69 or older), and was tied with The Beatles for the favorite musical artist amongst Republicans (despite Willie’s left-leaning politics). The Beatles came in #1 overall in the poll, right in front of Elvis at #2.

What is even more interesting for country music fans is who is not on the list, and who slipped off the list since the same poll was conducted the last time in 2010. Four years ago, Tim McGraw was #5, Rascal Flatts was #8, and Alan Jackson was #9. None of these country artists made the top 10 again. In 2010 George Strait was #7 in the poll.

With all three of the country entries into this year’s poll being more classically-oriented artists, and none of them being current stars (where is Taylor Swift in this poll?), it speaks to the continued appeal of older country artists and classic country music we’ve seen in similar studies by Edison Research, and in the move to split the country format to give more radio representation to older artists.

The younger artists that made the top 10 of the poll were Beyoncé at #3, and Bruno Mars at #6 who was potentially boosted by his recent Super Bowl appearance.

The Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States between July 16th and July 21st, 2014 among 2,306 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

TABLE 1

FAVORITE SINGER/MUSICIAN/BAND

“Who is your favorite singer/musician or band?”

Unprompted responses

Base: All adults

2010

2014

Beatles

=3

1

Elvis Presley

=3

2

Beyoncé

*

3

Led Zepplin

*

4

George Strait

7

5

Bruno Mars

*

6

Neil Diamond

*

=7

Eagles

*

=7

Celine Dion

1

=7

Garth Brooks

*

=7

DROPPED OFF OF LIST IN 2014

U2 (was No. 2), Tim McGraw (was No. 5), Lady Gaga (was No. 6), Rascal Flatts (was No. 8) and Alan Jackson and Frank Sinatra (both ties for No. 9)

TABLE 2

TOP MUSICIAN AMONG DIFFERENT GROUPS

AMONG:

2014

Men

Beatles

Women

Beyoncé

Millennials (18-37)

Beyoncé

Gen X (38-49)

Metallica

Baby Boomers (50-68)

Beatles

Matures (69+)

Willie Nelson

Republicans

Beatles/Willie Nelson

Democrats

Beatles/Bruno Mars

Independents

Beatles

East

Beatles

Midwest

Bruno Mars

South

Beatles

West

Beatles

Parent of child under 18

Bruno Mars

Not parent of child under 18

Beatles

 

 ***See Complete Harris Poll***

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