The only official song is One Thing At a Time. Last Night was released online as what they call a grat track a week before album release. He released three songs to the fans on social media. Last Night was the one that went to #1 on the Hot 100. Big Loud isn't promoting Last Night. It's just charting because some stations are playing it a lot. The Bull in Atlanta is playing both songs in heavy. It'll be interesting to see how the label responds to the situation.
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What happened to rock on the charts?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
The only official song is One Thing At a Time. Last Night was released online as what they call a grat track a week before album release. He released three songs to the fans on social media. Last Night was the one that went to #1 on the Hot 100. Big Loud isn't promoting Last Night. It's just charting because some stations are playing it a lot. The Bull in Atlanta is playing both songs in heavy. It'll be interesting to see how the label responds to the situation.
So today, one of the industry trades contacted Big Loud to ask what's going on with two Morgan Wallen singles:
www.countryinsider.com
So two things to note: Radio stations are doing this on their own. It's not driven by corporate format captains, because only one Audacy station and only one iHeart station is playing Last Night in heavy rotation. The other thing is country stations are looking at streaming charts:
So which radio format is working harder to respond to streaming? Perhaps what happened to rock in the charts is it's being out-programmed by country.
What Morgan Wallen’s Simultaneous Singles Mean For Country Radio.â¨
The Monday after Morgan Wallen’s “Thought You Should Know” began a two-week run atop the Mediabase country charts, the singer had the most-added record at country radio with “One Thing
So two things to note: Radio stations are doing this on their own. It's not driven by corporate format captains, because only one Audacy station and only one iHeart station is playing Last Night in heavy rotation. The other thing is country stations are looking at streaming charts:
So which radio format is working harder to respond to streaming? Perhaps what happened to rock in the charts is it's being out-programmed by country.
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Sean Ross has a column on the situation at CHR radio, where the lack of hit songs has opened the door for country crossovers:
radioinsight.com
I was at a music conference last week where one of the reps of Spotify told the audience that the Luke Combs version of 'Fast Car' is getting tons of plays. At the time, it hadn't been released as a single, and he has a different song just released as a country single. Meanwhile, Morgan Wallen's song Last Night, which has remained #1 in Billboard's Hot 100, has jumped Morgan's official country single in the Top 10. It appears that Morgan will be battling with himself in the country chart next month.
Country, Crossovers, and Country Crossovers - RadioInsight
One of the surprises of the current pop-music product shortage is that there hasn’t been more crossover from other formats. If labels have decided that fewer pop records are worth promoting, one hopes that would create opportunities for hits to come from other formats, bringing their stories...
radioinsight.com
I was at a music conference last week where one of the reps of Spotify told the audience that the Luke Combs version of 'Fast Car' is getting tons of plays. At the time, it hadn't been released as a single, and he has a different song just released as a country single. Meanwhile, Morgan Wallen's song Last Night, which has remained #1 in Billboard's Hot 100, has jumped Morgan's official country single in the Top 10. It appears that Morgan will be battling with himself in the country chart next month.
And at country radio, a lot of stations jumped the gun and started playing "5 Leaf Clover" in anticipation of that being the lead single from the album, but then Combs announced on stage that fans had voted in a poll (51-49 percent) that "Love You Anyway" should be. The label confirmed it, and radio hopped off "5 Leaf Clover" within days. I doubt the poll, if it ever really existed, had anything to do with Sony's decision, as all the advertising in Billboard in advance of the album's release read "featuring Love You Anyway," with no mention of the other song. A lot of what happens on country radio and the country charts has a decidedly orchestrated feel to it, right up to the "push weeks" that suddenly propel certain songs to saturation airplay and No. 1 status for a set number of weeks. I assume the same is true with CHR. If so, do you think that "Fast Car" will eventually drift over to AC and have its biggest impact there, or is its future at CHR and only CHR? And why shouldn't country stations still be playing "5 Leaf Clover" if nearly the same percentage of Combs' fans thought it should have been the lead single as supported "Love You Anyway"?Sean Ross has a column on the situation at CHR radio, where the lack of hit songs has opened the door for country crossovers:
Country, Crossovers, and Country Crossovers - RadioInsight
One of the surprises of the current pop-music product shortage is that there hasn’t been more crossover from other formats. If labels have decided that fewer pop records are worth promoting, one hopes that would create opportunities for hits to come from other formats, bringing their stories...
I was at a music conference last week where one of the reps of Spotify told the audience that the Luke Combs version of 'Fast Car' is getting tons of plays. At the time, it hadn't been released as a single, and he has a different song just released as a country single. Meanwhile, Morgan Wallen's song Last Night, which has remained #1 in Billboard's Hot 100, has jumped Morgan's official country single in the Top 10. It appears that Morgan will be battling with himself in the country chart next month.
The AC audience is likely familiar with the original, so I'd agree that it would be a smart move. Luke's version is very authentic to the original. It broke into the CHR chart this week at #48. That's the only airplay chart where it currently appears. Fast Car is #23 already on the Billboard Hot 100. Morgan Wallen is getting airplay on Hot AC stations. The Kane Brown duet is a hit already.
I think that's what's going to happen, in the same way that stations are now playing two Morgan Wallen songs. Five Leaf Clover is #49 and Love You Anyway is #39. The bad news for other artists is that it makes it harder for everyone else to move up when you have two artists each with two songs in the Top 30.
Since Mediabase shows "5 Leaf Clover" losing airplay rapidly, my guess is that Combs' two-headed monster at country radio turns out to be "Love You Anyway" and "Fast Car," instead, with "Clover" becoming either a later single (Much later, as an uptempo song is probably next. I'm rooting for "See Me Now," but it will probably turn out to be "Where the Wild Things Are" or "Hannah Ford Road.") or a fan-favorite concert staple that never goes to radio.
Listening to a couple of my local stations today, the Wallen/Combs domination is remarkable. I don't think an hour goes by without both artists being played, and I'm hearing three and even four tracks in some hours, one recurrent/gold plus one of the current hits for both. The impression is that they're the only artists out there. Parker McCollum and Dierks Bentley have been stopped in their tracks when both seemed certain to hit No, 1 a few weeks ago, while Cody Johnson has stalled short of the Top 10. Meanwhile the women are again disappearing from radio as spins of Lainey Wilson and Carly Pearce's solo hits are falling off the cliff (although Hardy and Wilson's "Wait in the Truck" continues strong).
The only non-Wallen/Combs singles that seem to be gaining steam are the mindless Tyler Hubbard ditty "Dancin' in the Country" and Dan + Shay's boyfriend-country snap track "You." I wonder if listeners are being pushed away from the format by this schizoid state of affairs. Who likes Luke Combs AND Dan + Shay? Hardy AND Tyler Hubbard? The styles seem incompatible to me.
I don't know yet. I don't see any spins for Fast Car at country radio. There were 17 documented adds for Clover. The reason both songs were getting spins last week was a national promotion Luke and his label did to pick the next single. They settled on Love You Anyway, so that's why Clover is losing spins.
BTW the reason the Wilson & Pearce solo hits are dropping is that both peaked at #1.
The diversity of styles is what has driven country radio listenership for 40 years. Shania Twain was incompatible with George Strait. Faith Hill was incompatible with Alan Jackson. But listeners loved the diversity within the format.
Since Wallen was mentioned, I'll take this opportunity to say where I ate today a waitress had a t-shirt that said Wallen Wallen Wallen Wallen Wallen.
Quite the opposite at CHR and other formats, where it's not uncommon for competing labels/reps to be gunning for #1 and to keep their competitors out. Aiming to get more adds than others. To get ahead of other records to make it into the top 10 before someone else.
Country, in my experience, is the only format that is...well, as you put it, very accurately, orchestrated.
Of course! That's why Tiktok is so popular with a younger audience, because the music wears thin with them. Makes perfect sense! No, actually what you said makes zero sense.
So it's been a few weeks and looking at the Top 40 charts, I now see Morgan Wallen at #13 with Last Night. The song is also #14 on the Hot AC Chart. And I just received the Billboard Hot Country chart, and at #1 is Last Night by Morgan Wallen, followed by Fast Car by Luke Combs. No Fast Car on the country airplay chart however. Instead you have Love You Anyway at #29. Back in March, the view here was that Last Night by Morgan Wallen was too country sounding for pop radio in big cities. Guess that view has changed. Most of the top spinners are in the south, with exceptions in Minneapolis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh.
And now that Combs and the label have decided that Love You Anyway will get the big push, longtime fan favorite 5 Leaf Clover has sunk like a stone, plunging off the Mediabase airplay top 50. I guess radio marches to Nashville's orders. It's looking like Love You Anyway will not have a flanker in country airplay unless Fast Car picks up airplay to match its streaming popularity. But I guess that's up to Columbia, which may want to concentrate on AC to break Combs beyond country.
Keep in mind that Luke asked his fans to choose this single, and this one won the popular vote. So in this case, radio does what the fans want. At this point Luke can sell out the same stadium for two nights in a row. Not many people can do that.
The vote was reported as being very close. If Wallen had given his fans the opportunity to choose between Last Night and One Thing at a Time, don't you think the vote would also have been very close and most likely in favor of Last Night? Would radio then pull the plug on One Thing at a Time the way it's doing with 5 Leaf Clover? I can't see that happening, but since Luke isn't quite the megastar Morgan is at present (and sales/streaming supports that), maybe he's the only artist capable of having two solo singles climbing the country airplay chart simultaneously.
And one of the other people who can sell out the same stadium two nights in a row is, of course, Morgan Wallen.
The fact is that 5 Leaf Clover never had the streaming that Love You Anyway has. How do you determine a fan favorite?
Luke has included it in his live set list for more than two years, even before "Growin' Up" was released.
In any case, Love You Anyway streamed higher. Luke says he has lots of 'fan favorites.' He likes them.