CMT Awards Win Sunday

[AbrahamJSimpson]

But I'm wondering why, in the face of the current controversy about drag shows, which is a hot-button topic that raises strong feelings, would an artist make a deliberately provocative statement by putting drag queens on stage? That seems like an inadvisable career move, in these tempestuous times. JMO -- Daryl

Because she doesn’t cower to the bigots of the world simply because she performs country music? It’s not provocative other than to those seeking a reason to be provoked, and that’s on them. She’s supporting a group that is the current favorite punching bag of a bunch of wretched excuses for human beings who all too often wrap themselves in the cloak of fake “Christianity” and “concern for the children.”

Good for her. That kind of reprehensible hatred needs to be met head-on.

 

[TheBigA]

There's a song currently in the top 10, and still gaining spins, that has been in the airplay top 50 for more than 70 weeks!

Depends on which chart you use. Mediabase lists You Didn't by Brett Young as being on the chart for 57 weeks. It's the oldest song in the Top 10. However, the song is no longer in the Billboard chart. It's now listed as recurrent. It's possible you're basing 70 weeks on the release date of the song.

By the same token, Rock & A Hard Place by Bailey Zimmerman is less than 20 weeks old. So the charts move slow for some songs, and not for others.

 

[Mikey Radio]

I'm wondering why, in the face of the current controversy about drag shows, which is a hot-button topic that raises strong feelings, would an artist make a deliberately provocative statement by putting drag queens on stage? That seems like an inadvisable career move, in these tempestuous times. JMO -- Daryl

Possibly a few reasons:

1) To highlight the stupidity of those on the far right who've suddenly made drag queens a hot button topic and "the enemy", when drag shows have been performed for several decades, and restaurants in cities like NY, Chicago, Miami, LA, Toronto and others have been hosting "drag brunches", sometimes for multiple seatings each Saturday and Sunday, and drag dinners and events through the week for several years, many times with straight guys in attendance with their girlfriends or wives and at times with entire families there, without a single viable complaint from anyone of being "converted" to homosexuality or harmed or "groomed" or negatively impacted in any way. In many ways, this "hot button topic" is one of the stupidest things ever, especially when the same people who hate on drag queens find it fully acceptable that there have been a few mass shootings in the first 3 months of 2023 alone, with several hundred people being injured or killed, and somehow that's perfectly OK and acceptable and is becoming "normal".

2) If Ballerini's fans are largely female, then they're less likely to be bothered at all by her inclusion of drag queens, and it may actually endear her to them. Again, go to many drag shows and sure, there are members of the LGBTQ+ community there, but also women in full force - groups of women having a "girls day out" together, bachelorette parties, birthday gatherings, women there with their husbands or boyfriends in tow, etc.

 

[CTListener]

Depends on which chart you use. Mediabase lists You Didn't by Brett Young as being on the chart for 57 weeks. It's the oldest song in the Top 10. However, the song is no longer in the Billboard chart. It's now listed as recurrent. It's possible you're basing 70 weeks on the release date of the song.

By the same token, Rock & A Hard Place by Bailey Zimmerman is less than 20 weeks old. So the charts move slow for some songs, and not for others.

I've been looking at the charts in the Billboard Country Update (attached). The March 24 edition had the song at 70 "weeks on chart." And yes, "You Didn't" is the song. "Rock and a Hard Place" is interesting because stations started playing it well before Zimmerman's previous hit, "Fall in Love," had gone recurrent. The buzz around him right now is arguably second only to Wallen's.

 

[TheBigA]

I'm wondering why, in the face of the current controversy about drag shows, which is a hot-button topic that raises strong feelings, would an artist make a deliberately provocative statement by putting drag queens on stage?

Keep in mind that the law is in Tennessee, and the show was in Texas. Not against the law there.

CMT's sister network MTV does a regular show with drag star RuPaul.

 

[TheBigA]

I've been looking at the charts in the Billboard Country Update (attached). The March 24 edition had the song at 70 "weeks on chart."

It's gone from the March 31st chart.

 

[CTListener]

It's gone from the March 31st chart.

Right, but it had been on for 70 weeks, not 57. Does Billboard count week of release as the first week on the chart?

 

[TheBigA]

Right, but it had been on for 70 weeks, not 57. Does Billboard count week of release as the first week on the chart?

I don't know. The metrics for the charts are different, so it's possible the song fell out and recharted for Mediabase and didn't for Billboard.

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Keep in mind that the law is in Tennessee, and the show was in Texas. Not against the law there.

CMT's sister network MTV does a regular show with drag star RuPaul.

Yes, the show was in TX. I wasn’t commenting on KB breaking the law. I was commenting on her spotlighting a provocative national controversy, which might cost her radio airplay. So I was comparing her to the Dixie Chicks back in 2006.

HOWEVER — After I did some research, I realized that it is NOT the same situation as the Chicks. First, KB’s audience is different, and second, the Chicks were cancelled way back in 2006, 17 years ago. That’s a long time. Fans of any artist will just download the artist’s music directly to their phones now. So any remarks that KB makes will not affect the distribution of her music.Therefore, there’s no parallel.