Chase Bryant - "Take It On Back"

[Deleted]

"Take It on Back" doesn't seem to be moving the needle at all. I suspect this single will reach its peak position shortly after the new OTV artist is announced next week. I'm not sure that without the "On the Verge" program this Chase Bryant record would have done much more than "Drink You Away," so it seems mighty unfair that artists with singles that are really selling or testing well and have been struggling their way through the bottom half of the chart for months get quickly surpassed by a brand new artist with a single that really isn't much of a hit simply because iHeartMedia thought it sounded good. I don't usually like to let my personal views cloud my posts, but this seems blatantly unfair to me.

A lot of artists who have been pushing single after single to radio for years will probably never get a hit now between these OTV artists and the hourly world premiere deals IHM gives out. Country radio is supposed to be committed to helping break new artists, but the way things are these days it seems very few artists are ever truly "broken." For example, Easton Corbin, Hunter Hayes, and Tyler Farr all looked like well-established B-listers after their last albums, but all three are majorly struggling to climb the charts now. Even newer artists like Jana Kramer, Dan + Shay, and David Nail all had a lot of radio support at first and have invested lots of time in country music careers to show radio their commitment to the genre, but now they're all struggling to move up the charts, and suddenly brand new artist Chase Bryant comes along and gets to watch his debut single become an automatic top 30 hit.

Why shouldn't Chase have to work his way up the charts slowly and steadily like all the other artists have? At least previous OTV artists Craig Campbell and Dustin Lynch had already spent their fair share of time climbing the charts naturally before they were chosen, and I wasn't thrilled about the Sam Hunt deal but at least his song appears to be a huge hit on its own (meaning it would probably have gone #1 without the OTV program, but just might have taken longer to climb the charts). I'm just not so sure many people are too interested in Chase Bryant, so it doesn't quite seem fair that he gets such a fast start right out of the gate.

As for who the next On the Verge artist will be, we don't really have a lot of options with major hit potential in my view. There is no song by a new artist currently in the top 50 that was released after the last On the Verge artist was chosen, meaning that none of these artists will be chosen because IHM has already had the opportunity to choose them and passed. Looking in the 50's, the new artists are Lindsay Ell, Lucy Hale, Jackie Lee, Jon Pardi, Kelleigh Bannen, and Chris Lane. There are a few artists sitting just outside of the chart, Kelsea Ballerini, Josh Abbott Band, and Railers, and Eric Paslay also has a new song impacting October 13. I doubt any of these artists' current singles (besides Josh Abbott Band's and possibly Jackie Lee's) would have climbed the chart on their own, but one of these acts is going to have to get an automatic top 30 hit now unless IHM decides to go back to the last window and choose a song that's been around for a while (possibly "Love You Like That," which is in the top 300 on iTunes despite a small amount of airplay but just hasn't been able to move up much). The three most likely options I see are Jackie Lee, whose new single is "She Does," Jon Pardi, whose new single is "When I've Been Drinking," and Josh Abbott Band, whose new single is "Hangin' Around."

[Deleted]

I'm not a fan of the fabricated promotion that some artists receive and others don't (as you all know). I actually like this song, but is something off about the production of the vocals? It seems they are really pushed forward in the track. I can't see it peaking much higher than around where it is now.

[Deleted]

Oct 3, 2014 10:06:42 GMT -5 @daydrinker said:

"Take It on Back" doesn't seem to be moving the needle at all. I suspect this single will reach its peak position shortly after the new OTV artist is announced next week. I'm not sure that without the "On the Verge" program this Chase Bryant record would have done much more than "Drink You Away," so it seems mighty unfair that artists with singles that are really selling or testing well and have been struggling their way through the bottom half of the chart for months get quickly surpassed by a brand new artist with a single that really isn't much of a hit simply because iHeartMedia thought it sounded good.

Chase got a lot of adds right out of the gate, though, even before this song was selected for On The Verge. He was very well-received on his radio tour so I suspect that "Take It On Back" would have at least gotten into the 30's on the chart, if not top 30.

Otherwise I agree, the sales just have not caught up with the airplay here. They've been responding to the airplay, there's no doubt about that, but you can say that for any song...and after several weeks in the 20's on Billboard now, Chase still has one of the lower sales per spin ratios.

I like this song a good deal but it definitely looks like Clear Channel PD's 'whiffed' on their OTV selection here. If they had some sort of survey out beforehand that gathered fans' feedback on what songs they were most likely to buy (or what songs fans felt were most likely to sound good on the radio), then perhaps I could get behind the program a bit more, but with the way it is now, it puts way too much power in the hands of PD's who think they can predict what their audience wants.

"Take It On Back" is definitely a radio-friendly song but for whatever reason, the fans just haven't shown up or, at least, not as many people are buying this one as compared to other songs.

Anyway, I don't agree that "country radio is supposed to be committed to helping new artists break out". Obviously they're looking for the next big thing, and I definitely agree that they like to help new artists, but that's different from being obligated to help new artists (in general, I feel like country radio tries to play everyone that they possibly can, but obviously that's impossible). They definitely play the big names first because those artists are the ones that fans are most familiar with.

And I think that the reason a lot of semi-established artists (Easton Corbin, Tyler Farr, Hunter Hayes, David Nail, etc) is because for every one of them that scores 2-3 hits, there's another popular newcomer that comes along shortly thereafter, builds up momentum, and scores a couple hits of his/her/their own (sadly it's almost always "his own"). A lot of these artists (anyone that isn't Luke, Kenny, Carrie, Miranda, Keith, Blake, Jason, etc) essentially wind up stealing momentum from their peers...it's a constant cycle of changing momentum and it's hard to predict.

As a side note, I don't think the next OTV artist will be someone from the BBR music group. Clear Channel has already gone with Dustin Lynch and now Chase Bryant. Maybe they don't care about label affiliations but I think they'll want to spread things around a bit, so I'm guessing they'll look toward Sony, Warner, or Big Machine, or possibly UMG again. Sony doesn't seem like they have too many candidates right now, though. I doubt CC (I hate the iHeartMedia name) would go with Tyler Farr or Jerrod Niemann, so the only other choice would really be Casey James with "Fall Apart", and that doesn't seem all that likely either. Leah Turner has more or less been put on hold, and we haven't heard anything about a new Love and Theft single, either. Columbia's Steven Lee Olsen could be another possibility since he's on his radio tour, but the timing seems off there; I'm guessing his single won't be released until after the New Year.

For WMN, I would think that both the Josh Abbott Band and The Railers would be possibilities along with Ryan Kinder. Big Machine doesn't seem to have any likely candidates unless they're ready to launch A Thousand Horses or Drake White, but again, I just don't think that's very likely at this point. If OTV goes with another UMG artist, and if they're ready to go with a female, Captiol's Mickey Guyton might be a possibility.

Anyway, back to Chase, it'll definitely be interesting to see if this song can stabilize later this month after it's no longer "On The Verge". TIOB has actually had a few rough weeks in the past month already, but I think Red Bow can keep it climbing and get it into the top 15 at least.

[Deleted]

In my previous post, I wasn't implying that I feel country radio should be obliged to help new artists along. By "supposed to be," I really meant "supposedly," because I read so many comments from programmers and industry people about how committed country radio is to breaking new artists and establishing long-term relationships rather than latching on to one big hit from an artist.

Jhomes87, your point about momentum constantly cycling and many artists only getting 2-3 hits before a new act becomes the new flavor of the month is spot on. The problem with radio trying to help break so many new artists and give as many acts a chance as they can causes very few acts to ever build up a long-term career of consistent hits, which is ironically what country radio ideally wants to establish with artists. Stunts like the On the Verge program seem to only make the problem of so few artists being able to sustain momentum worse.

[kml567]

Still no news about the next OTV artist.

I wonder if Clear Channel PDs decided that promoting a new OTV artist every 2 months is way too fast for Country radio. It may work on Pop radio since the charts move relatively fast. But Country charts move so slow (esp for new artists) that it makes more sense to promote a new OTV artist every 3 months.

[Ten Pound Hammer]

So why is this flatlining? I thought for sure it was the right balance of radio-friendly and interesting to be a big hit. It's not mind-blowing, but I think this is a rock-solid song with a commonly used theme and above-average production.

[Deleted]

There's just not enough consumer interest for this to be a brand new artist's breakout hit. I really think that Chase wouldn't have gotten anywhere near the top 20 without being chosen for the On the Verge program. "Take It on Back" just doesn't seem to stand out enough to listeners. iTunes sales aren't terrible for a new artist, but they're certainly not high enough to merit a breakout hit. I did give Chase's EP a listen and I honestly didn't hear any big radio hits. "Change Your Name" will probably be the next single, but I wouldn't even expect that song to do much more than scrape the top 40. I guess I just don't see much longevity for Chase Bryant at this point.

[.indulgecountry]

Nov 16, 2014 13:42:20 GMT -5 Ten Pound Hammer said:

So why is this flatlining? I thought for sure it was the right balance of radio-friendly and interesting to be a big hit. It's not mind-blowing, but I think this is a rock-solid song with a commonly used theme and above-average production.

It's a decent song at best that's not really selling anything by a guy who is basically a nobody. It slowing down comes as no surprise to me.

[sabre14]

Nov 16, 2014 14:14:36 GMT -5 @daydrinker said:

There's just not enough consumer interest for this to be a brand new artist's breakout hit. I really think that Chase wouldn't have gotten anywhere near the top 20 without being chosen for the On the Verge program. "Take It on Back" just doesn't seem to stand out enough to listeners. iTunes sales aren't terrible for a new artist, but they're certainly not high enough to merit a breakout hit. I did give Chase's EP a listen and I honestly didn't hear any big radio hits. "Change Your Name" will probably be the next single, but I wouldn't even expect that song to do much more than scrape the top 40. I guess I just don't see much longevity for Chase Bryant at this point.

Pretty much agree with all of this. I do think that Clear Channel (iHeartMedia) swung and missed with this selection in the OTV program. There's no arguing that "Take It On Back" is radio-friendly" but for whatever reasons, its not a big seller digitally. Not enough listeners are feeling the need to go get this song on their playlists. Like it was mentioned before, OTV decisions are made by "gut feels" about what listeners will react to and this one just didn't work out too well to me.

I think his follow up can make the top 40 but I have my doubts beyond that. Chase clearly has talent as an artist and I do enjoy this song but it's still uncertain how his future will work out on country radio.

[dgarcia3377]

I hope "Change Your Name" is gonna be a single. I LOVE that song.

[sabre14]

Official Music Video:

[dm2081]

^Dang it, that means they're probably going to promote this song until at least January lol I don't hate this song, but I don't think it's more than average. I kind of would like to see it give up and open up spots for some better songs IMO.

[Deleted]

Something about the way he sings this song has always bothered me; like he's just singing karaoke. It's especially irksome the way he says "Lord" in the first verse, which seems very fabricatedly drawly.

After watching the video, I dislike it even more. The way he looks singing it is just like "meh, whatever."

[.indulgecountry]

This guy sure is a looker, damn. And I really liked that music video a lot. I do like this song and the way it sounds (actually country!), but it's pretty obvious it's not resonating too well with people since it hasn't been selling and the only reason it flew up the chart was because of the OTV selection, so it'd be nice if they let this one go soon. I imagine it won't last into the new year, which I suppose is coming up soon enough.

[sabre14]

Chase did and interview with Countrymusicrocks.net and gave some insight on his upcoming debut album and his music styles. He mentioned that his full length album will have 16 songs on it, which is almost unheard of for a debut album.

Source

[rsmatto]

Nov 26, 2014 14:09:45 GMT -5 sabre14 said:

Chase did and interview with Countrymusicrocks.net and gave some insight on his upcoming debut album and his music styles. He mentioned that his full length album will have 16 songs on it, which is almost unheard of for a debut album.

Source

Not for BBMG

[.indulgecountry]

I'm actually starting to hear this a lot on the radio lately and it's really grown on me a lot, especially after seeing the music video. I like this guy's voice a lot and I can definitely see myself swooning for him. Looking forward to hearing more from him, honestly.

[Daryl the Beryl]

Top 10 on Mediabase:

13 10 CHASE BRYANT Take It On Back 4405 4130 275 31.715

[nick64]

Very unhappy to see this in the Top 10. Personal indifference to the song aside, it wouldn't have come this far at all if On the Verge wasn't involved. On top of that, its sales have been absolutely attrocious. It was climbing neck-and-neck with "Kiss You Tonight" for a long time, but that's peaking outside the Top 15, despite better sales and being the follow-up to a #1 hit. But my main problem is that it simply shouldn't be Top 10. "Make Me Wanna" is ahead in both spins and airplay, so I see no reason this should be ahead of it. I've always been annoyed with this points system used for the country chart while every other genre just uses raw spins, but this is ridiculous.

I also find it frustrating that this can be Top 10 despite being at the same spin level "Up All Night" was at when it missed the Top 10, and being about 400 spins behind the spin level "19 You + Me" was at when it missed the Top 10 (also a victim of the points system, but I digress), not to mention being behind both in audience as well. But that's just an issue of timing, so that's no more than a personal frustration.

[sabre14]

Dec 21, 2014 15:08:14 GMT -5 nick64 said:

I also find it frustrating that this can be Top 10 despite being at the same spin level "Up All Night" was at when it missed the Top 10, and being about 400 spins behind the spin level "19 You + Me" was at when it missed the Top 10 (also a victim of the points system, but I digress), not to mention being behind both in audience as well. But that's just an issue of timing, so that's no more than a personal frustration.

Yeah, that's all about timing there. "19 You + Me" was a victim of awful timing when it peaked. Sometimes the numbers (spins, audience, points) are higher at certain times of the year on MB or really Billboard too with the audience. "Take It On Back" definitely got some fortunate breaks with the OTV selection and the timing to crack the top 10 before Christmas. If you actually go back a few years there were some really beneficial circumstances with other songs. "I'll Take That As A Yes (The Hot Tub Song)" Phil Vassar leaped from #13 to #10 without a bullet in May of 2005. The total points and audience were so low compared to most other weeks to crack the top 10 and there were multiple songs either going recurrent or heading down the chart, and Phil's song really lucked out. I believe that might be the lowest point total accumulated to crack the top 10 on R&R/MB since I've been following the charts in the early 2000's.

Edit: Phil's song had 5866 total points and 2158 total spins - that's super low, even back then. The #9 song that week was "You'll Be There" by George Strait and he had 8189 total points and 3093 total spins.

[surfy]

This song is okay, and I hear potential in him, but this single is just lackluster for me.

[.indulgecountry]

I've really grown to love this in the past month or so since I've been hearing it a lot and now it's one of my favorite singles out there. It's unfortunate that it hasn't connected with people enough to move sales, but I am really getting into his voice. There's a very nice nasal quality to his vocal delivery that I enjoy (most noticeable on "greener" in the chorus and the "Steam up them windows real good" in the first verse) and I love the way his twang wraps around "lord" in the first verse as well. I still need to check out the rest of the songs on his EP that dropped, but I am looking forward to more from Chase Bryant after this because I like his voice a lot and this song sounds a lot "countrier" sonically than many of his newer contemporaries.

[Ten Pound Hammer]

Let's hope this doesn't turn into a Greg Bates situation.

[sabre14]

I'll be very interested to see how Chase's next single will perform. I think it's not even worth arguing that OTV did not make the best choice selecting "Take It On Back" as the sales and radio enthusiasm has just not gotten off the ground like I think they would have thought it would. I like the songs I've heard from Chase but if a radio-friendly song like this needed help from OTV to get as high as it did, I wonder what that means for Chase's radio future. Now, I'm not saying that he will falter and be never heard from again, but it makes me wonder how radio will look at him after the slow climb of this song after it eclipsed the top 25 along with the sales per spins.

I've heard many mentioned "Change Your Name" will likely be the second single. I do enjoy that song but if that indeed is the next single, I wouldn't be surprised to it fail to reach the top 30. Just has that "good song, but just doesn't click enough with PD's to put it in any kind of high rotation" feel about it.

[.indulgecountry]

Dec 23, 2014 1:05:55 GMT -5 sabre14 said:

I'll be very interested to see how Chase's next single will perform. I think it's not even worth arguing that OTV did not make the best choice selecting "Take It On Back" as the sales and radio enthusiasm has just not gotten off the ground like I think they would have thought it would. I like the songs I've heard from Chase but if a radio-friendly song like this needed help from OTV to get as high as it did, I wonder what that means for Chase's radio future. Now, I'm not saying that he will falter and be never heard from again, but it makes me wonder how radio will look at him after the slow climb of this song after it eclipsed the top 25 along with the sales per spins.

Sales don't seem to be doing so hot for this one, but I wouldn't say radio has been skeptical of it. It seems like radio has continued to support this one considering how it isn't selling much at all. Compare it with "God Made Girls," which also got the same OTV treatment and is one of the best-selling country singles on the charts right now, and the receptiveness to radio seems to be quite different. Clearly sales aren't *too* big of a factor for this since it's knocking on the door of the Top 10 while RaeLynn struggles to move further into the Top 20.

[sabre14]

Dec 23, 2014 1:09:35 GMT -5 .indulgecountry said:

Dec 23, 2014 1:05:55 GMT -5 sabre14 said:

I'll be very interested to see how Chase's next single will perform. I think it's not even worth arguing that OTV did not make the best choice selecting "Take It On Back" as the sales and radio enthusiasm has just not gotten off the ground like I think they would have thought it would. I like the songs I've heard from Chase but if a radio-friendly song like this needed help from OTV to get as high as it did, I wonder what that means for Chase's radio future. Now, I'm not saying that he will falter and be never heard from again, but it makes me wonder how radio will look at him after the slow climb of this song after it eclipsed the top 25 along with the sales per spins.

Sales don't seem to be doing so hot for this one, but I wouldn't say radio has been skeptical of it. It seems like radio has continued to support this one considering how it isn't selling much at all. Compare it with "God Made Girls," which also got the same OTV treatment and is one of the best-selling country singles on the charts right now, and the receptiveness to radio seems to be quite different. Clearly sales aren't *too* big of a factor for this since it's knocking on the door of the Top 10 while RaeLynn struggles to move further into the Top 20.

It's so hard for me to pin point how to look at these situations since OTV is so new. Perhaps radio figured they give this one the old college try since it had gotten to the top 30 and CC felt strongly enough to reward it, but even that would be flawed thinking since the other radio corporations would be considered rivals and thus would not want to see them succeed in any way.

In short, I agree with @daydrinker that this wouldn't have even come close to its peak without the OTV program. There comes a point when a song has been rewarded so much that it doesn't matter how bad the sales are and listener feedback is, and unfortunately I look at "Take It On Back" as a song that had as little in the way of feedback from the listener and purchaser that I can ever remember, while still managing a top 10 peak.

[Ten Pound Hammer]

I wonder if this has a chance at being the first Top 10 hit in forever not to hit the Hot 100. It's only at #3 on Bubbling Under right now.

[rsmatto]

Nov 16, 2014 16:29:11 GMT -5 dgarcia3377 said:

I hope "Change Your Name" is gonna be a single. I LOVE that song.

That is a very good song. It might be a smart choice and if iTunes sales from the EP are any indication the fact that it's $1.29 along with "Take It On Back" but the other 3 songs aren't tells me it may be the next single too.

[Deleted]

Dec 23, 2014 1:05:55 GMT -5 sabre14 said:

Now, I'm not saying that he will falter and be never heard from again, but it makes me wonder how radio will look at him after the slow climb of this song after it eclipsed the top 25 along with the sales per spins.

There seemed to be a pretty decent amount of hype for Chase's radio tour. "Take It On Back" had 37 first-week stations upon impact date (July 14), which is pretty good although by no means great. Similar to Charlie Worsham and The Swon Brothers, though, Chase doesn't seem to be growing that much of a fan-base yet, so I think he and the label will definitely have their work cut out for them with single #2.

Dec 23, 2014 1:46:35 GMT -5 sabre14 said:

It's so hard for me to pin point how to look at these situations since OTV is so new. Perhaps radio figured they give this one the old college try since it had gotten to the top 30 and CC felt strongly enough to reward it, but even that would be flawed thinking since the other radio corporations would be considered rivals and thus would not want to see them succeed in any way.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting you here, but this song was nowhere near the top 30 when it was selected for OTV. This song had charted for just a few weeks on Billboard (impact date was July 14), and on August 11 Chase was selected as the new OTV artist.

"Take It On Back" debuted at #51 on the Billboard chart dated 08/02/14 (released Monday, July 21), then spent 2 weeks at #50 before it jumped up to #43 in week 4, with a gain of 1.5 million. That 1.5 mil gain and 50-43 move was for the tracking week of August 4-10, which was just before the OTV 'boost' kicked in. Then, for the week of August 11-17 (chart week 5), Chase gained nearly 4.3 million and jumped 43-29.

So far, all of the OTV selections (aside from Sam Hunt) have been on the chart for at least a couple of weeks before they got boosted into the top 30 (and of course RaeLynn had actually been on the chart for a couple of months, lingering just outside the top 30, before she was selected for OTV). I'm fairly certain that Dustin Lynch's "Where It's At" charted for 1-3 weeks before it was selected for OTV; Dustin was the first, and it's perhaps for that reason that his gains were not nearly as big as we've seen for the others...Dustin's OTV selection received minimal fanfare too (I suspect that it's because the program was more or less in 'trial' mode yet at the time). Craig Campbell's "Keep Them Kisses Comin'" had been on the chart for, I wanna say about 5-6 weeks or so, before it was selected for OTV (pretty similar to the situation with Chase). Sam's "Leave The Night On" was the only one to immediately receive the OTV boost as soon as it went for adds.

[sabre14]

jhomes87, I meant that radio as a whole decided to give Chase good level of airplay after he eclipsed the top 30, because of OTV. 

I also remember "Keep Them Kisses Comin'" was out a little longer than 5-6 weeks. Perhaps I'm wrong about that. I will go back and edit when I find it. :)

Edit: "Keep Them Kisses Comin'" was actually out for 10 weeks when it was the first ever "On The Verge" selection.