Josh Abbott Band - "Hangin' Around"

[Deleted]

Artist: Josh Abbott Band
Single: "Hangin' Around"
Writer(s):
Label: Atlantic Records/Warner Music Nashville
Impact Date: October 20, 2014

Source: R&R Going For Adds

Listen Below!



After joining the Warner Music Nashville label in 2012, the Josh Abbott Band will finally release their debut single for the label. "Hangin' Around" will go for adds at the end of September. It is already available for purchase on iTunes, and has recently been added to SiriusXM's "The Highway" as a Highway Find. Additionally, it has already charted at #44 on Billboard's airplay/sales/streaming Hot Country Songs chart.

Josh Abbott Band was founded in 2006 in Lubbock, Texas, and the band has had a lot of regional success. They have released 3 albums on their own Pretty Damn Tough (PDT) Records label, including the April 2012 album Small Town Family Dream which charted at #5 on Billboard's Top Country Albums and #15 on the Top 200 (all-genre).

Two of their previous singles have made it on to the national Billboard Country Airplay chart: 2011's "Oh, Tonight" featuring Kacey Musgraves reached #44, and 2012's "Touch" climbed to #41. "Oh, Tonight" was the 3rd and final single from the band's sophomore album She's Like Texas, while "Touch" was the 2nd overall single from the Small Town Family Dream album.

[sabre14]

I know there were a few Josh Abbott Band songs I listened to on RateTheMusic, but I can't recall if this was indeed one of them (I usually have a great memory to ). I do know I like most of their material and this one is no different. I wonder if being with a hot, stable label will be enough for them to break out nationally. The Randy Rogers Band tried a few singles at mainstream country radio with Mercury and MCA but none reached the top 30. I'm anxious to see how Josh and his band fair with this when the add date hits.

[Deleted]

Not too bad of a song--I'm gonna need more listens to see if it grows one me or not. I don't like it as much as some of their past material ("I'll Sing About Mine" was phenomenal, and of course "Oh, Tonight" and "Touch" were excellent as well) but at least it sounds country. Nice banjo, etc. And at least the lyrics aren't "We're just hangin' around, burnin' it down"..

[bluedog6]

This is absolutely one of the songs on the RTM survey. I remember liking both songs and since I don't remember the other one I don't remember which one I liked better. LOL! I don't know very much at all about this band, but what I do know is they seem to remember that country instrumentation does make a band with a country sound (or at least it's about 250X's better than the standard three guitars, a keyboard player and a drummer). While in the early stages of listening to the song, I am not head over heels in love with it, I could definitely get behind a song like this on the radio.

[bigfan101]

Love the lead singers voice and this has all the goods to become a hit. Fine with this lighter "fluff" song gets played if it allows their deeper stuff to have a shot.

[gurustu]

I'm a fan of the Josh Abbot Band in general and it's great that they finally got signed after all their hard work, but I have to be honest; this song to me is simply annoying. I'm ready to turn it off by the time the guitar solo hits. I think this is a very weak first single for WB compared to songs like "Touch" and "Oh, Tonight"... hate to say it but it almost makes me wonder if they've already peaked before even getting a shot? Sometimes bands like this and Randy Rogers Band may be better off, more hungry when they remain an indie. I know all that is negative, but I would like to see the Josh Abbot Band do something, I really would, but not with this song. (At least it's not Bro-Country though, thank Gawd)

[Dustin J.]

This was my pick from the RTM survey. I think it's a fun, catchy toe-tapper that stays well within the genre. Would love to see this hard-working group (who is well known in & around Texas) to get a mainstream hit with this one.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure what's going on with this release anymore. They've still been advertising this EPK occasionally in the daily Aircheck emails in the past week or two, but none of the major publications (Billboard, Aircheck, AllAccess, R&R, etc) list this as going for adds on the 29th anymore.

[kw9461]

Sept 22, 2014 21:22:42 GMT -5 jhomes87 said:

I'm not sure what's going on with this release anymore. They've still been advertising this EPK occasionally in the daily Aircheck emails in the past week or two, but none of the major publications (Billboard, Aircheck, AllAccess, R&R, etc) list this as going for adds on the 29th anymore.

It's also been pulled from AllAccess' Cool New Music page (unless i'm hallucinating seeing it listed previously), so I'd say they've definitely changed their minds. I like this song a great deal, but i do remember better songs on the RTM survey I took for them. Still, I'm not sure it's helping the band any to hold off AGAIN. Isn't this pretty much the same thing that happened with I'll Sing About Mine? I seem to remember that one getting an adds date as well (with Atlantic listed as the label), but it wound up just as a Texas single.

[zjames]

This goes for adds October 20 according to R&R Going For Adds.

[Deleted]

Sept 23, 2014 16:43:00 GMT -5 zjames said:

This goes for adds October 20 according to R&R Going For Adds.

Thanks, zjames. I figured that they were simply pushing the adds date back. Late September/early October got really crowded in a hurry (new Eric Church, Sara Evans, Dierks Bentley, Kenny Chesney, Trisha Yearwood, etc.), so I figured the label wouldn't want to go up against all of that stuff.

Sept 22, 2014 21:35:51 GMT -5 kw9461 said:

Still, I'm not sure it's helping the band any to hold off AGAIN. Isn't this pretty much the same thing that happened with I'll Sing About Mine? I seem to remember that one getting an adds date as well (with Atlantic listed as the label), but it wound up just as a Texas single.

The advertising of their EPK in the daily Aircheck emails make me feel like there's a pretty big groundswell of momentum behind these guys and their debut radio tour with Atlantic/WMN, and so I'm assuming that they moved the adds date back to give this a better chance of being most-added. I think "I'll Sing About Mine" was mainly supposed to be a Texas single from the jump. It did get an adds date but since it was from an independent-released album and since they hadn't gone on a radio tour yet, I don't think Atlantic/WMN decided to really push it as their debut. I think the label was waiting to start off with a brand new album and now we're finally almost there.

[sabre14]

Delivered to country radio this afternoon.

[dajire4]

this is Josh Abbott Band's what.. 3rd top 50 hit?

[Deleted]

This went recurrent last night, after 15 weeks on the chart and a peak of #47. It reached as high as #44 on Hot Country Songs. I'm not really surprised that this is done; the song wasn't too bad, but it sure didn't stand out to me either. I still think this band has a lot of potential, but this just wasn't the right song.

Also, while they are signed to Atlantic and Warner Music Nashville, this song was promoted to radio by the new WEA imprint. WEA first promoted Dean Alexander's debut single "Live A Little" which only peaked at #50 last summer into early fall. "Hangin' Around" was the 2nd song assigned to the WEA promo team. Next up for WEA appears to be Michael Ray's debut single "Kiss You In The Morning", so we'll have to see if WEA can score its first hit with that one.

Right now the other 2 promo teams (WMN and WAR) have several songs on the chart.

WMN has "Lonely Tonight", "Mean To Me", and "Ain't Worth The Whiskey". They also had The Railers' "Kinda Dig The Feeling".

WAR has "Trouble" and "Young & Crazy" (I think the recent singles from Dan + Shay, Charlie Worsham, and Jana Kramer were all assigned to WAR as well, but I'm not entirely sure on that).

The fact that WEA is the newest Warner Music Nashville team is almost certainly a factor as to why their songs have struggled so far.

[trebor]

Very sorry to see this go so early. I pretty much loved it from day one.
Decent offering from a sub-genre band that deserves to get big. 
Let's see which song will be chosen next.

[sabre14]

In terms of WEA being the newest Warner Music team and that being a big factor for why the first two songs sent to radio have failed, I agree to a certain extent. Both "Hangin' Around" and "Live A Little" got some support out of the gate ("Live A Little" more than "Hangin' Around") but radio just didn't seem to enthused about either song. Sometimes I totally forgot this song was charting. So being brand new is definitely going to be a barrier that WEA will have to work through and get country radio to take better notice of their songs.

But I also think the type of song here didn't help. "Hangin' Around" is pretty good but it doesn't strike me as a breakthrough kind of hit or one that could have at least gotten top 30. Granted, song quality IMO went bye bye a while ago in terms of that being the biggest factor for what makes a hit these days, but "Hangin' Around" just seemed to really get lost in the shuffle and radio PD's decided to go for other new singles to add over this one.

I am interested to see if they decide to give radio another one quickly, and if it's another off the RateTheMusic survey they had last year.

[Dustin J.]

Although, for what it's worth, this is #2 on the Texas Music chart.

[zaclord 🌈]

Jan 27, 2015 16:20:54 GMT -5 Dustin J. said:

Although, for what it's worth, this is #2 on the Texas Music chart.

I think it actually hit #1 on this past week's issue ;)

But I'm not surprised this wasn't a hit. I've liked some of their material, namely "Oh, Tonight", but this just was not my cup of tea. Maybe another duet with Kacey Musgraves would give them their first big hit