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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2015 21:15:44 GMT -5
True and just because something is bro-country doesn't automatically make it bad same and just because something isn't bro country doesn't automatically make it good
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Post by 43dudleyvillas on Feb 13, 2015 22:06:15 GMT -5
Much like the term "bro country" itself, the exact criteria by which its "death" is defined is a matter of debate. The fact that songwriters like Dallas Davidson and Shane Minor, who are responsible for co-writing and defending a number of "bro country" hits, are talking about how artists are coming in not wanting to write about girls/trucks/tailgates anymore or saying that those scenarios are "on probation" ( link and link), is a sign that the widespread derision for bro country's lyrical formulas has at the very least made artists reluctant to rely on them. The fact that programmers in country radio, in the wake of receding ratings, started 2015 by agreeing that the "bro country" phase has reached saturation point ( link), is a strong sign that radio, which mainstream country artists rely on, is ready for something new. And that's to say nothing of the ongoing artist backlash, which has extended to Kenny Chesney as he promotes his current album and single (for example, here, here and here). Sam Hunt had an offer to tour with Florida-Georgia Line this year, and instead opted for what will almost certainly be a less well-attended tour with Lady Antebellum and Hunter Hayes. Perhaps it was a matter of logistics. But I wouldn't be surprised if his choice had to do with distancing himself from that style of music, the critical ire that it attracts (especially since he has received considerably stronger notices for his own work), and a reliance on its fans (this in particular may reflect a read of the market). Luke Bryan is wrapping his Spring Break franchise this year in what seems likely a move toward a more respectable, less party-oriented image. So is "bro country" "dead"? Not in the sense that it will ever completely go away, but I would argue that is an unrealistic bar against which to assess its state. It seems to me that "bro country"'s days as a major driver of change in the country market are likely over, at least to the extent that "bro country" is defined by references to trucks, tailgates, "girls" defined by nothing other than their hotness, beer, parties, etc. That point of view is considered passé , at this point. On the other hand, the corporate rock sound typical of most "bro country" is still very much around (see, for example, Jason Aldean's current single and Kenny Chesney's previous single), and Sam Hunt's success suggests that the rhythmic influences that occasionally laced bro country songs aren't going anywhere (though Hunt's sound, for the most part, doesn't resemble what I think of as "bro country," and his lyrical voice is quite different, as well). Old Dominion's apparent signing to Sony Nashville is pretty clearly in the hopes of building on Hunt's place on country radio. That said, I completely agree with dm2081 that the days of country radio's B, C, and D-listers releasing virtually nothing but copycat bro country singles for the sake of airplay are winding down. Summer 2014 saw a series of ballad singles from male artists who had previously ridden the bro country bandwagon (Jake Owen, Chris Young and Brantley Gilbert, for example), while the likes of Jerrod Niemann and Scotty McCreery have committed to more traditional-leaning material on their upcoming albums and even Chase Rice (per this report by avalyn) is looking to shift the nature of his material. Country radio programmers are also on the record as expecting 2015 to start the shift toward greater diversity and balance on the format. That's certainly not something that can happen overnight, but all things considered, it seems to me that much of the mainstream country genre is moving on (to what? That remains to be seen).
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Post by countrymusic20 on Feb 13, 2015 22:17:20 GMT -5
So what do we call Sam Hunts music? Cuz it's the least country music we've ever heard on country radio. "Non-country"? "Un-country"?
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Post by 43dudleyvillas on Feb 13, 2015 22:24:11 GMT -5
So what do we call Sam Hunts music? Cuz it's the least country music we've ever heard on country radio. "Non-country"? "Un-country"? Something we agree on! So as not to repeat myself, I posted last month about how I classify Sam Hunt's music in the thread for "Take Your Time".
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2015 22:55:43 GMT -5
So what do we call Sam Hunts music? Cuz it's the least country music we've ever heard on country radio. "Non-country"? "Un-country"? I know what I call it but idk if I'm allowed to repeat it on Pulse
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Uncle Lumpy
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Post by Uncle Lumpy on Feb 14, 2015 0:26:18 GMT -5
So what do we call Sam Hunts music? Cuz it's the least country music we've ever heard on country radio. "Non-country"? "Un-country"? I know what I call it but idk if I'm allowed to repeat it on Pulse Dang it! You stole my reply!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2015 2:12:20 GMT -5
This is going to reach way lower final week numbers than Carrie Underwood's #3-peaking "Something in the Water" (could be a solid two million or more behind Carrie's 47 million peak AIs), but I'm skeptical to play the "unfair card" here. As jhomes87 explained, Republic Nashville didn't do any sort of push to get this to #1, nor did they need to since Capitol Nashville pulled Luke Bryan's single this week. With a song selling decently and testing strongly, there was no need for Republic to do anything other than wait their turn. Carrie's song reached higher final numbers, but received a pretty big push from Arista Nashville through gifts and phone calls to radio stations and an aggressive social media push, so those numbers could have been inflated just a bit. I'd say that when two songs peak within 2-3 million audience impressions of each other in the top 5, it's really tough to call whether radio has treated one better than the other. The exact final numbers and peak positions are just a matter of timing and label work. If Carrie and FGL were to swap places and "Sun Daze" peaked three weeks ago, I don't see why "Sun Daze" couldn't have gotten a big push for #1 and peaked at #3 with 47 million audience impressions while "Something in the Water" would be coasting to #1 this week.
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Post by countrymusic20 on Feb 14, 2015 9:09:00 GMT -5
This is going to reach way lower final week numbers than Carrie Underwood's #3-peaking "Something in the Water" (could be a solid two million or more behind Carrie's 47 million peak AIs), but I'm skeptical to play the "unfair card" here. As jhomes87 explained, Republic Nashville didn't do any sort of push to get this to #1, nor did they need to since Capitol Nashville pulled Luke Bryan's single this week. With a song selling decently and testing strongly, there was no need for Republic to do anything other than wait their turn. Carrie's song reached higher final numbers, but received a pretty big push from Arista Nashville through gifts and phone calls to radio stations and an aggressive social media push, so those numbers could have been inflated just a bit. I'd say that when two songs peak within 2-3 million audience impressions of each other in the top 5, it's really tough to call whether radio has treated one better than the other. The exact final numbers and peak positions are just a matter of timing and label work. If Carrie and FGL were to swap places and "Sun Daze" peaked three weeks ago, I don't see why "Sun Daze" couldn't have gotten a big push for #1 and peaked at #3 with 47 million audience impressions while "Something in the Water" would be coasting to #1 this week. Sundaze downloads are at 469k on soundscan ... that's at the very least less than half the downloads of every other FGL single to date ... so while 469k might be good for some acts, thats a huge underperformance for FGL. Also, I have to think that if Thomas Rhett was on a competing label group, he would have already jumped Sundaze and be #1 by now. FGL is going to squeak a very weak #1 out of this one because of extremely lucky timing and the artist right behind them on the chart. FGL and the label has to be looking at Sundaze as a pretty big disappointment.
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onebuffalo
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Post by onebuffalo on Feb 14, 2015 10:47:59 GMT -5
Once Sun Daze becomes #1 (on the airplay chart), I'll be able to move Florida Georgia Line from #123 to #96 on the list of those artists with the most #1s. Pretty soon, the top 100 on that list will consist of those artists with six chart toppers.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2015 11:32:35 GMT -5
Sundaze downloads are at 469k on soundscan ... that's at the very least less than half the downloads of every other FGL single to date ... so while 469k might be good for some acts, thats a huge underperformance for FGL. Also, I have to think that if Thomas Rhett was on a competing label group, he would have already jumped Sundaze and be #1 by now. FGL is going to squeak a very weak #1 out of this one because of extremely lucky timing and the artist right behind them on the chart. FGL and the label has to be looking at Sundaze as a pretty big disappointment. Here's the problem with this, though: sales are down all across the board (with the exception of Sam Hunt, who appears to be the next big new artist). Thomas Rhett's "Make Me Wanna" is at 430,000 sold. It'll be a solid Gold hit, but it's not a HUGE digital seller. "Lonely Tonight" from Blake and Ashley is at 370,000 sold...that one will also be a solid Gold hit but not Platinum. Luke Bryan's "I See You" is at 400,000 sold and will trickle past Gold (of course those are very good numbers for a 6th single), Eric Church's "Talladega" is at 470,000 sold, Jason Aldean's "Just Gettin' Started" hasn't even hit 300,000, and Tim McGraw's "Shotgun Rider" is around 610,000 sold. We've only had a few Platinum hits recently, and some of them were the first releases from their respective albums, which results in inflated single sales. "Burnin' It Down", "Leave The Night On", "American Kids", "Bartender", "Play It Again", and "Drunk On A Plane" are the last Platinum hits that I can recall. "Burnin' It Down" led off Aldean's Old Boots, New Dirt, "Leave The Night On" led off Sam Hunt's Montevallo, "American Kids" led off Kenny Chesney's The Big Revival, and "Bartender" led off Lady A's 747. Out of this list, only "Play It Again" and "Drunk On A Plane" weren't lead singles, but PIA is one of Luke's biggest hits and was one of the 'songs of the summer', and the same can be said for Dierks and DOAP. Carrie's "Something In The Water" will trickle past 1 million sold, but that one was the lead single from a Greatest Hits project (note: I'm not trying to discredit songs/artists for their accomplishments; I'm just trying to point out that lead singles generally sell more than the 2nd and 3rd releases from albums). Lately it seems that 500,000 to 700,000 sold is the ceiling for most big country radio hits, and the longer a single takes to climb the charts, the better it is for its total sales. Look at Lee Brice, for example--his "Drinking Class" is already over 460,000 because it's been on the airplay charts for almost half a year. Brett Eldredge's "Mean To Me" is at 340,000 sold, which means that it can probably hit 500k shortly after it peaks at radio (and it looks like a future #1). Tyler Farr's "A Guy Walks Into A Bar" is almost at 230,000 already and it's only just now entering the top 20 at radio. Jake Owen's "What We Ain't Got" only sold 11,000 last week, but because it's been out so long, it's sold over 275,000 copies. My point is, I don't know if we'll see that many 1 million+ sellers in the near future. Sam Hunt's "Take Your Time" will most likely get there, and as I mentioned already, "Something In The Water" should cross the 1 million sold threshold in a couple months. Maybe Carrie can get there with "Little Toy Guns" as well but that's far from a given. Zac Brown Band's "Homegrown" is selling quite well but I think it's going to have too short of a shelf life at radio to cross 1 million. The lead single to Luke Bryan's next album will probably have no trouble crossing 1 mil sold. But who else can get there? Jason, Blake, FGL...I'm not convinced that any of them can score any more Platinum hits from their current albums. The younger male demographic seems to be moving away from country radio a bit (according to the main article in this recent Country Aircheck issue), and we've also seen streaming numbers continuing to cut into digital sales numbers. So I really think that Gold is the new norm...again (like it was 5-ish years ago, before the peak of digital sales for country singles). Aldean will be lucky to go Gold with "Just Gettin' Started", and I'm not convinced that FGL's "Sippin' On Fire" can get them back to the Platinum threshold. It will almost certainly go Gold like "Sun Daze" will, and maybe 2 or 3 of the biggest 2015 summer hits will go Platinum, but the reality is that we're not seeing very many singles reach Platinum status anymore, whereas just a couple years ago we'd get a few songs that could sell 2-3 million.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2015 8:26:50 GMT -5
You made some great albeit disappointing points, jhomes87. I don't think that bro-country songs are the only ones that sell well and I think country sales and radio ratings would do fine with moderate pop country songs like "Drunk on a Plane," "American Kids," etc. However, it seems the labels' perceived counter-bro-country trend has caused them to take the opposite extreme with their output by releasing songs like "Diamond Rings and Old Barstools" which are apparently really uninteresting to the demographic that funnels the most money into iTunes and had previously caused country stations' ratings to go up. "Sippin' on Fire" does seem like a song that would easily go Platinum, but if country stations continue to lose the demographic that gives country music the highest concentration of digital attention, then I too could see this missing (or taking until long after its peak on the chart to trickle past) the Platinum threshold. I guess I just don't really understand why experienced label execs like Gary Overton and Scott Borchetta would think there's a huge backlash against music that was producing sales and ratings much higher than before simply because it received a lot of criticism. No matter what a critic says about the music, the opinion only counts as an uninterested listener who doesn't buy the music or changes the station from a profit standpoint. I am glad to see artists putting more effort into being respectful of the women in their songs, but it's also a shame to see country music taking steps backwards in terms of popularity.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2015 14:07:02 GMT -5
Well it's not just country where track sales are down. It's really this way in all genres. Streaming has really cut into digital sales.
I brought up the fact that the younger male demographic is losing interest in the format more to suggest that that demographic was not very loyal and that those people pushing up radio ratings were not really country fans at all if they were only here for a "season", so to speak. If they only jumped on board because of bro-country, I'd argue that bro-country isn't really country at all. In my opinion, there has to be some sort of connection to country music of the past, or it's really not country...it's something else entirely.
There are still some bro-country songs out there, so if the younger male demographic is losing interest in country radio, I don't think it's the radio stations' fault. "Sun Daze" is a bro-country song. It's going to go Gold...which I still don't think is "bad"; it's pretty respectable imo, and I really think that Gold will be the new norm. "Just Gettin' Started" is a clear bro-country song, and only the 2nd single from Aldean's album, yet its sales aren't very impressive at all (not terrible, but it's got a lot of work to do to get to Gold). "Make Me Wanna" is mostly a bro-country song, albeit with a disco feel.
So I would argue that a significant portion of people who were downloading the bro-country songs are simply getting tired of the same ol', same ol'. There's only so many ways songwriters can throw a truck, girl(s), moonlight, and beer into a single song. It was bound to get old--fast--so my theory is that we've finally reached a point where a fairly large chunk of even the most loyal bro-country fans are moving away from the latest bro-country releases, simply because they've heard it all by now in previous bro-country songs.
Simply put, I think a lot of people are just wanting more from the music, rather than just some catchy driving-around-in-the-country songs.
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Post by 43dudleyvillas on Feb 16, 2015 21:19:56 GMT -5
I guess I just don't really understand why experienced label execs like Gary Overton and Scott Borchetta would think there's a huge backlash against music that was producing sales and ratings much higher than before simply because it received a lot of criticism. I tend to think that the criticism has affected the artists considerably more than it has impacted the label executives. Label executives are, by the nature of their job descriptions, more bottom-line oriented, and are playing more of a game where they try to exploit the market in its present state while staying ahead enough of it to know what is coming next. As jhomes87 noted here, Gary Overton went from declaring "bro country"'s saturation point to be "nowhere in the foreseeable future" in early last summer to touting Kenny Chesney's new music with talk of the saturation point possibly having been reached. Now, this is a label head doing press so no doubt this was mostly Overton putting the shiniest spin he could on the products he was trying to sell. But I also think at this point, label execs are responding to what country radio is telling them. Here's what I think is a telling quote from one of the articles that I linked above:R.J. Curtis indicates that this is not an isolated observation. This bolsters jhomes87's theory that those fresh ears that may have come to country radio during peak "bro country" times are drifting away and/or tired of hearing what is essentially the same song over and over again. The same factors are likely at work on the sales front...as noted in multiple threads, the B, C, and D-list bros have struggled to sell albums despite getting a lot of airplay, and even A-list bros like Jason Aldean and Florida-Georgia Line underperformed relative to industry expectations when it came to the first week sales of their respective current albums. The latter two are still holding up well, but nonetheless, it's eye-opening that they were not immune from diminishing returns. And so while I can believe that Jake Owen really insisted on "What We Ain't Got" as a single last year in an effort to be taken more seriously, I think the broader trend of more respectful and/or substantive male ballads at country radio last summer was not driven so much by bro country critics as it was by radio telling the labels that enough was enough, and labels taking a look at sales tallies and starting to agree. Reading the above linked column and this one, it appears to me that country radio seems to expect 2015 to be a transitional year, and perhaps one in which it sees a ratings decline, partially because the "bro country" parade is yielding diminishing ratings returns and generating listener fatigue, and partially because there isn't a new demographic to offset the resulting tune-out. Sam Hunt may be the format's biggest momentum artist at the moment, but mobilizing a new demographic of country radio listeners is going to take more than one artist. The Aircheck article to which jhomes87 linked upthread noted that the decline in 18-34 ratings for country radio last year coincided with an uptick in Urban Contemporary and Classic Hip-Hop ratings. It remains to be seen if the two are related -- if they are, it's interesting that Sam Hunt's music is designed to appeal to both, but it may set him up as a crossover artist more than a driver of ratings at country radio. It appears from the linked discussions among programmers that they plan to try to reconnect with country radio's core adult demographic this year. Tim McGraw's string of singles with a '90s country sound, two of which have already succeeded quite well at country radio, were perhaps the by-product of Big Machine anticipating a changing radio landscape. Basically, it seems to me that 2015 is setting up to be a year in which country radio looks for the next big ratings driver. I think it's going to be interesting to see what artists come to market with in a time when there's less of a dominant template for a hit. That should make for more diversity, more individuality in singles, and hopefully, some quality risk-taking as well. But it's more likely, I think, that we'll see artists who are seeking hits playing it safe with genial country-rock and romantic adult country-pop midtempos.
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