Little Big Town - "Girl Crush"

[Deleted]

matty005, I don't disagree with your interpretation. A "girl crush" can just mean any sort of non-sexual desires, which can include jealousy as far as I understand. I just think a lot of casual listeners who just have the radio on in the background and don't take the time to sit down and examine the song in its entirety will be misled if they just hear random tidbits such as "I want to taste her lips." Therefore this might not be the best song to spin on the radio where it's likely a lot of listeners won't understand the true meaning. I think this is the same problem that radio had with "Beer with Jesus." People who had the opportunity to listen to the full song and read Thomas Rhett's comments about the underlying point/message of the song would realize what he was trying to get at, but when a song is just being spun on the radio casual listeners aren't going to get all of that. That's why I think programmers may be hesitant to play this unless they see some really good sales and research numbers. I'm not blaming any listeners or programmers for this...I guess it's just one of the unfortunate situations that come with trying to spin "complex" material on radio and this may be why PDs tend to trend towards songs with simple/meaningless lyrics and more melody/production.

[sabre14]

"Girl Crush" is most added on MB this week with 49 adds.

[dm2081]

Debuts at #55 on Billboard Airplay this week.

[sabre14]

Music Row has this as the single cover. The one on Play Mpe is the standard label cover.

[rsmatto]

Dec 15, 2014 18:13:10 GMT -5 sabre14 said:

Music Row has this as the single cover. The one on Play Mpe is the standard label cover.

Sandbox Management made that cover. I have a feeling the song will be getting an AC/Pop push in the USA and other English language countries (where a single cover would make sense).

[zaclord 🌈]

LBT is easily my favorite group in country music and one of my all-time favorites of any genre. I've been a huge fan since "Boondocks" and everything in between (although wasn't big on the "A Place to Land" era), but as much as I want to like this song, I just can't. I don't know what it is about this, but it just doesn't have that magic Little Big Town touch that I feel in so many of their other songs. However, I will be hardcore rooting for this song because I need them to keep their momentum up for "Quit Breaking Up With Me" to be a big hit. Plus, it would be nice for radio to embrace a ballad from them since that's only happened with "Bring It On Home". Hopefully I'll start enjoying this more, but as of right now, I always skip it when it comes on my phone.

[Daryl the Beryl]

Top 50 on Billboard:

45 55 LITTLE BIG TOWN Girl Crush
CAPITOL NASHVILLE 1.802 +1.066 390 plays
2 weeks on chart
Source:http://charts.bdsradio.com/bdsradiocharts/charts.aspx?formatid=4

[surfy]

I like this one! (And LBT in general) It's very pleasant :)

[sbp17]

In a WTF moment, when I was back stateside over Christmas, I was driving a rental in North Carolina and this song was playing. Not sure what station it was but after the song ended, the DJ started to talk about how when he first got the song, he didn't know what to do with it and he discussed it with his wife. He started rambling and said something about how he loves LBT and even has one of the band member's numbers on his phone but he wasn't sure what to do with this song. He said he decided to play it because it is great lyrically. He then explained to us listeners that it wasn't about a woman loving another woman.

Anyway, I can't get enough of the song. It hits on all cylinders to me...lyrically, musically, vocally.

[Daryl the Beryl]

Top 50 on Mediabase:

53 49 LITTLE BIG TOWN Girl Crush 510 394 116 2.66

[Zazie]

Dec 30, 2014 23:06:43 GMT -5 sbp17 said:

In a WTF moment, when I was back stateside over Christmas, I was driving a rental in North Carolina and this song was playing. Not sure what station it was but after the song ended, the DJ started to talk about how when he first got the song, he didn't know what to do with it and he discussed it with his wife. He started rambling and said something about how he loves LBT and even has one of the band member's numbers on his phone but he wasn't sure what to do with this song. He said he decided to play it because it is great lyrically. He then explained to us listeners that it wasn't about a woman loving another woman.

Anyway, I can't get enough of the song. It hits on all cylinders to me...lyrically, musically, vocally.

Until hearing this song, I would have said that my favorite LBT music came from the long-ago Boondocks-Bring It On Home period. I enjoy Pontoon and Tornado whenever I hear them, but I've long thought their recent music just hasn't been as good. But this one brings the harmonies back, combining that with everything I like about the songwriting and the arrangements. Just because I like a song doesn't project a great future on the charts, but however high a peak this gets, at least it'll get something and sound fantastic. Now, will my local stations play this one? Not betting on it. The fear of controversy dominates the airwaves here in Ohio.

[matty005]

Dec 30, 2014 23:06:43 GMT -5 sbp17 said:

In a WTF moment, when I was back stateside over Christmas, I was driving a rental in North Carolina and this song was playing. Not sure what station it was but after the song ended, the DJ started to talk about how when he first got the song, he didn't know what to do with it and he discussed it with his wife. He started rambling and said something about how he loves LBT and even has one of the band member's numbers on his phone but he wasn't sure what to do with this song. He said he decided to play it because it is great lyrically. He then explained to us listeners that it wasn't about a woman loving another woman.

Anyway, I can't get enough of the song. It hits on all cylinders to me...lyrically, musically, vocally.

Because heaven forbid, the song would be about a woman loving another woman.

Edit: My comment is geared to the DJ, not to you. :)

[rsmatto]

Goodness, are DJs/programmers in some areas really THAT scared of so-called "conservatives?" This song could actually be used to to showcase jealousy more than any other biblical point of reference. The song is a fantastic tour de force and if radio programmers in areas like where Zazie lives or in the "Bible belt" cannot get their heads around the message of the song, they're really not listening to it. The song should be played because it's a good song telling a familiar story in a very unique way. It tells a real human emotion. God forbid if real humanity comes in to play to break up the songs about pink umbrellas, parties and Silverado bench seats. Sigh.

[Zazie]

Jan 5, 2015 11:03:31 GMT -5 rsmatto said:

Goodness, are DJs/programmers in some areas really THAT scared of so-called "conservatives?" This song could actually be used to to showcase jealousy more than any other biblical point of reference. The song is a fantastic tour de force and if radio programmers in areas like where Zazie lives or in the "Bible belt" cannot get their heads around the message of the song, they're really not listening to it. The song should be played because it's a good song telling a familiar story in a very unique way. It tells a real human emotion. God forbid if real humanity comes in to play to break up the songs about pink umbrellas, parties and Silverado bench seats. Sigh.

Too right.

Real emotion is so rarely a part of the music we listen to, at least at country radio. One of the reasons I still listen to Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash is human emotion. Same for Brandy Clark and Darrell Scott. I know there's always going to be plenty of formula material, and there always has been, but when we get something real we ought to be jumping into the air and celebrating.

[Deleted]

Regardless of whatever misinterpretations and criticisms this song may receive, I'm confident it'll do fine on the charts. It's already off to a great start on the main chart, the indicator chart, and the digital songs chart. There seems to be a lot of passionate interest coming from listeners and the sound of this song is very unique and pop-leaning, which I think a lot of country radio programmers tend to like these days. I do see this becoming an even bigger hit than "Day Drinking" and it will probably be the "tent-pole" single from Painkiller.

[Daryl the Beryl]

Top 40 on Billboard:

38 42 GIRL CRUSH Capitol Nashville Little Big Town

5 weeks on chart
Audience: 4.234 million (+1.336)
Plays: 788 (+225)
Rank in terms of plays: #40

Top 40 on Mediabase:

49 38 LITTLE BIG TOWN Girl Crush 837 551 286 4.623

[Deleted]

I'm really becoming concerned over this chart run. In the past week, "Girl Crush" has been flat in spin gains and has actually lost audience on the Mediabase airplay chart. I know LBT hasn't had a lot of radio momentum in the past, but with these great iTunes sales I wouldn't expect them to be struggling this much. Bullseye Callout scores show this at #39 with one of the highest Dislike rates on the chart, but the survey also shows the song having the highest "Have Not Heard" rate on the chart (26.7%), so my guess would be that research scores will slowly rise to match the listener passion indicated by the sales if this manages to climb the charts and get more exposure, but at this point that's not a given.

[dm2081]

^I think this one will definitely meet some resistance from radio about playing this with high spins. Much like Jake and Dierks' current ballads (What We Ain't Got & Say You Do), I think this is going to have a long and slow climb if it's going to make the top 10. There's two things working against this song: it's slow and the title and lyrics leave room for misinterpretation and misunderstanding, which could ultimately lead to an unfair controversy surrounding the song. The strong sales do help give me some hope for this song though.

[.indulgecountry]

After only 7 weeks, this is already just outside the Top 30, so I feel like it's chart run has been surprisingly strong so far. It's matched the peak of "Sober" from their last era and is only a few spots away from surpassing "Your Side of the Bed" as well. It makes sense for this one to slow down, but I was under the impression that it was off to quite a good start actually.

[Deleted]

This was doing fine up until last week, which is why LBT was bulleted at #31 on last Monday's BB chart, but looking at the audience numbers on Mediabase over the past week, it looks like "Girl Crush" may fall back a few spaces and lose some audience for the week. This was just ahead of "Hard to Be Cool," "Love You Like That," "Lay Low," and "Trouble" last week on Billboard, but since that chart the Mediabase audience numbers have shown LBT with a net loss of about 100k audience, while "Hard to Be Cool" and "Trouble" have gained over a million audience, "Lay Low" has gained close to a million, and "Love You Like That" has gained close to half a million in that time frame. So basically I'm expecting this week to be the week where we start to see a bad showing for this song on Billboard and I could see at least two of those four songs that were behind this last week re-passing "Girl Crush," along with "Raise 'Em Up" f/Eric Church.

I wouldn't usually expect any sort of fast climb for a Little Big Town song and it's true that even Jake Owen and Dierks Bentley, who are way more consistent hit-makers, have had climbs at least this slow with their current singles, but "Girl Crush" is selling much better than both of those were and is notably more radio-friendly than "What We Ain't Got," which is a piano-driven, down-tempo, somewhat dreary ballad. Also, Dierks was coming off of one of the biggest hits of 2014, so I think "Say You Do" might have taken a bit longer to catch on due to heavy recurrent rotation still being given to his previous hit "Drunk on a Plane." "Day Drinking" was a big radio hit, but it certainly doesn't have the staying power that would cause a big follow-up hit like "Girl Crush" to have such a slow start. (If anything, "Day Drinking" matches up to "I Hold On" and "Girl Crush" matches up to "Drunk on a Plane" in terms of hit size/radio longevity.)

[rsmatto]

If this song "peaks" at 31 on both charts then Country radio will REALLY need to have their heads examined. This song's sales are so remarkable for a song so low on the chart and it's potential to be big (and also provide variety) on radio shouldn't be thrown down the gutter but given how it struggled last week, I'm beginning to think somehow this song might be in for a peak in the teens (but sell Gold) because they just don't dig it enough to make it a heavy rotation kind of song. All this being said, I HOPE it breaks through more than that. The song deserves to be one of the band's all time biggest hits and if it's not, I have to suspect it's because of the misheard lyrics (thinking it's a "lesbian song" or that it's a female lead singer for the whole way through not named Miranda or Carrie).

[someguy]

I'm hoping it hasn't peaked yet, and this week was just a setback. I agree that a peak in the teens is likely. I'd love to see it shoot to #1, but I don't see enough country radio stations putting this into heavy rotation to make it happen.

[dm2081]

This definitely hasn't peaked yet, but it just finally reached a stagnant point in it's chart run. Way too early to think that this is done.

[Kanenrá:ke]

I know adds don't always = increased airplay but 10 adds is a really good haul any week other than opening week so I'm not worried yet. I think the combo of Zac Brown Band, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Miranda Lambert, Brad Paisley, & Kenny Chesney all putting singles out within the last 3 weeks is the cause for attention being shifted elsewhere for a bit. Once those settle into their runs I expect this to be in the next group of songs to see their momentum pick up.

[Deleted]

^But the songs passing "Girl Crush" this week were from some of the smaller names, actually (besides Keith Urban/Eric Church). Songs from Joe Nichols, Gloriana, Josh Turner, and Canaan Smith had been struggling for quite a while and weren't necessarily going to climb much higher, but they all managed to pass LBT this week. I am going to wait to "worry" as all of you have suggested, though. Once the research scores start to come in radio may see there is really no controversy going on with this song and then it may start to pick up. The only Callout chart currently having any showing for this is Bullseye Callout, which, as I mentioned earlier, shows a lot of listeners who haven't yet heard the song, so I think research will trend positive as familiarity increases. I guess I was just expecting this to "smash" a little bit harder/quicker. The production is so unique and attention-grabbing that I didn't think "Girl Crush" would be one of those slow-burners.

[Kanenrá:ke]

I'm with dm2081 as it's just plateauing a bit, this happens to most song after their initial burst onto the chart. This has climbed really well for Little Big Town standards so unless they have negative updates all week I'd worry not. :)

[Daryl the Beryl]

I don't think this is done yet. Several other songs lost audience this week. Give it time.

[Marv]

Well as much as I absolutely ADORE these folks as do legions of my fellow posters, I really have to challenge the wisdom of some of their singles choices including this low-key number.

Tornado, Pontoon and Day Drinking are arguably the three best #1 singles of anybody in the format over the past 2 1/2 years with the possible exceptions of Tim & Carrie IMHO, but LBT's propensity for making anything-but-radio-friendly choices such as this and 'Sober' is really disturbing.

I love these folks to pieces and their current CD is downright wonderfu!, but I'm afraid that they'll have to rush-release a new single such as the rousing 'Quit Breaking Up With Me' if this runs out of steam before this month is over.

It's really disheartening that another LBT single is going to go away way too prematurely because it's not radio friendly, but this easily avoidable chart debacle lies with somebody or more than one individua! at their label who should definitely know better.

[.indulgecountry]

Good grief, this has 7 very strong weeks that get it just outside the Top 30 and then it starts to level and suddenly everyone is pushing the panic button. This has literally just gotten started, lol. There's nothing about this slowing down that concerns me based on what it had been doing. They aren't an A-list act at radio so this wasn't going to fly up the charts without slowing some, and the fact that something this unconventional for a radio single managed to start off as well as it did has me feeling pretty optimistic about this one's chart prospects. I don't see this being another Top 2 hit like "Pontoon," "Tornado," or "Day Drinking," but I feel like this has a great shot to at least make the Top 20.

[surfy]

Feb 3, 2015 14:25:52 GMT -5 .indulgecountry said:

Good grief, this has 7 very strong weeks that get it just outside the Top 30 and then it starts to level and suddenly everyone is pushing the panic button. This has literally just gotten started, lol. There's nothing about this slowing down that concerns me based on what it had been doing. They aren't an A-list act at radio so this wasn't going to fly up the charts without slowing some, and the fact that something this unconventional for a radio single managed to start off as well as it did has me feeling pretty optimistic about this one's chart prospects. I don't see this being another Top 2 hit like "Pontoon," "Tornado," or "Day Drinking," but I feel like this has a great shot to at least make the Top 20.

Something about this board causes people to freak out every time a song isn't steamrolling to the top... lol