dm2081
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Post by dm2081 on Aug 3, 2015 11:00:16 GMT -5
So what does everybody want to see for the 3rd single? Zac Brown Band have a ton of momentum right now, so I think as long as they don't pick something polarizing (I.e. Mango Tree) then I think they can keep up their good graces at radio. I've mentioned it before, but I think now would be a great time to release "Dress Blues". The 3rd single will peak in late fall or early winter time when ballads tends to be more accepted by radio, and I think ZBB are white hot with country radio right now. The only tough part about "Dress Blues" is it would definitely need a radio edit, and that would most likely mean a few great parts will get chopped out of the song. But I think much like "One Hell Of An Amen" did, "Dress Blues" would really hit home with country radio fans. "Wildfire", "Remedy", "Young And Wild" and "Bittersweet" could all be options too, unless they want to counter program and release "Castaway". What does everyone else think?
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zjames
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Post by zjames on Aug 3, 2015 11:17:59 GMT -5
^ The country album tracks they've been playing consistently at their concerts are "Dress Blues", "Remedy", "Bittersweet", and "Castaway". I think they're gonna wait to release "Castaway" for the fourth single to line up with the warmer months.
I think it's between "Dress Blues" and "Bittersweet". "Dress Blues" seems like a slightly safer choice because of its theme, but I hope they choose "Bittersweet".
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bamafan2102
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Post by bamafan2102 on Aug 3, 2015 11:32:50 GMT -5
I would love to see Wildfire next. Then Bittersweet, Young and Wild then Dress Blues.
But I think they will go Bittersweet, Young and Wild, Dress Blues.
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Ten Pound Hammer
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Post by Ten Pound Hammer on Aug 3, 2015 11:39:11 GMT -5
I was also thinking that Castaway would be good for next summer. Even if it sounds like Sebastian the crab is singing the backing vocals.
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rsmatto
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Post by rsmatto on Aug 3, 2015 12:47:14 GMT -5
They could easily send out "Tomorrow Never Comes" or "Beautiful Drug" as singles too (with the latter one getting a country radio remix).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2015 12:59:06 GMT -5
They could easily send out "Tomorrow Never Comes" or "Beautiful Drug" as singles too (with the latter one getting a country radio remix). You're right.....to Pop radio, NOT country radio (unless the "Tomorrow Never Comes" you mentioned is the acoustic version, otherwise, NO)
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zjames
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Post by zjames on Aug 3, 2015 13:13:46 GMT -5
They could easily send out "Tomorrow Never Comes" or "Beautiful Drug" as singles too (with the latter one getting a country radio remix). You're right.....to Pop radio, NOT country radio (unless the "Tomorrow Never Comes" you mentioned is the acoustic version, otherwise, NO) I'm surprised they haven't released either "Beautiful Drug" or "Tomorrow Never Comes" to pop radio yet. They're about to release their second single ("Junkyard") to rock radio. I don't know what they're waiting for.
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rsmatto
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Post by rsmatto on Aug 3, 2015 14:19:18 GMT -5
You're right.....to Pop radio, NOT country radio (unless the "Tomorrow Never Comes" you mentioned is the acoustic version, otherwise, NO) I'm surprised they haven't released either "Beautiful Drug" or "Tomorrow Never Comes" to pop radio yet. They're about to release their second single ("Junkyard") to rock radio. I don't know what they're waiting for. Over-saturation. But, again, given how current country radio sounds, why would they not release one of those to the country radio station first?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2015 14:48:08 GMT -5
I'm surprised they haven't released either "Beautiful Drug" or "Tomorrow Never Comes" to pop radio yet. They're about to release their second single ("Junkyard") to rock radio. I don't know what they're waiting for. Over-saturation. But, again, given how current country radio sounds, why would they not release one of those to the country radio station first? Because, idk, maybe there's actually an act who has respect for the genre instead of just making it the recycle bin for this Pop/R&B stuff? Granted, these guys have never claimed to be a country band, but at least they have some respect for the genre by releasing the respective songs where they belong. Not everyone wants to "evolve" country (even though what's happening now isn't evolution, at all)
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dm2081
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Post by dm2081 on Aug 3, 2015 16:57:41 GMT -5
Yeah I feel like ZBB have a good idea about what their country fan base wants to hear, and they've yet to release a polarizing song. Won't be surprised if they release one of the Pop sounding songs, but with the way this record was made, it seems like they made most of the songs with an idea of what format they belong to and would work at.
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Marv
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Post by Marv on Aug 3, 2015 17:43:49 GMT -5
They're definitely very well wired as it relates to knowing what their fanbase expects to hear from them, and this superb follow-up to one of the year's very biggest singles offers irrefutable proof that they're masters at recording music which fits perfectly into the wheelhouse of their listeners, and being just weeks away from another #1 song is no surprise.
Toss in their dominance on the most recent Power Gold chart much as Tim & Kenny did during the previous decade, and it's pretty clear that they're as hot as anybody in the format.
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Ten Pound Hammer
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Post by Ten Pound Hammer on Aug 3, 2015 18:02:07 GMT -5
I agree, they seem to know what country radio wants while still keeping things interesting. Heck, "The Wind" was probably their biggest gamble in terms of what they've sent to country so far.
They're not going to try something like "Beautiful Drug" or "Mango Tree" on country radio, but given their success with "Heavy Is the Head" on the rock format, I wouldn't be surprised if they try going for some of the more "out there" material on other formats.
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ryankentm
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Post by ryankentm on Aug 3, 2015 22:18:25 GMT -5
My prediction:
Loving You Easy goes #1 by the end of August.
Remedy gets released to country radio the same week as Junkyard does to rock radio for the Fall.
Dress Blues is released for a long ride at country radio in early winter.
Castaway is released Spring into Summer.
Bittersweet is released as a 6th country single in late Summer 2016.
At some point, both Beautiful Drug and Tomorrow Never Comes get released to pop radio after Avicii releases his song "Broken Arrows" featuring Zac.
Thus 10 songs off the album will be released to 3 different radio formats.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2015 2:26:40 GMT -5
Southern Ground seems to be really pushing this hard. There have been "max spins" ads in the daily and weekly trades since last week. Labels usually refrain from saying "maximum spins" until the week of a song's final push. Judging by the way "Young & Crazy" has been neck-and-neck with this one for the past few weeks even though Frankie's single has way worse sales, I suspect radio must be getting some negative research on this record and perhaps they want to take it out of rotation as soon as possible. Programmers seem to be going for the safe, poor seller a tad more than the (possibly) polarizing, strong seller here. The Callout America, Bullseye Callout, Mediabase National Callout, and Radiofeedback charts I have access to don't show any significantly worse numbers for ZBB than Frankie, but I've found in the past that these surveys may not always be 100% reliable and can have very different results, so it's quite possible that individual market scores are coming back worse for "Loving You Easy."
The final push for "Loving You Easy" will definitely come next week. I'm thinking Frankie may be a real threat here. "Young & Crazy" creamed "Loving You Easy" in audience gains on Mediabase last week. A lot of the gains didn't translate over to the Billboard panel, since a large chunk of Frankie's gains came from Westwood One's Hot Country (which is only on the Mediabase panel), where Frankie gained 32 spins on ZBB last week and Frankie has over a million more audience impressions than ZBB. However, Frankie still did manage to edge out ZBB on Billboard for the #3 position this week. WAR may be trying to push Frankie to #1 as quickly as they can, since his single is 30 weeks old and is selling dismally, so while Warner usually plays nice with record labels in the Top 5, I'm thinking Frankie's team may not be so comfortable about playing nice here, and they may fight ZBB for the #1 position next week. I can see this peaking at #2 behind "Young & Crazy" next week. Quite surprising when you consider sales, star power, and age of the songs, I will admit. (That's why the only plausible explanation I can think of is that market scores must be low for LYE.)
I will say that the charts have had a much more rushed, competitive feel this summer. Usually with the country charts, there's one week at #1 designated for just about every song that hits the Top 10, and a Top 10 single only misses #1 when another song gets multiple weeks at #1. ("I See You" took two weeks at #1 when "Something in the Water" missed #1, "Homegrown" took three weeks at #1 when "Homegrown Honey and "Lonely Eyes" missed #1, etc.) Lately, there have been plenty of songs that have missed #1, but we've only had one mutli-week #1 song since "Say You Do." ("Sangria" was the only song this summer to get two weeks at #1 when "Little Toy Guns" fell short.) As a result of all these "extra" songs missing #1, others have had to climb through the Top 10 at a quicker pace, resulting in fewer weeks in the Top 10 and larger gains while in the Top 10. That's why there have been so many quadruple-digit bullets over the past few weeks. Songs are having to put up larger gains to account for quicker runs through the Top 10, and labels are doing #1 pushes as soon as possible rather than taking a "wait and see" approach.
I do like the more fast-paced feel of the charts, even if it means there will be some unusually high gains for songs in the Top 10 for a while. Sure I hate the revolving door at #1 model of the country charts, but I'm happy to see several songs peak below #1 ("Diamond Rings and Old Barstools," "Baby Be My Love Song," "Girl Crush," possibly "Loving You Easy"). This allows me to at least tell myself that the #1 position is becoming more meaningful (even if a lot of these #1 pushes are heavily corporate). I don't imagine that a lot of the recent #1 songs will rank highly on the year-end charts since they haven't had many weeks in power rotation, though.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2015 2:46:22 GMT -5
I don't think the presence of those ads means that Southern Ground is pushing this especially hard (nor do I get the sense that Southern Ground is pushing this especially hard). I also don't think the wording on the ads means much here. It'd be different if they were saying "max spins now", but they're not. The ads last week said "top 5 / max spins"...basically it reads to me as Zac's team just asking for the last few stations that don't have this in heavy rotation to put it there (heavy rotation = max spins).
I actually don't think the label really needs to push this one much at all...it's been breezing up the chart, and I fully expect radio to take it to #1 without needing to be coaxed too much by the Southern Ground promo team.
Maybe Zac and his team do want this to get to #1 as fast as possible, but I doubt it's because of any negative feedback (and anyway, this one is researching just fine across the board on all major callout surveys). If anything, they might just want to get the next single out quickly to show off the depth of the album, especially since Jekyll + Hyde continues to sell quite well.
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dm2081
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Post by dm2081 on Aug 9, 2015 19:01:29 GMT -5
Curious to see if Frankie will lay low this week and let ZBB have the #1, or if both will compete. Today's update makes it seem pretty obvious, but tomorrow will give us a better picture. I'm very glad to see Zac and gang have been able to keep their status as an A-lister. This song is selling pretty well now too, but unfortunately for ZBB, their singles are climbing too quickly in order to achieve higher sales. This song would have easily gone Gold had this had the standard 30+ weeks charting like more non A-list artists get these days. Same goes for "Homegrown". That one would have easily gone Platinum already had it no peaked in less than 15 weeks. Anyways, fingers crossed that "Beautiful Drug" is only getting a Pop release, and that "Dress Blues" is next for country...
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Post by Daryl the Beryl on Aug 10, 2015 5:03:50 GMT -5
Warner Bros. seems satisfied with 1 week for Michael Ray as he lost 95 spins and 250k audience today (I think he'll continue to lose audience and spins).
This gained 142 spins and 1.036 million audience, and Frankie gained 75 spins and 628k audience.
If the trends continue, ZBB should be #1 on both MB and Billboard. They should pass Frankie this week on Billboard too.
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Post by Daryl the Beryl on Aug 13, 2015 4:57:39 GMT -5
3 1 ZAC BROWN BAND Loving You Easy 8250 7446 804 55.198
Country No.1 Zac Brown Band Loving You Easy +16578 Luke Bryan Strip It Down
will be #1 on both MB and BB next week
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dm2081
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Post by dm2081 on Aug 24, 2015 19:58:53 GMT -5
Holy crap, this lost almost 15 million in audience in the past week on Billboard. The song is still only 18 weeks old and was really radio friendly. I'm thinking than ZBB must have asked radio to drop this one quickly, because I see no reason why radio would want to move on from this one so quickly.
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