As a Carrie fan, I'm cool with this being next. I personally LOVE Renegade Runaway, but we had to assume this would be a single. It just sounds like a single and is perfect for radio and the season. Plus they may be thinking anything associated with Sam Hunt= SMASH.
A question for guys:
Any chance they go deeper than 4 singles this era?Of course there's a chance, but it doesn't mean that's guaranteed. A lot will probably depend on the success of singles #3 and #4 - if they are still selling strong by that time and the album still is selling enough to make it worth while to keep pushing the era forward, than they will release a 5th single.
I don't think your explanation stands up to scrutiny when it comes to the
Blown Away era -- both "Two Black Cadillacs" and "See You Again" were both successful on the airplay charts (peaking at #2 Billboard, #1 on Mediabase), sold very well as digital downloads (both well past gold by time of airplay peak) and were effective album movers (
Blown Away was still selling 5K copies per week when fourth single "See You Again" peaked, with the holiday season ahead). When Blake's fourth single from
Based on a True Story ("Doin' What She Likes") peaked, his album was also selling 5K copies per week (with lower cumulative sales than
Blown Away by about 300K at that point) and that fourth single had sold 13.6% fewer copies digitally than "See You Again") So the ROI consideration as you presented it wouldn't explain cutting
Blown Away short after four singles.
The last Carrie Underwood album to see a five single release was
Carnival Ride (which was also the only one of Carrie's albums to see five singles released to country radio;
Some Hearts saw a half-hearted push for the title track on the AC format). One thing that changed after
Carnival Ride's release was Carrie's contract situation. It's typical for artists to renegotiate their contracts after blockbuster albums. While no official word of a renegotiation got out in Carrie's case, in January of 2009, Carrie's albums went from being officially identified as 19 Recordings/Arista New York/Arista Nashville releases to 19 Recordings/Arista Nashville releases and there's really no other explanation for that than a renegotiation.
We don't know what else changed in her contract, but renegotiations under these circumstances typically also trade higher royalty rates to the artist in exchange for an additional album or albums on the contract. We also know from documents released via 19 Entertainment's royalties lawsuit against Sony that the label to which 19 licenses an
Idol alum's album is supposed to consult 19 on promotional expenses.
The fact that neither of Carrie's album eras following her change of contract status in early 2009 has seen more than four singles points to her contract being a factor -- either Carrie and 19R are making so much more per album under this new contract than other A-listers that the fifth single is not considered cost-effective or 19R isn't approving whatever expense may be associated with a fifth single. If the latter is the explanation, then perhaps things will change when Carrie completes her contract with 19R (which may be with
Storyteller or with her next album). But given the above, I don't expect
Storyteller to see a fifth single.
Moreover, it seems to me that even some artists who have typically seen five single releases from their albums (like Blake) are running shorter album cycles these days. Jason Aldean, who is on his fourth single from his current album and has been releasing five singles her album, has been recording new music for a while, so he may cut his current album off at four as well. But unlike both of them, Carrie likes to take her time between albums, so the lack of a fifth single has extended her time off country radio in between albums.
The production of "Heartbeat" makes it almost unlistenable to my ears.
I'm not especially fond of the production on the track either, though along the lines of something
bboat11 pointed out, it's really only the canned and generic instrumental intro to the track that I actively dislike. It sounds completely out of place after "Renegade Runaway," "Dirty Laundry" and "Church Bells" (all of which have more interesting intros, among other things).
It's also just now occurring to me that "Heartbeat" is pretty limited in its video possibilities, so that's a bit disappointing considering that Carrie's videos are often pretty well-conceived.
I doubt that Choctaw County Affair will end up being released as a single now. If Heartbeat is in fact being released, I think it's a sign of the direction that Carrie and her team will inch toward instead of going against the grain of country radio, and I do consider this a shame as I fully believe CCA is the best song Carrie has ever recorded by a large margin.
It's possible that the Goodman regime, at least in these early days, may be playing it safer when it comes to radio releases. Goodman did apparently tell
The Tennessean that "Heartbeat" is one of his favorites from the album. But I also think this is a case of just listening to the market.
Anyway, as promised, the YouTube streams from
Storyteller, with changes from last night:
"Smoke Break" (video): 7,264,200 (I'm not posting the day-to-day increase because the number I saw this morning was lower than the one I saw last night, which means I may have mistyped last night. I will say that the number I saw this morning was 7.111 million, which would suggest an increase of ~150K)
"Heartbeat" 675,615 (+6,840)
"What I Never Knew I Always Wanted": 470,501 (+6,074)
"Renegade Runaway": 295,075 (+4,075)
"Church Bells" 220,988 (+5,811)
"Smoke Break" (lyric video): 209,454 (+5,045)
"The Girl You Think I Am": 201,801 (+6,355)
"Like I'll Never Love You Again": 156,065 (+5,153)
"Relapse": 155,114 (+4,996)
"Dirty Laundry": 149,213 (+4,381)
"Choctaw County Affair": 144,995 (+4,132)
"Chaser" 127,073 (+3,475)
"Clock Don't Stop": 117,347 (+3,214)
"Mexico": 96,905 (+2,565)
Obviously, less overall daily action on YouTube, but here again, "Heartbeat" is out in front in daily and cumulative streaming at the moment, followed by "The Girl You Think I Am," "What I Never Knew I Always Wanted," and "Church Bells."
Summing total Spotify and YouTube streams and their changes from yesterday, in order of cumulative streams:
"Smoke Break": 14,150,006 (includes lyric video, up at least 229k over yesterday)
"Heartbeat": 2,649,375 (+40,375)
"Renegade Runaway": 1,379,179 (+21,491)
"What I Never Knew I Always Wanted": 1,122,343 (+19,488)
"Church Bells": 777,198 (+21,821)
"Dirty Laundry": 694,161 (+18,267)
"Relapse": 684,215 (+20,499)
"The Girl You Think I Am": 672,743 (+19,756)
"Like I'll Never Love You Again": 599,582 (+16,480)
"Choctaw County Affair": 588,684 (+15,538)
"Chaser": 584,383 (+15,698)
"Clock Don't Stop": 543,421 (+14,385)
"Mexico": 456,595 (+12,464)
If "Heartbeat" is indeed the second single from
Storyteller, I think that the above numbers suggest why. The above numbers also make me optimistic about "Church Bells"'s chances of being released. But we'll see -- it might be interesting to revisit these numbers down the road.