Billboard Country Airplay Top 601. Jameson Rodgers & Luke Combs “Cold Beer Calling My Name”
2. Lee Brice “Memory I Don’t Mess With”
3. Jason Aldean & Carrie Underwood “If I Didn’t Love You”
4. Walker Hayes “Fancy Like”
5-6. Chris Young & Kane Brown “Famous Friends”
(last week?)5-6. Elvie Shane “My Boy”
7-8. Luke Bryan “Waves”
(last week?)7-8. Scotty McCreery “You Time”
(last week)9. Ryan Hurd & Maren Morris “Chasing After You”
10. Luke Combs “Cold As You”
11-13. Kenny Chesney “Knowing You”
11-13. Old Dominion “I Was On A Boat That Day”
11-13. Zac Brown Band “Same Boat”
14. Lady A “Like A Lady”
15-16. Jon Pardi “Tequila Little Time”
15-16. Dustin Lynch & Mackenzie Porter “Thinking Bout You”
17. Jimmie Allen & Brad Paisley “Freedom Was A Highway”
18. Michael Ray “Whiskey & Rain”
19. Priscilla Block “Just About Over You”
20. Chris Stapleton “You Should Probably Leave”
21-23. Jordan Davis & Luke Bryan “Buy Dirt”
21-23. Kane Brown “One Mississippi”
21-23. Morgan Wallen “Sand In My Boots”
24. Kelsea Ballerini & Kenny Chesney “Half Of My Hometown”
25-26. Parker McCollum “To Be Loved By You”
25-26. Russell Dickerson “Home Sweet”
27. Callista Clark “It’s Cause I Am”
28. Blake Shelton “Come Back As A Country Boy”
(New!)29. Elle King & Miranda Lambert “Drunk (I Don’t Wanna Go Home)”
30. Eric Church “Hearts On Fire”
31. Sam Hunt “23”
32-33. Garth Brooks “That’s What Cowboys Do”
32-33. HARDY “Give Heaven Some Hell”
34. Keith Urban “Wild Hearts”
35. Dierks Bentley, Breland, & HARDY “Beers On Me”
36. Jake Owen “Best Thing Since Backroads”
37. Carly Pearce & Ashley McBryde “I Never Wanted To Be That Girl”
38-42. Chris Janson “Bye Mom”
(New!)
38-42. Lauren Alaina & Jon Pardi “Getting Over Him”
38-42. Tim McGraw “7500 OBO”
38-42. Caitlyn Smith & Old Dominion “I Can’t”
38-42. Matt Stell “That Ain’t Me No More”
43-44. Darius Rucker “My Masterpiece”
43-44. Dan + Shay “Steal My Love”
45. Brothers Osborne “I’m Not For Everyone”
46. Frank Ray “Country’d Look Good On You”
47-48. Tenille Arts “Back Then, Right Now”
47-48. Drew Parker “While You’re Gone”
49-50. Toby Keith “Old School”
49-50. Nate Barnes “You Ain’t Pretty”
51-52. Chris Lane “Fill Them Boots”
51-52. Chris Young & Mitchell Tenpenny “At The End Of A Bar”
53. Dylan Scott “New Truck”
54-55. Cam “Til There’s Nothing Left”
54-55. Caroline Jones “Come In (But Don’t Make Yourself Comfortable)”
56. Gabby Barrett “Footprints On The Moon”
57. Aaron Lewis “Am I The Only One”
58. Travis Denning “ABBY”
59. Midland “Sunrise Tells The Story”
60. Niko Moon “Paradise To Me”
Going Recurrent/Drop OutsLainey Wilson “Things A Man Oughta Know”
Cody Johnson “Til You Can’t”
CommentaryThis week was an odd one. With only one meaningful recurrent in Lainey Wilson and two huge debuts has caused a lot of songs below the Top 40 position wise to drop. But outside of a couple of songs below the Top 40, no one outside the Top 10 had any sort of significant type of loss in terms of audience gains.
Starting off, Jameson Rodgers scores his second #1 with “Cold Beer Calling My Name” with an expected strong push to #1. Still yet to be determined what his third single will be but he is definitely off to a good start. Look for Lee Brice to hit #1 next week with “Memory I Don’t Mess With” as Lee slows down a tad before his push week. In the bronze position should be the mega smash duet of Jason Aldean & Carrie Underwood as it continues to near the top. Now I know there’s been much debate and discussion on whether “If I Didn’t Love You” will get a week at the top, multiple weeks at the top or no weeks at the top as it all has to deal with the even bigger mega monster smash “Fancy Like”. My take is that Jason/Carrie are for sure hitting #1 and I still think they can get 2 weeks at the top at least on Billboard. Mainly since the push for the top looks to be Lee Brice next week, followed by Elvie Shane, and then I imagine Jason/Carrie will be pushed for the top and there is a good 4 million audience gap between “My Boy” and “If I Didn’t Love You” so Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood should get a couple weeks at the top before Walker Hayes rules the roost for a bit.
Speaking of Walker Hayes he should be at #4 this week on the Airplay chart as he has another excellent week with “Fancy Like”, not quite as great as last week in terms of being the greatest gainer as I expect both Blake Shelton and Jameson Rodger/Luke Combs to gain more audience than Walker Hayes still a great week regardless. Chris Young & Kane Brown still haven't lost enough spins to get knocked out of the Top 10 and in general “Famous Friends” has kind of plateaued a bit in terms of audience loss. Elsewhere Elvie Shane picks up the pace with “My Boy” but it’s #1 chances on Billboard look grim to say the least since it has to overcome both “Fancy Like” and “If I Didn’t Love You” which seems unlikely especially as both are greatly outpacing Elvie Shane. Scotty McCreery has a fast (and expected) freefall with “You Time” as it should spend its final week on the chart this week. As for Luke Bryan “Waves” it continues to slowly but surely fall and does have a chance to go recurrent next week. Ryan Hurd & Maren Morris continue to do well as they inch up to #9. I do know that
christianlarson9 has said this week that he thinks best case scenario is for “Chasing After You” to get a Mediabase only #1, but I do think the song still has a fighting chance at both charts #1 spot mainly because the callout is great for the song so it can spend a long time in the Top 10 and both Ryan/Maren and Walker Hayes are on Sony so I imagine Sony will be able to get both songs to #1 on both charts, just might take some level of manipulation. Rounding out the Top 10 is Luke Combs who continues to do well but “Cold As You” is definitely the first Luke Combs song to not completely smash out of the gate.
Outside the Top 10, Kenny Chesney continues to do well with “Knowing You” as he awaits his Top 10 opening, Old Dominion continues to crawl along the chart as some rather poor callout continues to hold “I Was On A Boat That Day” back. As for Zac Brown Band, “Same Boat” slows down compared to last week but still looks good, as all 3 should be around the same amount of audience. Lady A moves up a slot with “Like A Lady” as they continue to do better than they should given the abysmal callout. Still Lady A isn’t exactly doing great. Jon Pardi should have been the last spot in the Top 15 but “Tequila Little Time” has just hit a wall in terms of gains and while he will do better than last week where Jon lost audience, “Tequila Little Time” still doesn’t have much life in it which gives Dustin/Mackenzie the opportunity to enter the Top 15 as “Thinking Bout You” continues to gain more momentum.
Jimmie Allen/Brad Paisley should stay at #17 but it had a solid week of gains. However despite also staying put at #18, the same can not be said for Michael Ray as “Whiskey and Rain” crawled this week, hardly gaining much. Priscilla Block’s “Just About Over You” holds off Chris Stapleton for another week and actually outgained “You Should Probably Leave” him as well, putting more space between the two.
Now in the 20s, Jordan Davis/Luke Bryan had a great week as they near the Top 20 with “Buy Dirt”. Kane Brown continues to do fairly well with “One Mississippi” as Morgan Wallen hits the brakes this week with his latest single. Kelsea Ballerini put some distance with her latest “Half Of My Hometown” and the singles from Parker McCollum and Russell Dickerson neither of whom looked impressive this week. Callista Clark continues to be off on her own island, however slowly but surely Eric Church, Elle King/Miranda Lambert are closing the gap. Also debuting in the Top 30 this week should be Blake Shelton’s new one, expect the iHeart hangover to probably take this one into the 30s for a week or two starting next week.
Speaking of which, to wrap things up as below the Top 30 there is not a ton to discuss, Sam Hunt “23” continues to do very well and is a guaranteed lock to hit the Top 30 next week. Now to save time here are all the artists, that did not gain or lose much to be of note this week as all gained just a little amount of audience:
Garth Brooks, Keith Urban, Lauren Alaina/Jon Pardi, Caitlyn Smith/Old Dominion, Dan + Shay, Tenille Arts, Nate Barnes, Drew Parker, Chris Lane, Dylan Scott, Caroline Jones, Aaron Lewis, Cam, Travis Denning, Midland, and Niko Moon.
None of the songs associated with these acts gained enough to really talk about without sounding super repetitive.
As for the songs I did not mention. HARDY had a solid week as he continues to stay just below the Top 30. Dierks Bentley & Co and Jake Owen likewise continue to look promising. Carly Pearce & Ashley McBryde continue to show promise in their 3rd week as does Chris Young/Mitchell Tenpenny. Tim McGraw did pretty well with “7500 OBO”. Darius Rucker also had a solid week as did newcomer Frank Ray with his latest. Unfortunately on the flipside of that there were a few songs that did suffer this week and actually look to lose their audience this week. Those songs being Matt Stell “That Ain’t Me No More” which looks to potentially fall out of the Top 40 this week, Toby Keith “Old School” which lost greatly this week and looks to fall and stay barely inside the Top 50, and Gabby Barrett’s “Footprints On The Moon”. Now of the three I do think Toby Keith is most likely to give up sooner than later. As for Matt Stell and I do think he can still keep the bullet since he has gained spins on Mediabase this week so I think it will translate for Billboard. As for Gabby Barrett the main reason she is losing her bullet is KKBQ slashed her airplay, but my gut suspicions are telling me she will be fine.
Heading into next week Scotty McCreery is a 100% lock to go recurrent. Fingers crossed Luke Bryan or Chris Young/Kane Brown go recurrent. I don’t see anyone else going recurrent unfortunately, in terms of new debuts coming sooner than later, I would expect singles from Morgan Evans, Tyler Rich, Laci Kaye Booth, Joe Nichols, and if it has a good add date Morgan Wade, to all be in contention next week to debut on the chart..
To everyone reading this. Have a great week until next time.