THE COUNTRY MUSIC INDUSTRY’S MUST-HAVE SOURCE FOR NEWS, ANALYSIS AND CHART INFO EVERY MONDAY AND THURSDAY Lee Ann Photoglo, 615-376-7931, [email protected]TO ADVERTISE, CONTACT: Get your message front and center with top country radio programmers and other key music influencers Country UPDATE BILLBOARD.COM/NEWSLETTERS EDITED BY TOM ROLAND, [email protected]MAY 28, 2015 | PAGE 1 OF 8 INSIDE Makin’ Tracks: Chris Young’s ‘I’m Comin’ Over’ >page 2 Stark Report: Concerts Showcase Weird Fan Behavior >page 4 Questions Answered: Producer Nathan Chapman >page 5 Little Big Town Breaks Up… For A Day >page 5 Garth Brooks’ Big-Easy Debut >page 5 Brantley Gilbert bounds 22-1 on Billboard’s Top Country Al- bums chart (dated June 6) with Just As I Am ( Valory/Big Machine Label Group) following the set’s first-anniversary rerelease. The album roars by 743 percent to 28,000 copies sold in the week ending May 24, according to Nielsen Music, marking its fifth week at No. 1 (in its 53rd week on the chart). The album debuted at No. 1 with 211,000 sold on the chart dated June 7, 2014 and remained on top the following frame (65,000). It added two more weeks at No. 1 in August 2014. In the wake of the deluxe reissue of Just, aka The Platinum Edition, which includes eight bonus tracks, the set’s sales swell to 802,000 to date. It follows Brantley’s major- label debut, Halfway to Heaven , which has sold 1.1 million. Just ’s lead track, “Bottoms Up,” crowned Hot Country Songs for two weeks in March 2014; current sin- gle “One Hell of an Amen” reaches a new high, rising 18-14. Also notable on Top Country Albums, Kelsea Ballerini’s debut LP, The First Time (Black River), enters at No. 4 with 13,000 sold. The album’s first single, “Love Me Like You Mean It,” concurrently reaches the Hot Country Songs top 10 (13-8), powered in part by its new top 10 status on Country Airplay (11-8; 29.8 million in audience, up 11 percent). Atop Hot Country Songs, Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” (Capitol Nashville) reigns for a fifth week. Although it dips to No. 2 after six weeks at No. 1 on Country Digital Songs, it gains by 12 percent to 96,000 downloads sold following the group’s performance of the song with Faith Hill on the Billboard Music Awards, broadcast May 17 on ABC. The track takes over at No. 1 on Country Streaming Songs, up by 15 percent to 2.7 million U.S. streams. On Hot Country Songs, “Crush” fends off Luke Bryan’s “Kick the Dust Up” (Capitol Nashville), which blasts 49-2, powered most heavily by its No. 1 launch on Country Digital Songs (127,000). “Dust” previews Bryan’s album Kill the Lights (Aug. 7). Additionally on Hot Country Songs, Kenny Chesney collects his 47th top 10, as “Wild Child,” with Grace Potter (Blue Chair/ Columbia Nashville), climbs 12-9. Dating to his first week in the region (June 24, 1995), with “Fall in Love,” Chesney passes Tim McGraw for the most top 10s in that span. This column was written by Billboard co-director of charts Gary Trust ([email protected]). GILBERT Country MID- WEEK UPDATE Brantley Gilbert Returns To No. 1; Luke Bryan Moves On ‘Up’ JAMES MINCHIN
Transcript
THE COUNTRY MUSIC INDUSTRY’S MUST-HAVE SOURCE FOR NEWS, ANALYSIS AND CHART INFO EVERY MONDAY AND THURSDAY
Lee Ann Photoglo, 615-376-7931, [email protected] ADVERTISE, CONTACT:
Get your message front and center with top country radio programmers and other
key music infl uencers
Country UPDATE
BILLBOARD.COM/NEWSLETTERS EDITED BY TOM ROLAND, [email protected] MAY 28, 2015 | PAGE 1 OF 8
INSIDEMakin’ Tracks: Chris Young’s
‘I’m Comin’ Over’
>page 2
Stark Report: Concerts
Showcase Weird
Fan Behavior >page 4
Questions Answered: Producer Nathan
Chapman >page 5
Little Big Town Breaks Up… For A Day
>page 5
Garth Brooks’ Big-Easy
Debut >page 5
Brantley Gilbert bounds 22-1 on Billboard’s Top Country Al-bums chart (dated June 6) with Just As I Am (Valory/Big Machine Label Group) following the set’s first-anniversary rerelease. The album roars by 743 percent to 28,000 copies sold in the week ending May 24, according to Nielsen Music, marking its fifth week at No. 1 (in its 53rd week on the chart). The album debuted at No. 1 with 211,000 sold on the chart dated June 7, 2014 and remained on top the following frame (65,000). It added two more weeks at No. 1 in August 2014.
In the wake of the deluxe reissue of Just, aka The Platinum Edition, which includes eight bonus tracks, the set’s sales swell to 802,000 to date. It follows Brantley’s major- label debut, Half way to Heaven, which has sold 1.1 million. Just’s lead track, “Bottoms Up,” crowned Hot Country Songs for two weeks in March 2014; current sin-gle “One Hell of an Amen” reaches a new high, rising 18-14.
Also notable on Top Country Albums, Kelsea Ballerini’s debut LP, The First Time (Black River), enters at No. 4 with 13,000 sold. The album’s f irst single, “Love Me Like You Mean It,” concurrently reaches the Hot Country Songs top 10 (13-8), powered in part by its new top 10 status on Country
Airplay (11-8; 29.8 million in audience, up 11 percent). Atop Hot Country Songs, Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush”
(Capitol Nashville) reigns for a fifth week. Although it dips to No. 2 after six weeks at No. 1 on Country Digital Songs, it gains by 12 percent to 96,000 downloads sold following the group’s
performance of the song with Faith Hill on the Billboard Music Awards, broadcast May 17 on ABC. The track takes over at No. 1 on Countr y Streaming Songs, up by 15 percent to 2.7 million U.S. streams.
On Hot Country Songs, “Crush” fends off Luke Bryan’s “Kick the Dust Up” (Capitol Nashville), which blasts 49-2, powered most heavily by its No. 1 launch on Country Digital Songs (127,000). “Dust” previews Bryan’s album Kill the Lights (Aug. 7).
Additionally on Hot Country Songs, Kenny Chesney collects his
47th top 10, as “Wild Child,” with Grace Potter (Blue Chair/Columbia Nashville), climbs 12-9. Dating to his first week in the region (June 24, 1995), with “Fall in Love,” Chesney passes Tim McGraw for the most top 10s in that span.
This column was written by Billboard co-director of charts Gary Trust ([email protected]).
GILBERT
Country MID- WEEK
UPDATE
Brantley Gilbert Returns To No. 1; Luke Bryan Moves On ‘Up’
After the first listen or two to Chris Young’s new single, “I’m Comin’ Over,” the thing that stands out is the use of the word “closure.”
It’s a psychiatric term when applied to relationships; an uncommon word to hear in a commercial song. But it’s also familiar to most people, and frankly some-thing that a lot of jilted lovers never quite get.
“It’s not something outlandish, some weird word that shouldn’t ever be in a song,” observes Young, “but also not something that sounds like a rehash of what you’ve already heard before.”
In a way, “closure” helps open the door to a seemingly new phase in Young’s development as a recording artist. “I’m Comin’ Over” has a familiar ring to it — the tempo, the melody and the dynamic arc are similar to Young’s 2011 ballad “Tomorrow,” and Terry Crisp’s prominent steel guitar reinforces the traditional tilt that has always been present in Young’s music — but it also introduces a new ele-ment that keeps it from being a simple rehash. The tinny sound of programmed drums suggests that no matter how traditional you might perceive him, Young is moving forward.
“We really did some stuff on this one in terms of how much steel is on this track in tandem with some of the loop-based stuff that’s in the track,” says Young. “It does kind of bridge the gap between some of the stuff that I’ve done before and some of the stuff that we did on this record sonically.”
“I’m Comin’ Over” is his first single with a new producer, Corey Crowder. It’s also one of six songs on the forthcoming album that Young co-wrote with Crowder, who briefly had a development deal with Sony around 2008, and Josh Hoge, who recorded for pop label Blackledge Music about the same time.
“We wrote a dozen songs in a short period of time, and we were just kind of blown away by what we were walking away with each time that we were to-gether,” says Hoge. “If I brought anything to the table, it was hopefully just a little bit more of a rhythmic sense. I mean, I hear that in ‘I’m Comin’ Over’ a little bit in the back beat.”
Fashioned in December 2014, “I’m Comin’ Over” was a title that Young brought to the songwriting session at Crowder’s Music Row office. The title flashed into Young’s mind the day before the appointment, and he texted it to his co-writers to get the creative juices rolling. Crowder created a drum groove for them to write with, and Young and Crowder played guitars over those rhythms as they banged out the song in an easy hour or two. The drum track essentially kept the tempo from slowing down during the stop-and-start process of throwing out lines and editing the text.
“To me, songwriting is a game of momentum,” reasons Crowder. “When you lose momentum, sometimes you lose sight of what the song is.”
Momentum is wavering in the storyline of the couple that “I’m Comin’ Over” represents. The first verse sets them up as two people who repeatedly break up, only to make up again, unable to quell the physical passion between them. It’s similar to the couple in “Tomorrow,” though the writers didn’t make those com-parisons as they worked.
“ ‘Tomorrow’ is like one last goodbye. The end of that song is the end of the relationship. That’s it,” says Young. “I don’t know if ‘I’m Comin’ Over’ is that. It very well could be a relationship that keeps going because it’s that on-again,
off-again thing, but it’s like, ‘Right now, it doesn’t matter if this is going to be done or not, I just want to be with that person.’ ”
“If I was breaking the two down,” adds Hoge, “ ‘Tomorrow’ seems a little more like toxic love, and this one seems a little more like just a passionate kind of thing.”
Before they broke, the writers recorded the song with guitar and vocal, leav-ing Crowder to assemble a more elaborate demo. Young was uncertain about the song — “I wonder if we hooked it,” he mused — but the other two were con-vinced they had come up with a winner. “I knew what we had written when we wrote it, just because my brain had already heard what it was going to sound like finished,” says Crowder.
Indeed, when Young heard the demo the next morning, he was much more enthusiastic.
“I always have to get away from something for like 24 hours” for perspective, explains Young. “I called them the next day and was like, ‘OK, I love this. It’s going on the record.’ ”
Crowder had the musicians play along with the demo when they gathered for the recording ses-sion at Nashville’s Sound Stage, a studio that has yielded hits for George Strait, Maddie & Tae and Hank Williams Jr., among others. Drummer Miles McPherson added a little human touch to the rhythm above the programmed tracks, while bassist Tony Lucido, keyboardist Dave Cohen and guitarists Derek Wells and Carl Miner mim-icked much of the feel from the demo. “I got the actual studio musicians to kind of duplicate what I’d done,” says Crowder, “but to play it better.”
Young sang it through three times when they recorded final vocals, and Crowder compiled the best pieces of each take to get the definitive version. “If I can’t get it in three passes, it’s going to be real hard for me to try and emulate that live,” reasons Young.
“I don’t think people have given him as much credit as they should,” says Crowder. “People don’t know, because he sings so low, but his range is crazy, and the runs that he’s capable of and the control of his voice is unlike anything I’ve ever recorded in my life. It’s really, really special.”
Crisp, who overdubbed his steel part, brings closure to the performance with four dovetailing lines that peak with a mournful high note that simulates the strain and uncertainty in the “I’m Comin’ Over” relationship.
“The position that he’s playing that in is kind of funky,” says Young. “He’s doing a lot of work with pedals to get that specific note.”
RCA shipped the single to radio via Play MPE on May 11 and got a quick reac-tion. It debuted at No. 50 on the June 6 Country Indicator chart, which measures airplay in secondary markets and on syndicated national formats. More impor-tantly, “I’m Comin’ Over” debuted at No. 2 on Country Digital Songs, outsold only by Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush.” Young rode the sales and initial airplay to a No. 8 debut on the hybrid Hot Country Songs list dated May 30. (It drops to No. 27 on the June 6 chart.) Young already has people at his concerts singing “I’m Comin’ Over” word for word.
“There’s not very many songs that I’ve woken up the next day and gone, ‘This could be the first single,’ and I totally felt that way about this song,” he says. “I love it. I love the melody; I love singing it. I just kind of had my fingers crossed that people were going to dig it. So far, so good.”
BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE MAY 28, 2015 | PAGE 2 OF 8
Chris Young’s Song About Closure Has A Bright Start
People go to concerts to see the performers, of course, but watching the audience can often be every bit as entertaining. For the stars looking out from the stage, it’s often like giving and getting a show at the same time. Eric Church has talked publicly about his fans sometimes having full-on sex right in front of the stage. And who can forget the viral video from November 2014 of a fan throwing up right after Dierks Bentley pulled her up onstage to sing with him?
Earlier this month, Columbia Nashville’s David Friedman posted a hilarious photo on Facebook of a fan in the front row at a Steven Lee Olsen show balancing a china-plated steak dinner on the edge of the stage and eating it while watching the show. “Thought I’d seen it all … until I saw this guy,” wrote Friedman. Un-fazed, Olsen reportedly suggested to the fan that he might add some healthful greens to his dinner.
For industry members, fan watching is often a show within a show. Dave Logan, PD of classic country Twang 106.7 Fort Myers, Fla., saw a fan get turned down after proposing to his girlfriend during a concert. Kris Rochester of the syndicated Tony and Kris radio show says two women chased him down at a Kenny Chesney show, begging for backstage access. “When I declined, they both flashed me and kept trying to block me,” he says. “When they realized it wasn’t working, I heard one of them say, ‘Come on, Mom. He’s not going to get us back[stage].’ ” And Country Weekly’s Tammy Ragusa spotted “two hippie chicks” in a Winnebago with a sign in the front windshield that read “Will forni-cate for Garth Brooks tickets” at Country Jam in Eau Claire, Wis., a few years ago.
Tom Scott, now PD at B107.5 and US 96.9 Binghamton, N.Y., recalls an early-career Taylor Swift concert in Charlottesville, Va., attended by primarily tween and teen girls, plus one “60-plus gentleman who arrived solo and stuck out like a sore thumb. He spent the show [in] the side seating just a few feet from the stage staring at Taylor with binoculars. Guy was a world-class creeper.”
But label promotion reps like Friedman and Mercury Records’ Sally Green have literally seen it all. Green recalls how early in Easton Corbin’s ca-reer, a radio station asked him to perform at the city’s new hockey arena open house. The arena was attached to a convention center that happened to be hosting a Star Wars convention the same day. “Not only did the hockey mas-cot decide to hop onstage to join Easton mid-performance, unin-
vited,” says Green, “but there were dozens of Storm Troopers and Darth Vaders sprinkled throughout the audience. At one point during a song Easton and his guitar player looked at each other and just started cracking up.”
Green also remembers being with Lauren Alaina at a radio station show in a city park. Near the end of the show, a little girl approached the stage by herself. Alaina took her hand and sang the rest of the song with the child dancing beside her. When the song was over, no parent came to retrieve the girl, so Alaina did her next song with the girl still dancing happily onstage. “As Lauren was about to sing her final song — and her tour manager and I were contemplating what to do — we saw a woman with a toddler on her hip walking toward the stage,” says Green. “Relieved that the girl’s mother was finally coming to get her, imagine our surprise when she didn’t remove her little girl, but instead tried to hand her toddler over to Lauren! Lauren was a total pro and ended her show with a little girl, a toddler and a completely clueless mother all dancing around her onstage.”
Other fans are just intent to get their licks in, sometimes literally. Thirty Tigers’ Stephanie O’Donnell remembers covering a Tyler Farr show in Tulsa, Okla., while she was filling in at Columbia Records. “There was this rather loud, boisterous woman — wearing a ‘Your Trailer or Mine?’ shirt — in the front row, screaming things at Tyler like, ‘I’m going to lick your face,’ during the entire show. I kept my eye on her during the autograph line after the show. Just as the photographer was about to take the picture, she turned her head and stuck her tongue in Tyler’s ear.”
Billy Currington seems to be a magnet for eager fans. Mercury’s Charlie Dean, who says she is always amazed when folks bring their babies to shows, can’t forget the fan who had a sleeping toddler in her arms in the front row of a Currington show in Milwaukee. But “that didn’t stop her from trying to grab Billy whenever he went near her.” At another Currington show, says Dean, “a man thought it was fun to expose his
girlfriend’s breasts every once in a while. She finally slapped him and made him stop.” Green also has video from the time a fan sent an Elvis Presley im-personator back to Currington’s bus to sing “Viva Las Vegas” for him for no apparent reason.
Sometimes the “crazy fan” turns out to be a radio station employee. Curb Re-cords’ Lori Hartigan remembers working a Carrie Underwood show 10 years ago when the road manager ran up and urgently informed her that “a naked man” was in the meet-and greet-line. Turns out the “naked man” was KNIX Phoenix mascot Barrel Boy, whose costume is a barrel balanced on suspenders and a pair of cowboy boots. He was asked to don a shirt before meeting Underwood.
Label and radio reps also have stories about their own unintentional concert mishaps, like K102 Minneapolis morning man Chris Carr. Swift’s mother was giving him a tour of backstage sets at one of the singer’s shows when he tripped and broke the turret off one of the superstar’s castle props.
“I felt just awful,” he says. “I found some tape and put it back together the best I could. I fixed it just enough so when the show finally started, [co-host] Maver-ick said, ‘Well, it looks like they made some renovations and added a window to the castle.’ I am mortified to this day.”
Blaster Records’ Bob Reeves also shares an embarrassing story from his days at Epic Records when taking a then-brand-new artist named Miranda Lambert to a station show in Frederick, Md. At the singer’s request, Reeves was charged with taking photos of her set. While he was perched on a side-stage staircase, he dropped his phone, and it landed under the stage.
“A curtain was covering the trussing of the stage all around it and the show was full on, so it was both dark and loud in the room,” Reeves recalls. “I stuck my head under the curtain to see if I could spot my the phone … and began to reach down… and suddenly fell under the stage in the pit, about 8 feet down! I landed Superman style, so I jammed both wrists when I hit and my legs got caught up on the supports, so it was a struggle just to get upright.
“Now, I’m completely under the stage,” he continues. “The floor is 2 or 3 feet above my head, and the only way out is straight out the front through the 2-foot slit between theater floor and stage. I tried a number of times to jump up and pull myself, but the space was so restrictive that I couldn’t get enough leverage. On probably the fourth or fifth try, a guy sitting in the front row saw me struggling and grabbed my arms and dragged me out into a heap right in front of the stage while Miranda and the band kicked out ‘Kerosene!’ ”
BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE MAY 28, 2015 | PAGE 4 OF 8
Sometimes Concert Fans Put On Better Shows Than The Talent
music with no agenda, and not everyone has the luxury of doing that. It’s not as far out of everyone’s reach as they think. That should be the agenda: making music, not making music to accomplish an agenda.
I’m thinking this is not the end of your re-cording career as an artist. I have another record in mind that I want to make that’s kind of brewing in my brain. So yeah, it was too much fun to make the record. Doing this all these years, I’ve really honed in on the human beings that I like to make music with. Being in that free environment with those people that I
loved was just too much fun to only do once.
You’re going to make your Grand Ole Opry debut on June 16. How does it affect how you feel about what you’re doing with your career? It’s go-ing to be one of the pillars of accomplishment for me — my first gold record, with Taylor; winning a couple of Grammys a few years ago; my first No. 1 as a songwriter, with “Homegrown Honey”; and then playing the Opry. It’s going to be one of those big, giant pillars that stands up for me as one of my proud-est moments.
Most people became familiar with you through the Taylor Swift records. How did you get started with her? I was playing guitar and singing harmony for Stephanie, and we were touring and doing country-folk kind of stuff, and [Stephanie] signed as a writer at Jody Williams Music Publishing when he had that open 10, 12 years ago. The [company included] Pat McLaughlin and Kath-erine Blasingame Church, so Eric Church was around all the time. Josh Turner was a writer there, Brandy Clark and Lori McKenna were around all the time, and Liz Rose was a writer there. When Stephanie signed her publishing deal, I was doing all her demos. Jody heard my demos and said, “Hey, will you do some more demos for me at the company?” Through that, Liz and Taylor start-ed writing together, and it was just a natural thing. I ended up doing demos for Liz and Taylor, and that’s how Taylor and I met.
And now you’re Nathan Chapman. You know the career arc: “Who’s Nathan Chapman?” “Get me Nathan Chapman.” “Get me a young Nathan Chapman!” “Who’s Nathan Chapman?” You know that — the four stages of your career. I don’t know what section I’m in, but hopefully I can avoid the end of that as much as possible. —Tom Roland
BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE MAY 28, 2015 | PAGE 5 OF 8
Q U E ST I O N S
AnsweredNathan Chapman
Singer-songwriter-producer@PainInTheArt
The phrase “Produced by Nathan Chapman” has appeared on a slew of albums and tracks in recent years, including recordings by Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum, The Band Perry and Keith Urban. The son of a Christian duo, Steve and Annie Chapman, Nathan got back to his own artistry by recording his first album, Revival, which seam-lessly veers among folk, rock, pop and country. Co-produced by his wife, Stephanie Chapman, the album is available on his website with a wider release planned for the fall.
Why was it important to you to make this album? It was really just kind of a creative spark that happened. I said it out loud to my wife, Stephanie, and then to my publisher, [Universal Music Publishing Group Nashville vp of A&R] Ron Stuve. They were both a resound-ing “yes.” My artistry was something I suppressed for like 19 years, and I just wanted to see what would happen to my creative process if I reintroduced that side of me into the equation. It’s been a really great chapter in my musical journey. I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s ignited a few things that I was missing.
There’s a bunch of different styles on it. Years ago, the market-ing part of the music business took that over, and albums are made more now to be easily marketed than to just be an al-bum. This one feels like it goes in a lot of different directions, but it still fits together. I appreciate that. Kind of along those lines, when I did my little CD release show, Charles Kelley got up and sang “Homegrown Honey” with me. We wrote that with Darius [Rucker], and he said on the mic to everybody that he loved that I was making
LITTLE BIG TOWN BREAKS UP… FOR SOFTBALLLittle Big Town and Love and Theft are both splitting up — but it’s just a one-day con-venience for charity. Little Big Town’s Kimberly Schlapman and Jimi Westbrook will play for Team Opry during the 25th annual City of Hope charity
softball game at First Tennessee Park in Nashville on June 13, while bandmates Karen Fairchild and Phillip Sweet take the field for Team iHeartRadio. Love and Theft’s Eric Gunderson similarly suits up with Team Opry while Stephen Barker Liles plays for the iHeart squad. Other artists committed to the game include Phil Vassar, Vince Gill, Bucky Covington and Deana Carter. Strange but true: In the wild and wooly tour schedule that Garth Brooks
launched in the 1990s, he never once headlined the city of New Orleans. That will change when he and Trisha Yearwood play the Smoothie King Center July 10-11. When Kellie Pickler performs the national anthem at LP Field on June 13 during the CMA Music Festival, she’ll leave with something she did not bring to the stadium. Pickler will be presented the Operation Troop Aid Chris Kyle Patriot Award, recognizing her commitment to American soldiers. Pickler, who has completed eight USO tours, is the first woman to receive the award. It has been presented to nine previous recipients, including Charlie Daniels, Toby Keith and Aaron Tippin. Jon Pardi headlines a Chords for a Cause concert on June 9 at Dan McGuin-ness in Nashville, raising money for the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospi-tal at Vanderbilt. Among other performers are Blackjack Billy, Michelle Wright, Levi Lowrey and former Edens Edge vocalist Hannah Blaylock.
The country music industry’s must-havesource for news, analysis and chart info withexpert commentary from Tom Roland andPhyllis Stark. Sign up for FREE delivery every Monday and Thursday.
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Country UPDATE
THIS WEEK
LAST WEEK
TWO WEEKS
AGOWKS ON CHART
TITLE Artist PRODUCER (SONGWRITER) IMPRINT / PROMOTION LABEL CERTIFIED
PEAK POSITION
l1 1 1 25 GIRL CRUSH ★★No. 1 (5 weeks)/Digital & Streaming Gainer★★ Little Big Town J.JOYCE (L.ROSE,L.MCKENNA,H.LINDSEY) CAPITOL NASHVILLE
1
l2 49 — 2 KICK THE DUST UP Luke Bryan J.STEVENS,J.STEVENS (D.DAVIDSON,C. DESTEFANO,A.GORLEY) CAPITOL NASHVILLE 2
3 2 2 30 TAKE YOUR TIME Sam Hunt Z.CROWELL,S.MCANALLY (S.HUNT,J.OSBORNE,S.MCANALLY) MCA NASHVILLE 0 1
l31 36 35 5 LOSE MY MIND Brett Eldredge R. COPPERMAN,B.ELDREDGE (B.ELDREDGE,H.MORGAN,R.COPPERMAN,B.BURTON,T.D.CALLAWAY,G.F.REVERBERI,G.P.REVERBERI) ATLANTIC/WMN 31
l32 38 34 16 I’M TO BLAME Kip Moore B.JAMES (K.MOORE,J.WEAVER,W.DAVIS) MCA NASHVILLE 31
33 34 27 20 LITTLE RED WAGON Miranda Lambert F.LIDDELL,C.AINLAY,G.WORF (A.MAE,GINSBERG J.) RCA NASHVILLE 5
34 33 30 20 GOING OUT LIKE THAT Reba T.BROWN (B.HAYSLIP,R.AKINS,J.SELLERS) NASH ICON/VALORY 23
l35 37 32 14 I GOT THE BOY Jana Kramer S.HENDRICKS (T.NICHOLS,C.HARRINGTON,J.L.SPEARS) ELEKTRA NASHVILLE/WAR 31
l36 40 39 11 BREAK UP WITH HIM Old Dominion S.MCANALLY (M.RAMSEY,T. ROSEN,B.TURSI,G.SPRUNG,W.SELLERS) RCA NASHVILLE 36
l40 44 40 6 LET ME SEE YA GIRL Cole Swindell M.CARTER (C.SWINDELL,M.CARTER,J.STEVENS) WARNER BROS./WMN 40
l41 45 41 8 NOTHIN’ LIKE YOU Dan + Shay C. DESTEFANO (D.SMYERS,S.MOONEY,A.GORLEY,C. DESTEFANO) WARNER BROS./WAR 41
l42 46 43 7 STAY A LITTLE LONGER Brothers Osborne J.JOYCE (J. OSBORNE,T.J. OSBORNE,S.MCANALLY) EMI NASHVILLE 41
l43 47 42 6 TURN IT ON Eli Young Band R. COPPERMAN,J.S.STOVER (M.ELI,J.YOUNG,R.CLAWSON,M.DRAGSTREM) REPUBLIC NASHVILLE 42
l44 48 44 7 ALREADY CALLIN’ YOU MINE Parmalee NV (M.THOMAS,S.THOMAS,B.KNOX,P.O’DONNELL,W.KIRBY) STONEY CREEK 44
l45 NEW 1 WE WENT ★★Hot Shot Debut★★ Randy Houser D.GEORGE (J.WILSON,M.ROGERS,J.KING) STONEY CREEK
45
l46 NEW 1 READ ME MY RIGHTS Brantley Gilbert NOT LISTED (NOT LISTED) VALORY 46
l47 RE-ENTRY 4 I’M A MAN OF CONSTANT SORROW Sawyer Fredericks B.APPLEBERRY (PUBLIC DOMAIN) REPUBLIC 33
l48 NEW 1 21 Hunter Hayes D.HUFF,H.HAYES (D.DAVIDSON,K.LOVELACE,A.GORLEY,H.HAYES) ATLANTIC/WMN 48
49 27 — 2 LOVE IS YOUR NAME Steven Tyler D.HUFF (L.LEE,E.PASLAY) DOT 27
l50 NEW 1 I LOVE THIS LIFE LoCash L.RIMES,P.BRUST,C.LUCAS (D.MYRICK,C.JANSON,C.LUCAS,P.BRUST) REVIVER 50
For week ending May 24, 2015. Figures are rounded. Compiled from a national sample of retail store and rack sales reports collected and provided by Nielsen Music.
For inquiries about any Nielsen Music data, please contact Josh Bennett at 615-807-1338 or [email protected]
The week’s most popular country songs, ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen Music, sales data as compiled by Nielsen Music and streaming activity data from online music sources tracked by Nielsen Music. Descending titles below No. 25 are moved to recurrent after 20 weeks.
COUNTRY MARKET WATCHA Weekly National Music Sales Report
Hot Country SongsBILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE MAY 28, 2015 | PAGE 7 OF 8
ALBUMSDIGITAL
ALBUMS*DIGITAL TRACKS
This Week 503,000 191,000 2,478,000
Last Week 509,000 184,000 2,447,000
Change -1.2% 3.8% 1.3%
This Week Last Year 722,000 263,000 3,098,000
Change -30.3% -27.4% -20.0%
*Digital album sales are also counted within album sales.
Weekly Unit SalesYear-Over-Year Album Sales2014 2015 CHANGE
l29 35 9 CRUSHIN’ IT BRAD PAISLEY (Arista Nashville/SMN)
l30 37 6 RIOT RASCAL FLATTS (Big Machine/BMLG)
l31 NEW READ ME MY RIGHTS BRANTLEY GILBERT (Valory/BMLG)
l32 RE-ENTRY I’M A MAN OF CONSTANT SORROW SAWYER FREDERICKS (Republic)
l33 NEW WE WENT RANDY HOUSER (Stoney Creek/BBMG)
34 34 14 I GOT THE BOY JANA KRAMER (Elektra Nashville/WMN)
35 24 37 DRINKING CLASS LEE BRICE (Curb)
l36 NEW JUST AS I AM BRANTLEY GILBERT (Valory/BMLG)
37 32 19 LITTLE RED WAGON MIRANDA LAMBERT (RCA Nashville/SMN)
l38 38 2 YOUNG & CRAZY FRANKIE BALLARD (Warner Bros./WMN)
39 36 9 BABY BE MY LOVE SONG EASTON CORBIN (Mercury/UMGN)
l40 NEW DO WHAT THE NIGHT WANTS BRANTLEY GILBERT (Valory/BMLG)
l41 NEW HELL OF A NIGHT DUSTIN LYNCH (Broken Bow/BBMG)
l42 RE-ENTRY BREAK UP WITH HIM OLD DOMINION (RCA Nashville/SMN)
l43 39 78 THIS IS HOW WE ROLL FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE FEAT. LUKE BRYAN (Republic Nashville/BMLG)
44 9 2 LOVE IS YOUR NAME STEVEN TYLER (Dot/BMLG)
l45 50 76 PLAY IT AGAIN LUKE BRYAN (Capitol Nashville/UMGN)
l46 43 4 LOSE MY MIND BRETT ELDREDGE (Atlantic/WMN)
l47 42 150 CRUISE FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE (Republic Nashville/BMLG)
48 29 22 SAY YOU DO DIERKS BENTLEY (Capitol Nashville/UMGN)
l49 44 21 MY WISH RASCAL FLATTS (Lyric Street)
50 33 2 STONE COLD SOBER BRANTLEY GILBERT (Valory/BMLG)
Top-selling paid download country songs compiled from sales reports collected and provided by Nielsen Music. Charts update weekly on Thurdays at www.Billboard.Biz/charts. Copyright 2015, Prometheus Global Media, LLC and Nielsen Music, Inc. All rights reserved.
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l1 22 22 53 BRANTLEY GILBERT Just As I AmVALORY BG0200A/BMLG 0 1
2 1 1 4 ZAC BROWN BAND JEKYLL + HYDEJOHN VARVATOS/SOUTHERN GROUND/BMLG 022962/REPUBLIC 1
3 2 4 30 SAM HUNT MontevalloMCA NASHVILLE 021502/UMGN 1
l4 NEW 1 KELSEA BALLERINI The First TimeBLACK RIVER 2015 4
5 5 3 6 REBA Love SomebodyNASH ICON/VALORY /BMLG 1
6 10 10 31 LITTLE BIG TOWN Pain KillerCAPITOL NASHVILLE 021360*/UMGN 3
7 7 9 67 ERIC CHURCH The OutsidersEMI NASHVILLE 019402*/UMGN 1 1
l8 11 7 11 LUKE BRYAN Spring Break... Checkin’ OutCAPITOL NASHVILLE 022540/UMGN 1
9 9 8 33 JASON ALDEAN Old Boots, New DirtBROKEN BOW 7105/BBMG 1 1
24 24 19 28 ZAC BROWN BAND Greatest Hits So Far...ROAR/SOUTHERN GROUND/ATLANTIC 546369/AG 5
25 26 23 35 KENNY CHESNEY The Big RevivalBLUE CHAIR/COLUMBIA NASHVILLE 306274/SMN 1
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l1 2 13 GIRL CRUSH LITTLE BIG TOWN
l2 1 21 TAKE YOUR TIME SAM HUNT
l3 3 9 SIPPIN’ ON FIRE FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE
l4 4 65 THIS IS HOW WE ROLL FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE FEAT. LUKE BRYAN
l5 7 61 PLAY IT AGAIN LUKE BRYAN
6 5 48 LEAVE THE NIGHT ON SAM HUNT
l7 9 74 BOTTOMS UP BRANTLEY GILBERT
8 6 112 CRUISE FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE
l9 11 9 DON’T IT BILLY CURRINGTON
10 8 14 HOMEGROWN ZAC BROWN BAND
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l11 10 7 LIKE A WRECKING BALL ERIC CHURCH
l12 18 2 CRASH AND BURN THOMAS RHETT
l13 15 2 SANGRIA BLAKE SHELTON
l14 13 7 A GUY WALKS INTO A BAR TYLER FARR
l15 19 5 LITTLE TOY GUNS CARRIE UNDERWOOD
l16 16 4 GAMES LUKE BRYAN
17 12 28 DRINKING CLASS LEE BRICE
l18 17 93 THAT’S MY KIND OF NIGHT LUKE BRYAN
l19 23 71 YOU BELONG WITH ME TAYLOR SWIFT
20 14 12 SAY YOU DO DIERKS BENTLEY
Country Streaming Songs -The week’s top Country streamed radio songs, on-demand songs and videos on leading online music services. Charts update weekly on Thurdays at www.Billboard.Biz/charts. Copyright 2015, Prometheus Global Media, LLC and Nielsen Music, Inc. All rights reserved.
BUILDING AIRPLAY GAINERSTITLE Label Artist GAIN
REAL LIFE RCA Nashville Jake Owen +981
LOVE ME LIKE YOU MEAN IT Black River Kelsea Ballerini +201
SANGRIA Warner Bros./WMN Blake Shelton +171
ONE HELL OF AN AMEN Valory Brantley Gilbert +166
WHEN SHE SAYS BABY Broken Bow Jason Aldean +161
AMERICAN SOLDIER Dreamworks Toby Keith +154
HOUSE PARTY MCA Nashville Sam Hunt +149
LOVING YOU EASY Varvatos/BMLG/Southern Ground Zac Brown Band +146
BABY BE MY LOVE SONG Mercury Easton Corbin +139
RIVER BANK Arista Nashville Brad Paisley +121
Building Gainers reflects titles with the top increases in plays from Monday through 5pm ET Wednesday, as compared to the same period in the previous week, according to Nielsen Music.
TOP COUNTRY ALBUMSCOUNTRY DIGITAL SONGS
BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE MAY 28, 2015 | PAGE 8 OF 8
STREAMING DATA COMPILED BY
The week’s most popular country albums, ranked by sales data as compiled by Nielsen Music. Albums are defined as current if they are less than 18 months old or older than 18 months but still residing in the Billboard 200’s top 100. Charts update weekly on Thurdays at www.Billboard.Biz/charts. Copyright 2015, Prometheus Global Media, LLC and Nielsen Music, Inc. All rights reserved.
