Changing Of The Guard

[TheBigA]

If you needed any confirmation that country music is experiencing a changing of the guard, you just need to look at the 2023 top songs and artists.

Gone are people like Kenny Chesney, Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, or Eric Church. Gone completely.

Tim McGraw, Luke Bryan, and Dierks Bentley each had one song on the year-end list. One song.

In their place: Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, Bailey Zimmerman, Jordan Davis, and Luke Combs with multiple songs.

Things change quickly in the world of country music.

 

[CTListener]

If you needed any confirmation that country music is experiencing a changing of the guard, you just need to look at the 2023 top songs and artists.

Gone are people like Kenny Chesney, Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, or Eric Church. Gone completely.

Tim McGraw, Luke Bryan, and Dierks Bentley each had one song on the year-end list. One song.

In their place: Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, Bailey Zimmerman, Jordan Davis, and Luke Combs with multiple songs.

Things change quickly in the world of country music.

There's speculation on the Pulse country board that Tim McGraw's recent airplay No. 1, "Standing Room Only," was orchestrated by his label and Big Radio to give him a big send-off instead of letting a major star like him fade into mid-chart status or irrelevance. We'll see how his follow-up radio single does. "SRO" dropped from No. 1 to No. 18 in one short week after its"push" ended.

Some older artists have become victims of sudden irrelevance at country radio. Dierks Bentley had a solid top 10 hit with "Gold" earlier this year. His label followed it with "Something Real," which radio soundly rejected. Miranda Lambert did well with "If I Was a Cowboy," but the follow-up, "Strange," stiffed. Carrie Underwood's current single, "Out of That Truck," has very good streaming numbers, but is struggling to crack the top 30 in airplay because radio has suddenly decided she's yesterday's news. On the other hand, Eric Church will almost certainly be a part of one of the biggest singles of 2024, as a featured singer on "Man Made a Bar," one of the standout tracks on Morgan Wallen's current album, which just got sent to radio a week or so ago. Whether that collaboration eventually will bring him back to solo relevance remains to be seen. He hasn't put out new music of his own for a while.

Of course, this is nothing new. I remember well the artists who suddenly stopped having hits after 1989, and others who were phased out in the 2000s. And for the record, I'm a big fan of most of the newer artists you've mentioned. It's just the abruptness with which country radio lets go of its established stars that still bothers me.

 

[TheBigA]

It's just the abruptness with which country radio lets go of its established stars that still bothers me.

It's not that the established stars don't get airplay. Their gold hits still do very well, keeping them very high in the artist charts. But their new music either doesn't chart, or moves very slowly. The reality is that the chart only has so many places. So when you add two songs by Morgan Wallen and two songs by Luke Combs and two songs by Lainey Wilson, somebody gets left out.

 

[gr8oldies]

Everybody ends up on the nostalgia circuit eventually

 

[James Otto Sweet Heart]

It's been a while since I was last here, but I'm here again. Things are most definitely not what they used to be where country music is concerned, but in my opinion, the music is not a complete and total thing of the past as long as Mason Ramsey remains in the picture. Does anyone here remember him at all? I never knew of him until last summer but when I finally did discover him, I learned that a 2018 viral clip of him singing "Lovesick Blues" at a Wal-Mart store in southern Illinois is where it all began for him and eleven years old was his age then. His more recent song named "Reasons To Come Home" was my introduction to him this past July. A month later another song from him named "She Got It Outta Me" was released and when I heard it, I forever became his property. Go here to check out all of his material. To me, country music couldn't ask for a better person to keep the musical format alive and kicking.

God bless you and Mason always!!!

Holly (a girl who only loves him more every day)

 

[James Otto Sweet Heart]

One act that still hasn't gone anywhere is Sawyer Brown. This new video from them was just released.

God bless you and each past and present member always!!!

Holly (one of their many fans)

P.S. The lead singer is releasing a book this Tuesday about his life on the road. The book is named The Boys And Me which of course is one of their big songs from the 90s.

 

[Barry]

Who would you say is the longest enduring Country artist who is still producing songs that chart well?
I'm thinking Kenny Chesney. His current song getting good airplay is, "Take Her Home."

 

[CTListener]

Who would you say is the longest enduring Country artist who is still producing songs that chart well?
I'm thinking Kenny Chesney. His current song getting good airplay is, "Take Her Home."

While Chesney had a couple of very low-charting singles in 1993 and 1994, his first hit was "Fall in Love" in early 1995. Tim McGraw beat him to the upper reaches of the chart with "Indian Outlaw," in January 1994. McGraw's earliest charting single was the obscure "Welcome to the Club," which peaked at No. 47 in 1992. Tim's latest, "One Bad Habit," is at No. 40 on MediaBase right now, and given that his previous single, "Standing Room Only," went to No. 1, it would appear to be a lock to hit the top 10.