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The Music & State of Alternative 2023

I really think it's time for alternative program directors to look at country artists who fit their format. Country poached Jelly Roll from alternative. His latest song is #1 in the Billboard Rock & Alternative chart.


I think some rock stations could do well with the Aldean.
As if Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit didn’t already kill the format once….
 
I really think it's time for alternative program directors to look at country artists who fit their format. Country poached Jelly Roll from alternative. His latest song is #1 in the Billboard Rock & Alternative chart.


I think some rock stations could do well with the Aldean.
jelly roll is ass and i dont see a single station playing that
mediabase charts look so different from billboard
 
but for real I don't like using the billboard chart for rock/alternative, idk what their metric system is, but its so non-alternative compared to mediabase's chart which only tracks the radio stations
 
jelly roll is ass and i dont see a single station playing that
mediabase charts look so different from billboard
Again, the broad charts that are not "radio only" show streams and other online sources as well as radio. To judge radio, you have to look at the radio charts.
 
After Bad Omens scored a #1 with “Just Pretend” and Maneskin having a really hot start with “Honey (Are U Coming?)”, it seems that there’s a barrage incoming from Active Rock artists, old and new, attempting to cross over to Alt in the coming weeks. Considering how many country artists have been having success on both the Active Rock and Triple A formats the past year and change, I think it’s reasonable to suggest that some of them may give Alternative a shot as well, completing TheBigA’s prophecy. Zack Bryan is already beginning to penetrate with “Spotless”.

2024 may be a very different year for the Alternative format, completing the transition back to guitar-driven music that started back in 2021. The format will most likely look unrecognizable compared to five years ago outside of a few staples hanging on. Whether this will fix the new music issues remains to be seen.
 
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I think it’s reasonable to suggest that some of them may give Alternative a shot as well, completing TheBigA’s prophecy. Zack Bryan is already beginning to penetrate with “Spotless”.

Why not? He's not getting a lot of country airplay, and he has a major label deal with Warner Brothers. They will take what they can get. He has 22 million listeners at Spotify, and Something In The Orange had over 500 million plays. Not may current alt artists have his statistics.
 
Why not? He's not getting a lot of country airplay, and he has a major label deal with Warner Brothers. They will take what they can get. He has 22 million listeners at Spotify, and Something In The Orange had over 500 million plays. Not may current alt artists have his statistics.
Oh definitely. Zack Bryan is a country artist who doesn’t really fit in on country, so if I was his manager and it looked like Alt/AAA clearly wanted him I wouldn’t stop it.

“Spotless” is a collaboration with The Lumineers who have strong Alt and Triple A credibility as well. I could easily see this being a solid charter for Zack on both Alt and Triple A radio. I don’t think a #1 is the ceiling but a top 10 on both formats is feasible.
 
Why not? He's not getting a lot of country airplay, and he has a major label deal with Warner Brothers. They will take what they can get. He has 22 million listeners at Spotify, and Something In The Orange had over 500 million plays. Not may current alt artists have his statistics.
Big ad in Billboard's Country Radio Update this week from Warner Nashville pushing Bryan's collab with Kacey Musgraves, "I Remember Everything," to country radio. I can see it connecting better than "Something in the Orange," especially with female listeners. Zach may look askance at mainstream country music and radio, but I don't see him telling Warner to stop promoting the song. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets sent to AC, too, although there's little room for slower, softer songs there at present.
 
Kacey hasn't had a radio hit in ten years. This may do more for her than Zach.
I was under the impression she had left country music, but I could be wrong. She really only had one radio hit of any impact, "Merry Go Round," which I still hear as gold quite often up here. "Follow Your Arrow" sold and streamed well, but radio for the most part wouldn't touch it, and that was the last country radio heard from her.
 
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She's still signed to a country record label, but they don't work her music to country radio.
Revisiting this thread to note that, as speculated in September, her duet with Zach Bryan is looking like a solid country/AC crossover that seems to be catching on faster at AC than at country radio, probably because the former needs all the new product it can get while the latter is so inundated with new product every week that even proven quantities like Carrie Underwood and Dierks Bentley run the risk of new releases stiffing.
 
These days, seeing Zach Bryan, along with Chris Stapleton, Tyler Childers, and maybe more, impacting AAA seems like an interesting move to include alternative country to that format. But seeing it crossover to alternative would be even more interesting. My 2 cents, early Mumford and Sons sounds like alt-country, like "Little Lion Man" and "I Will Wait," and their banjo sounds have been impacting alternative before. We've seen Zac Brown Band crossover to active rock back in 2015 with a collaboration with the late Chris Cornell in "Heavy is the Head." So I see that anything's possible. Then again, I make the joke that alternative (and AAA) could've gone as far as adding Jason Aldean's "Try That In A Small Town" or Luke Combs' cover of "Fast Car" earlier this year. Maybe that's where I cross the line LOL.
 
These days, seeing Zach Bryan, along with Chris Stapleton, Tyler Childers, and maybe more, impacting AAA seems like an interesting move to include alternative country to that format.

My take is that alternative radio thinks they're too cool to add country. I see some are playing Jelly Roll's Need A Favor. The Stapleton looks like it's going to be a hit at AAA. I don't see Tyler Childers on AAA this week. He may have fallen off. He's not being promoted by RCA Nashville, so alternative has him all to themselves if they want him. The country explosion into other formats is the big story in music this year, with Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs crossing over everywhere.
 
Now someone explain the apparent success in getting AAA airplay of CRAAMP CAAMP to me. It's treacly stuff that pretends to be countrified with the gratuitous use of banjos, making Garrison Keillor's smarmy approach to music and radio seem like the height of sincerity, and the lead singer couldn't carry a tune even if he had a thousand forklifts.
 
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