Topline
Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs have climbed to the first and second spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the first time in more than 40 years that the top two positions have been held by country music artists as millennial and Gen Z listeners lead a streaming surge in the genre.
Key Facts
“Last Night” by Wallen has held the No. 1 spot for 12 weeks and “Fast Car,” a cover of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 release by Luke Combs, pulled into the No. 2 spot this week, marking the first time country artists have had the top-two songs since 1981, when “I Love a Rainy Night” by Eddie Rabbitt and “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton held the spots.
“One Thing at a Time,” a 36-song record released in March by Wallen, also rose back to No. 1 on the Billboard album chart this week for the 14th time—the most since Adele’s “21” scored 24 nonconsecutive weeks in 2011 and 2012, the New York Times reported.
Wallen and Combs repeated the one-two punch on Billboard’s streaming songs chart—“Last Night” landed 29.8 million streams and “Fast Car” accumulated 21.2 million.
Wallen’s success comes as he restarts his world tour after he postponed it for six weeks to rest his voice.
The “One Night At a Time Tour” became the first country tour to top Billboard’s monthly top tours chart in June with four shows that earned $27.9 million from 145,000 tickets.
Key Background
“One Thing at a Time” shattered records and earned one of the biggest opening week numbers for any album of the year so far. An early pandemic fear that country music would suffer as concert halls, bars and tours shut down proved unfounded when the genre instead reached a record number of streams while pop, hip-hop and Latin all sunk below their baseline averages, Time reported. Spotify said global streaming of country music grew by more than 60% between 2019 and 2022. Apple’s Today’s Country playlist has been the No. 1 genre-specific playlist on Apple Music worldwide over the past year, Jap Liepis said in a recent study by the Digital Media Association, and country music has the highest number of plays per customer on Amazon Music than any other genre.
Surprising Fact
Steve Blatter of SiriusXM/Pandora said country consumers adopted streaming platforms later than fans of other genres, but have caught up, adding that country music fans are also the most engaged—they stream longer and give more active feedback. Cross-over collaborations, like Carly Pearce and No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” showcased at the 2023 CMT Awards, also bring in big numbers on platforms like TikTok, per Variety.
Big Number
58%. That’s how much country audio streaming jumped between 2019 and 2022, according to Billboard.
Section Title
Country’s Streaming Boom: How Morgan Wallen & Others Beat Pop at Its Own Game (Billboard)
Garth Brooks Launches Global Country Music Radio Station – Live In 120 Countries (Forbes)
Taylor Swift’s Iconic Costumes Featured In Pop-Up Exhibit At Nashville’s Country Music Hall Of Fame (Forbes)
