It’s no secret that country music had one of its best years ever in 2023. From Morgan Wallen dominating the charts and winning 11 Billboard Music Awards to Zach Bryan picking up RIAA certifications seemingly weekly, it seems like country is finally getting the mainstream appeal that many have been craving for years.
In a year that saw three country songs occupy the top three tracks on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for the first time ever on August 26 (Oliver Anthony’s Rich Men North of Richmond, Morgan Wallen’s Last Night and Luke Comb’s Fast Car) along with a plethora of other records broken by the genre, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the genre having a gigantic year and multiple different artists experiencing success.
In fact, according to Luminate, country music saw a whopping 20.3% increase in consumption in the first half of 2023 compared to 2022. Morgan Wallen accounted for 40% of the increase alone.
However, when you take a closer look, it seems as if it’s only a few artists who are experiencing success on a major scale.
One of the most popular content creators in country music, Grady Smith, recently posted a video titled, “Every Country Album Is Flopping Now.” In the video, he details how outside of a few artists such as Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan, Luke Combs and Jelly Roll, album sales and streams are down for even some of the most popular mainstream acts.
With all of that being said, let’s dive into some numbers. When you take a look at the data, the top 10 country debuts of 2023 are the following:
- Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) – Taylor Swift (716,000 units)
- One Thing at a Time – Morgan Wallen (500,000 units)
- Zach Bryan – Zach Bryan (200,000 units)
- Rockstar – Dolly Parton (128,000 units)
- Gettin’ Old – Luke Combs (101,000 units)
- Whitsitt Chapel – Jelly Roll (90,000 units)
- Higher – Chris Stapleton (90,000 units)
- The Mockingbird & the Crow – HARDY (55,000 units)
- Religiously – Bailey Zimmerman (47,000 units)
- Rustin’ in the Rain – Tyler Childers (38,000 units)
In fact, only 15 albums this year debuted with over 20,000 units.
Taking a closer look at album debut data, some huge mainstream artists and even country legends who receive a hefty amount of radio play are debuting with nothing short of a whimper.
- Bigger Houses – Dan + Shay (18,000 units)
- Memory Lane – Old Dominion (15,000 units)
- Standing Room Only – Tim McGraw (13,000 units)
- Carolyn’s Boy – Darius Rucker (9,000 units)
- Not That Fancy – Reba (9,000 units)
- The Devil I Know – Ashley McBryde (8,000 units)
- Across the Sheets – Brett Young (8,000 units)
- Psychopath – Morgan Wade (6,000 units)
The question that remains is, “If country music had such a good year, why are so many albums performing poorly?”
There are a few potential answers, but the most obvious one is the simple fact that only a select few artists are receiving the bulk of the streaming numbers in album sales. Nothing cements this answer better than looking at Billboard’s Year-End Top Country Albums chart.
Only four artists (Morgan Wallen, Taylor Swift, Zach Bryan and Luke Combs) occupy the top 10 and even the top 12 albums on Billboard’s Year-End Country Albums chart. What makes this even more shocking is the fact that Wallen and Combs occupy 7/12 of those spots.
It should come as no surprise that the “big three” in country music and Time’s Person of the Year, Taylor Swift, are dominating the charts. However, the fact that they are holding onto charts with such power is something that hasn’t been seen in the genre’s history.
If you go back even five years ago to Billboard’s 2018 Year-End Country Albums chart, you’ll see seven unique artists occupying the top 10 with Chris Stapleton being the only outlier with three albums on the chart.
A second question that arises is, “Why is this happening?”
There are two main explanations for this phenomenon in my opinion. The two are changes in listening habits and the sheer power of the aforementioned “big three’s” fanbases.
Beginning with changing listening habits, it’s a bit of a two-way street. The first reason that Smith also pointed to in his video is the sheer amount of music that is available today due to streaming. It’s no surprise that the days of radio being the primary source of music consumption are long gone. Now that streaming dominates our lives and listening habits, it’s no surprise that there are quite literally millions of different artists to choose from at the click of a button.
With the rise of streaming, the art form of album-making has taken a bit of a backseat due to many people opting to make playlists and stream singular songs instead of listening to an album front-to-back. This prompts listeners to pack playlists with select songs from albums that will play in tandem with other songs thus lessening the impact albums as a whole have both from an artistic and sales standpoint.
The second facet of listening habits affecting mainstream artists very well may be the rise of independent country. It’s been well documented how much success independent and formerly independent artists such as Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers, Wyatt Flores and Dylan Gossett are currently experiencing, racking up streams and buzz online.
It’s becoming clear that many country listeners are looking for a different style of music and writing that is present in many independent artists’ discography. In turn, they’re pulling streams and sales away from established mainstream artists even if they’re not putting up monster numbers themselves.
The second potential answer to the aforementioned question is simply how much power Bryan, Wallen and Combs hold. They hold nine of the top 12 albums this year, are constantly being played on the radio, selling out shows wherever they go and arguably most importantly, dominating on social media.
When three artists receive so much time dedicated to their music, how can other artists get the time of day? How can someone like Brett Young, despite a track record of radio success, even try to compete when the country zeitgeist is hyper-focused on these three artists? The data shows that he and many others simply can’t.
Using Brett Young’s numbers as an example, he would have needed nearly five times the number of album sales in the first week to catch Tyler Childers’ Rustin in the Rain. And while it might sound like a no-brainer for indie fans that Childers outsold Young by this much, you have to take into consideration that Childers does not even have a top #40 hit on any Billboard country chart. Young, on the other hand, has six #1s and consistent radio play nationwide.
The fact that independent acts like Childers can outsell established Nashville stars like Young once again points to country consumer changes as well as a possibly outdated album promotion format that many major label artists such as Young still use today.
While it’s no stretch to say that 2023 was a record year for country music in the mainstream, it’s fascinating to see how the genre is getting dominated and for lack of a better term, carried, by a select few artists that have caught the eye of a huge percentage of listeners.
For more thoughts and theories on why this phenomenon is happening, watch Grady Smith’s video here:
1 Comment
Where was Highway Desperado by Jason Aldean on your list this was a good year for him