Country Billboard Chart
News February 27, 2014
In Brief: Billboard Country Charts
Country Album Chart ** No. 1
(2 weeks) "The Outsiders" Eric Church (73,798
sales; After 2 weeks – 361,769)
Hot Country Songs ** No.1 (2 weeks) ** “Chillin' It” Cole Swindell
Country Airplay ** No. 1 (2 weeks) *** "When She Says Baby” Jason Aldean
Country Digital Songs **
No.1 (4 non-consecutive weeks) ** “Bottoms Up” Brantley Gilbert (64,000 sales)
Billboard Top
200 / Country Album Chart News
Disney's
soundtrack to "Frozen"
returned to No. 1 on the Billboard 200
Album Chart (BB200), collecting its fifth non-consecutive week atop the list
selling another 89,216 copies (13
week Total of 1,140,910) for the tracking week ending Feb 23rd 2014.
"Frozen"
has now earned the most weeks at No. 1 for a soundtrack since
"Titanic" racked up 16 straight weeks at No. 1 in 1998. It ruled the
list on the charts dated Jan. 24 through May 9 that year. Since the
Billboard 200 began using SoundScan sales data on May 25, 1991, only five
soundtracks have spent at least five weeks at No.1: "Frozen,"
"Titanic," "Waiting to Exhale" (five weeks in 1996),
"The Lion King" (10 weeks in 1994 and 1995) and "The Bodyguard"
(20 weeks in 1992 and 1993).
Last week's BB200
No.1 album, Eric Church's THE
OUTSIDERS, falls to No.2 on the BB200 in its second week with sales of 73,798 (down 74%) and holds the No.1 on
the Billboard Top Country Albums
chart for a second week.
Candice Glover’s "Music Speaks" sold just 18,636
copies in its first week. That's the lowest first-week sales tally for the
debut album by an American Idol Winner in the show's 12-year history.
The old record was set in 2010 when Lee DeWyze's "Live It Up" sold
39K copies in its first week. "Music Speaks" entered The Billboard 200
at No.14. That's a bit higher than "Live It Up," which debuted and
peaked at #19.
"Idol's"
post-DeWyze revival with Scotty McCreery and Phillip Phillips (169K), both of
whose debut albums started strongly and sold well over time, appears to have
stalled.
It also didn't
help that the Idol bosses waited so long to release Glover's album. Glover was
named the Season 12 winner on May 16, 2013. This nine-month wait between
Glover's coronation and the release of her debut album is the longest in
"Idol" history. It tops the eight-month lag between Kelly
Clarkson's coronation as
the first Idol and the release of her first album, "Thankful." Since
then, the lag has more typically been in the six month range.
"Idol's"
TV ratings have been trending down for several years. "The Voice" has
eclipsed "Idol" in buzz. The NBC show won an Emmy last year for
Outstanding Reality-Competition Program—an award that "Idol" never
won in its heyday (and now probably never will).
Here are the
first-week sales tallies of the first post-coronation albums by
"Idol" winners of country music interest:
Carrie Underwood's "Some Hearts" (315K), Kelly
Clarkson's
"Thankful" (297K),
Scotty McCreery's "Clear As Day" (197K).
Runners up: Lauren Alaina who was the Season 10 runner up to
Scotty McCreery sold 69,013 copies of new country debut album Wildflower (19/Interscope/Mercury
Nashville) which opened, on the chart Oct 28, 2011 at #5 on Billboard 200 (#2 Country) and it
sold 94,625 copies
in two weeks.
Country singer Kree Harrison (a pal of Kacey Musgraves)
who finished runner up to Candice Glover did take part in the American Idols
LIVE! Tour 2013. However it appears that UMG Nashville has passed on its option
to sign up Kree. This would be the first Idol runner-up not to release an album
with Idol’s affiliated major label. With the ongoing uphill battle for women at
country radio, a crowded UMG Nashville roster and a debut single which charted
poorly at #34 on Hot Country Songs this probably explains the lack of news
updates and an album from her.
Cole Swindell owned the week's highest new entry on
the Billboard 200. His self-titled
debut album made a bow at No.3 (#2 Country) with sales of 63,247. Swindell's current single, "Chillin' It," hit No.
1 on the Hot Country Songs chart a week ago and on the Country Airplay chart,
it rose 3-2 this week.
Cole Swindell
joins a throng of rookie male artists who have invaded Billboard’s Top Country
Albums chart during the past year.
Continuing the
well-documented surge of male artists at the format, Swindell is the eighth
solo male to debut inside the top five with a first full-length studio album
during the past 12 months, compared with three such albums during the same
period a year earlier and just one such album for the same time frame three
years ago.
Of the eight men
debuting during the past year—Tate
Stevens (16,830 copies; #4 Country), Brett Eldredge
(21,119 copies; #2 Country), Tyler Farr
(28,857 copies; #2 Country), Thomas Rhett (36,253 copies; #2
Country), Jon Pardi (17,050 copies; #3
Country), Eric Paslay (10,655 copies;
#4 Country) and Frankie Ballard (11,000
copies / #5 Country)—Swindell’s opening sales
sum (63,247) is the largest,
outpacing Rhett’s IT GOES LIKE THIS, which made a debut entry on Nov 2, 2013.
While none of the albums from the aforementioned newcomers have crowned Top
Country Albums, Swindell’s set is the fourth to hit No. 2, following Eldredge,
Farr and Rhett.
Critical
Reception for “Cole Swindell” :
USA Today (Rating 2.1/2 out of 4) this Georgia native eases into the spotlight
with unhurried confidence. His laid-back, alcohol-fueled debut combines a
Southern hip-hop fan's singsong drawl with rock-guitar production. — Brian
Mansfield
Allmusic (Rating: 3 STARS) ....Cole Swindell's first hit single,
"Chillin' It," sounds a bit like Florida Georgia Line's
"Cruise" as performed by Luke Bryan, and there's a reason for that:
prior to taking a stab at a recording career, Swindell was a songwriter,
penning songs for Bryan, FGL, and Scotty McCreery. He's a behind-the-scenes
bro, responsible for crafting the
Roughstock (Rating: 4 STARS) There’s
an old saying that artists love to let the music speak and that couldn’t be
more true for newcomer Cole Swindell. Over the course of the dozen tracks on
Cole Swindell, we hear an artist who showcases who he is through the music.
“Chillin’ It” brought Cole to the world’s attention as an artist and it’s easy
to see why...... Cole wrote all but one of the tracks on Cole Swindell and the
lone outside-sourced song is “Swayin’,” A song written by hit makers Ashley
Gorley, Chris DeStefano and Rhett Akins..... By letting the music speak for him
we find out that there’s a easy-going charm to the music that Cole Swindell
makes and the man himself. It's an album that's easily likeable and one that
should provide fans and radio many hits in the year or two to come.
Billboard Top
Country Albums also sports a No. 9 re-entry for a cappella group Home
Free—the fourth-season
winner of NBC’s Sing-Off competition—whose album CRAZY LIFE (Columbia) sold 5,000 in its first full week of
availability in physical form. Of that sum, 64% are Internet sales of
CDs mailed to consumers. The album debuted at No.8 on the Feb. 1 chart with
6,000 solely from digital downloads. The group is on the road with the Sing-Off
Live Tour, which started a string of 32 dates on Feb. 19 in Verona, N.Y.
Outside the Top
25 Billboard Country albums saw unsigned Bedford, southern Indiana and
Nashville based artist Clayton Anderson land at No.50 with RIGHT WHERE I
BELONG (No Hassle Love Castle Records), the follow up to Anderson’s 2009 debut
Torn Jeans & Tailgates (#12 peak on the iTunes Country Chart). The album
also appears on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart at No.20.
This 2014
release which initially debuted on the US iTunes Country Chart (Feb 18) at No.12
sees Anderson as sole writer or co-writer on almost all of the seven tracks. He
has opened for some of country music’s biggest names in the past (including
Jason Aldean, Blake Shelton, Darius Rucker and Eric Church) as well as winning
Kenny Chesney’s Next Big Star competition.
Anderson manages to transition his appeal
to contemporary country fans with an array of more Country Pop and Country Rock
leaning tracks such as the opener Country
High and Right Where I Belong. Late
2013, Anderson asked his fans to choose his new single, and >> “Your
Love Is Like Country Music” came out on top.
(18 Feb 2014) Clayton
Anderson - Right Where I Belong
BUY: “Right
Where I Belong” 7 Tracks/ Time: 24:08 MP3 - UK iTunes - Amazon.com CONNECT with Clayton on FACEBOOK
Also of note on
the Billboard Heatseekers chart saw
the début at #7 from Americana/ Rock & Roll / Pop-Rock artiste Lydia
Loveless with SOMEWHERE ELSE.
“If you believe
in rock ‘n’ roll, you pray for people like Lydia Loveless.” - PopMatters.com
"Brimming
with brashness and vulnerability, confidence and insecurity, and can leave you
not knowing quite what to think." - writes The Boston Globe.
She's just
passionate, but keep in mind that she's also nobody's alt-country princess - Spin.com Interview
(Rating: 8.5/10)
The different shades of longing and desire that are woven through the songs on
Lydia Loveless’ Somewhere Else constitute a whole world of broken dreams - Paste Magazine
On February 11, Americana/
AAA / Acoustic Rock outfit Hurray for the Riff Raff released SMALL TOWN HEROES, its debut for ATO Records. The album with its great
cover art landed at No.3 on the Heatseekers standings.
The album finds
frontwoman Alynda Lee Segarra – who settled in New Orleans after leaving her
native Bronx at age 17 – contemporizing the rich musical forms of the American
South in the age of Trayvon Martin and Wendy Davis.
Produced by
Segarra and engineered by Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes), ‘Small Town Heroes’
features twelve new, original songs all written or co-written by Segarra, with
support from a vivid cast of Crescent City musicians including her longtime
right-hand-man on fiddle, Yosi Perlstein, keyboard player Casey McAllister, and
two members of the Deslondes: Sam Doores on guitar and Dan Cutler on bass. NPR has said that Hurray for the Riff
Raff “sweeps across eras and genres with
grace and grit,” never more so than on ‘Small Town Heroes.’ ‘Small Town
Heroes’ follows Hurray for the Riff Raff’s self-released 2012 album ‘Look Out
Mama,’ which led to a performance at the Newport Folk Festival, and praise from
Mojo, which compared Segarra to “a soulful, young Loretta Lynn. Read more at ATO Records . >> Watch “End of the Line” Read the reviews (Rating: 8/10) at Paste Magazine and Billboard.com
Johnny Cash’s Legend of Johnny Cash, a long-time
top-seller which is #75 on the BB200 and #7 on the Billboard Catalog Chart has
now moved 3.116 million copies and features tracks from his time with American
Recordings (I.E. his late-career and last )
It first charted
on the BB200 in 2005 and has enjoyed 78 weeks on the chart with a peak of #5
2014 Country Album sales Year-To
Date:
4,499,000 (Physical sales 2,918,000 (down 9%) + Digital
sales 1,581,000 (down 10.1%)) which is 16.6% down at the same point in 2013
(5,395,000 sales)
Billboard Top 200 / Country Album
Placings
(Issue dated Chart week of March 8, 2014)
(Country Album positions #1 - #25)
(TW) This Week, (LW) Last
Week, Co (Country Album Chart placing / Movement)
Top 25 Hot Country Songs (week of March
8, 2014)
On Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart - which blends:
a) All-format
airplay, as monitored by BDS
b) Sales,
as tracked by Nielsen SoundScan and
c) Streaming,
(tracked by Nielsen BDS from such services as
Spotify, Muve, Slacker, Rhapsody, Rdio and Xbox Music, among others) according
to BDS it results in:
- Cole Swindell with “Chillin’ It” logged a second week atop Hot Country Songs,
adding Streaming Gainer honors (801,000 U.S. streams, up 16%, according to
Nielsen BDS). On Country Streaming Songs, the title jumps 9-4.
- Brantley Gilbert’s “Bottoms Up” (Valory) has reached a
new Hot Country Songs peak with a 4-2
hop
- Keith Urban claimed his 30th top 10
with “Cop Car” (Capitol
Nashville), which rose 12-10
- Craig Campbell posted a career-high start
at No.40 with “Keep Them Kisses
Comin’ ” (Bigger Picture). Campbell’s previous best was a No.49 debut
with “Outta My Head” two years ago.
Top 25 Hot Country Songs:
Cole Swindell
with “Chillin’ It” stays at the TOP
the Chart! #1
Brantley Gilbert with “Bottoms Up” is up two, #4 - #2 p
Luke Bryan with former No.1 “Drink A Beer” drops one slot, #2 -
#3 q
Jason Aldean with “When She Says Baby” is down one, #3 - #4 p
Blake Shelton with “Doin’ What She Likes” is up two, #7 - #5 p
Lady Antebellum with “Compass” points a two place climbs, #8 - #6 p
Eric Church with “Give
Me Back My Hometown” is down two, #5 - #7 q
David Nail with “Whatever She’s
Got” falls two, #6 - #8 q
Frankie Ballard with “Helluva Life” holds at #9
Keith Urban with “Cop Car” climbs two, #12 - #10 p
Dierks Bentley with “Hold On” stays at #11
Scotty McCreery with “See You Tonight” slips back two, #10 -
#12 q
Jerrod Niemann with “Drink To That All Night” stays at #13
Rascal Flatts with “Rewind” is up one, #15 - #14 p
Dan + Shay with “19 You + Me” is up one, #16 - #15 p
Thomas Rhett with “Get Me
Some Of That” is up one slot, #17 - #16 p
Florida Georgia Line with “This Is How Me
Roll” jumps
up four, #21 - #17 p
Randy Houser with “Goodnight Kiss” is up one, #19 -
#18 p
Thompson Square with “Everything I Shouldn’t Be Thinking About” is
up, #20 - #19 p
Florida Georgia Line with former No.1 “Stay” falls two, #18 - #20 q
Danielle Bradbery with “The Heart Of Dixie” is up one, #22
- #21 p
Brett Eldredge with “Beat Of The Music” is up one, #23 - #22 p
Justin Moore with “Lettin’ The Night Roll” moves up two slots, #25
- #23 p
Miranda Lambert with “Automatic” falls ten places, #14 - #24 q
Hunter Hayes with “Invisible” falls 1 place, #24 - #25
q
Hot County
Songs
** No.1 (2 weeks)/
Streaming Gainer
** “Chillin’ It“ Cole Swindell
** Digital Gainer **
No.7 ”Give Me Back My Hometown” Eric Church
** Airplay Gainer ** No.17
Florida Georgia Line feat Luke Bryan
** Hot Shot Debut ** No.40
“Keep Them Kisses Comin’” Craig Campbell
Debut No.44 “Let Me See Ya Girl”
Cole Swindell
Debut No.47 “Just Add Moonlight” Eli Young Band
Billboard
Country Airplay Chart Week of March 8, 2014
Jason Aldean’s 11th No.1 count on Billboard’s Country
Airplay chart with for “When She Says
Baby” (Broken Bow) enjoyed a second week atop the chart.
“When She Says
Baby” logged 45.661 million audience
impressions (+1.489 million gain) receiving 7,238 radio plays (+223).
Six of Aldean’s
No1s have spent multiple weeks at the summit. His first such song (and longest
No.1 run to date) was “Big Green Tractor,” which logged the first of four
straight weeks at No.1 on the Sept. 5, 2009, chart. He spent three weeks at
No.1 with “Don’t You Wanna Stay” (a duet with Kelly Clarkson) three years ago
and held for another three weeks with “Take a Little Ride” in 2012. His
previous two-week No.1s are “The Truth” (2010) and “Night Train” (2013).
Randy Houser, claimed his fourth top 10 on Country Airplay with “Goodnight Kiss” (Stoney Creek), which gained 1.3 million audience
impressions and stepped 11-10 in its
24th chart week. He has reached the upper region more quickly on two occasions—his
fastest top 10 ascent was 20 weeks with “Runnin’ Outta Moonlight,” which
eventually spent two weeks at No.1 last summer. “Boots On” needed 21 weeks to
crack the top 10 on its way to a No.2 peak five years ago. Houser’s longest top
10 climb was 32 weeks with “How Country Feels,” which became his first No.1 a
year ago.
The week’s “Most
Added” honours at No.23 with
"This Is Now We Roll" (Republic Nashville) goes to Florida
Georgia Line feat. Luke Bryan which snagged 34 fresh
radio commitments (ADDS).
Craig Campbell bagged the “Most Increased Audience” trophy as “Keep Them Kisses Comin’ (Bigger Picture) at No.30 logged 7.262 million audience impressions, a 5.010 million audience net gain,
receiving 1,384 radio plays (+783)
The Band Perry took home the “Hot
Shot Debut” cup as their
new single “Chainsaw” (Republic Nashville) landed at No.50. The song, written
by Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne, Matt Ramsey,
becomes their fourth single from their second studio album PIONEER.
Fourth-season
“The Voice” (NBC) finalists The Swon Brothers appear for the first time with “Later On” (Arista Nashville), which made
a bow at No.60. Although the duo makes its maiden voyage on the radio chart
with its first official single, brothers Zach Swon and Colton Swon became
regulars last year on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs survey, placing 10
competition tracks on the sales/airplay/streaming hybrid chart between May and
July. The highest rank among those songs was the duo’s cover of Kenny Loggins’
“Danny’s Song,” which debuted and peaked at No.16 last June. The song was a top
10 hit for Anne Murray some 40 years before the sibling duo’s cover—her
version peaked at No.10 on the Hot Country Songs chart dated March 24, 1973.
Women of
Country 2014 Watch:
Danielle Bradbery at No.13 (“The Heart Of Dixie”), Miranda
Lambert at No.25 ("Automatic")
and Sara Evans at No.28 (“Slow Me Down”) were the only 3 solo female artists
in the Top 30 Country Airplay songs. Sheryl Crow #35, Leah Turner #40, Lindsay
Ell #46, Lucy Hale #51, Maggie Rose #57 and Jennifer Nettles #58 were an
additional six females in the remaining 31-60 slots to make it 15.0%.
Country
Airplay
*** No. 1 (2
weeks) *** "When She Says Baby” Jason Aldean
** Most Added
** No.23 "This Is Now We Roll"
Florida Georgia Line feat. Luke Bryan
** Most
Increased Audience ** No.30 “Keep Them
Kisses Comin’ Craig Campbell
** Hot Shot Debut
** No.50 “Chainsaw” The Band Perry
Debut No.55
“Best Night Ever” Gloriana
Debut No.57
“Looking Back Now” Maggie Rose
Debut No.60
"Later On” The Swon Brothers
Billboard
Country Digital Singles Chart Week of March 8, 2014
Brantley Gilbert’s “Bottoms Up” (Valory) held at No.1 for a fourth non-consecutive week. It adds 64,000 downloads (up
some 5%) to head the Billboard Country
Digital Chart in its 10th chart week. It made a No.1 debut on Jan. 4th. It also reached
a new Hot Country Songs peak with a 4-2 hop.
Women Of Country Watch
Only 2 solo female artists are
on the Top 30 placings
Miranda Lambert with her new single "Automatic" in its second week at
retail sold 18K (down 65%) and fell 3-20.
Cassadee Pope’s “Wasting All These Tears,” at No.27 looks to be 2 weeks away of
going Platinum (1-million sales)
Jamie Lynn Spears with her fabulous single “How Could I Want More” is down at #76
with 69,000 copies sold to date.
Dropping off the Top 30:
22 - Off the Top 50, Carrie Underwood “Look At Me”
24 - Off the Top 50, Cole Swindell “Ain’t Worth The
Whiskey”
26 - Off the Top 50, Cole Swindell Hope You Get
Lonely Tonight
27- 31 Kacey Musgraves “Follow Your Arrow “
29 - Off the Top 50, Eric Chuch “Tallladega “
Top 30 Digital Singles in Country Music
(published February 27, 2014)
(LW) Last Week
(TW) This Week
*Numbers are
rounded to nearest 1000th
Country
Aircheck/ Mediabase chart
Cole Swindell with “Chillin’
It” (WMN) moved 3-1 to top the Country Aircheck/
Mediabase chart for the tracking week Feb 16 -
Feb 22, 2014. The song logged 7,526 radio
spins (+417) and 60.209 million
audience impressions (+2.636 million) reported by 148 stations.
So its congratulations
to WARNER MUSIC NASHVILLE SVP/Promotion Kevin Herring, VP/Promotion Kristen
Williams and the entire WMN promo staff for scoring the week's #1. It was his
first-ever chart-topper which has also now topped the Billboard Hot Country
Songs. "Chillin'It" has already been certified Gold by the RIAA.
ASCAP, BMI and
the CMA hosted a #1 party on Mon., February 24th to celebrate “Friday Night,” Eric Paslay‘s first #1 song as both the songwriter and
the artist. It landed the No.1 for the tracking week Jan 26 – Feb 1, 2014.
Music Row’s
industry and media packed the room to honor Paslay along with co-writers Rob
Crosby and Rose Falcon, who celebrated their third and first #1 songs,
respectively (see photo). “Friday Night,” the debut single from Paslay’s EMI Records
Nashville self-titled album released on February 4th, marked his fourth trip to
the top of the charts as a songwriter.
