Now Data Partners
Luminate And Mediabase Announce A Wedding Of Their Data In Preparation For A New User Platform In 2023
Data and insights company LUMINATE has announced a new partnership with leading airplay monitoring service MEDIABASE. Effective DECEMBER 2022, MEDIABASE will power LUMINATE’s reporting on radio’s music activity in the U.S. and CANADA, as ...
Nashville Songwriter Awards Honor Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift And More
The NASHVILLE SONGWRITERS ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL (NASI) held its fifth annual NASHVILLE SONGWRITER AWARDS show last night (9/20) at NASHVILLE'S RYMAN AUDITORIUM, with GARTH BROOKS ...
As an esteemed member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Toby Keith never has the need to cut outside songs. When he does, they’re songs that are special, or have caught his ear for one reason or another. The swampy, groove-filled “Oklahoma Breakdown” is just such a song, and it’s one he’s had his eye on for ages. As the Sooner State native explains, “Oklahoma Breakdown” was written and first recorded by “local guy” Michael Hosty, and Keith heard it years ago and considered cutting it then. “But I had so much going on, and so many things I’d written, and plus, I didn’t want to come out with something that somebody else had out.” But Keith had an idea. “I met with Mike Hosty and asked him if he wanted to come in and play slide guitar on this … He came over and we recorded it and made it our own version, different from the one they did. But that is Mike … playing slide guitar on the solo, playing a lot of the rhythm slide work in the song.” He adds, “I figured everyone in that part of the world would get a kick out of him being on the record.” The song, which was also previously recorded by the Oklahoma-raised Stoney LaRue (as Keith admits, the tune “has some miles on it”), is the follow up to Keith’s “Old School,” which earned the highest chart debut of his career. The second single from Keith’s “Peso In My Pocket” album, “Oklahoma Breakdown” was delayed from its originally planned late June impact date after Keith revealed that month that he was battling stomach cancer.
We get plenty of love songs in Country music, but Hannah Ellis’ new single is a love song to the genre itself, celebrating the music’s propensity to bring people together. The well-written tune, drenched in the same steel guitar referenced in its lyrics, hits all the touchstones that made us fans of the format in the first place as she sings, about dive bars, jukeboxes, parking lot parties, Saturday nights, cold drinks, old boots, and four wheels winding down back roads. Among the best lines are: “Nothing makes you fall in love underneath back 40 stars / Nothing makes you wanna cry like a heartbroke steel guitar / Nothing helps you find the words you wanna say when you can't / Nothing gets you back home like Country can.” But radio programmers will especially appreciate when she sings in the chorus, “Nothing turns my radio to gold like Country can.” Kentucky native Ellis wrote the midtempo song — which clocks in under three minutes — with her husband, fellow singer/songwriter Nick Wayne, alongside Jason Massey and Parker Welling. She calls the song "an anthem for all of us. From red dirt to West coast sand, nothing gets you back home like Country can." It’s a preview of Ellis’ debut, full-length album, expected in early 2023.
Drake Milligan is roaring into his impact date with all the momentum a hit TV show can bring. He was a finalist on the recently wrapped season of NBC's "America's Got Talent," and dropped his new album, "Dallas/Fort Worth," on September 15th to take advantage of the added exposure. The single has already been #2 (Country) and #3 (all-genre) on iTunes, and he performed twice in the last week of "AGT," including with Jon Pardi on the season finale. While he didn't win the million-dollar prize (spoiler alert, he took third place) Milligan recently told People magazine, "'America's Got Talent' has changed my life forever." No doubt. This uptempo love song is about a guy who wasn't looking to settle down, but just might be tempted by a new love interest. As he sings in the rapid-fire chorus, "I ain't the kind to settle down / And let myself get wrapped around somebody's finger, but if I had you / Baby, sounds like somethin' I'd do." The young singer with the sexy baritone voice and Elvis Presley-inspired look and performance style hails from the Dallas/Forth Worth area, and five years ago played Presley in the CMT film "Sun Records." Watch for him to carve his own lane in Country music.
The first single from 22-year-old newcomer Shane Profitt shows tons of promise, as do the other two songs on his recently released "Maury County Line" EP. Written by Profitt, David Frasier and Mitch Oglesby, "How It Oughta Be" showcases the blue collar Columbia, TN native's contemporary Country voice and his distinctly Southern point of view. All of that is what caught the eye (and ear) of Chris Janson, who signed Profitt to both his publishing company, Old Tom Music, and as the flagship artist on his Harpeth 60 label, the latter in partnership with BMLG Records. Profitt has already written songs cut by Janson and others, and gained experience opening shows on Janson's "Halfway To Crazy" tour, as well as a regular gig at Tennessee restaurant chain Puckett's. This midtempo radio single features a litany of things Profitt thinks should be changed about our world, from the everyday (the price of gas and groceries, and a belief that "cold beer oughta be too cold to hold") to more worldly concerns about children having a safe backyard to play in, gossip being confined only to positive comments, and a statement about teachers deserving the paychecks of doctors and lawyers. As Profitt sings, "Ain't how it is, but I believe / That's how it oughta be."
“What just happened?,” asks the intriguing first line of Kolby Cooper’s debut radio single, “Excuses.” It’s a breakup song where he’s the one getting dumped, and he’s simply not having it. It was inspired by the sudden dissolution of his guitar player’s real-life relationship, which happened just a week before the song was written. In the lyrics, Cooper sneeringly throws a partner’s lines back at her, signing, “All I heard you say / Was, ‘It ain't you, it's me/ You deserve someone better / So this is how it's gotta be’ / But, girl, you ain't seen forever / So I'll just stop you right there / ‘Cause all I hear / Are excuses.” And he’s not done there, telling his now ex, “Some bullsh*t that you said / ‘Bout how we fell too fast, too hard / And we'd just break each other's hearts / And all those reasons why you said you had to do it / Sure sound like excuses." Written by Cooper, Jordan Walker and Brett Tyler, “Excuses” is taken from Cooper’s “Boy From Anderson County To The Moon” album, released in August. The 23-year old singer’s music has already amassed 230 million on-demand streams.
Scotty McCreery and wife Gabi have one of those #CouplesGoals marriages, now even more so than ever with their first baby on the way. The young singer/songwriter drew plenty of inspiration from that relationship in writing his new single, “It Matters To Her,” with Rhett Akins and Lee Thomas Miller. McCreery says he penned the mid-tempo song about “everything I’ve learned in my first four years of being a husband. It’s the little things that make the biggest difference.” Clearly, he’s learned his lessons well, as he sings of kissing her in the kitchen, putting her first, and making her feel “like she’s the only woman in the world.” The song’s best lines come in the second verse, where he sings, “When you pull her in close / When she had a bad day / When you shut up and listen / To what she has to say / When you tell her she's stronger / Than the storm blowing in / When you're there when she just needs a friend.” Solid relationship advice there. McCreery has just enjoyed five consecutive #1 hits, so what could be a better new baby gift for the artist and his growing family than chart-topper #6? At under three minutes and with a universally relatable theme, he’s made this one easy for you, radio.
The sophomore single from Conner Smith is a backroad love story filled with banjo riffs and lyrics that describe a date night where a young couple just wants to let the evening play out slowly. It’s filled with descriptive, romantic images, including, “We pulled out your drive about the time that sky went pink.” And for the radio programmers who love hearing their medium get a lyrical shout out, there’s this line: “We can sway back and forth / To what’s on the radio.” The mid-tempo song, written by Smith, Ryan Hurd and Mark Trussell, already has more than 40 million on-demand streams. Tennessee native Smith calls it “one of my favorite songs I’ve gotten to be a part of writing … We really just tried to capture the emotion of one of those nights that you never want to end. This song to me, every night we play it live, I feel like it gets bigger and bigger, so, I’m so excited that this song is getting the chance to go to radio.” The song, from Smith’s January debut EP, “Didn’t Go Too Far,” continues to gain familiarity as Smith plays in on his tour dates opening for label-mate Thomas Rhett. He’ll return home to Nashville on September 17th to open for Parker McCollum at Ascend Amphitheater.
If you find yourself signing along at first listen to this new single from Kenny Chesney with Old Dominion and wondering why it sounds just so darned familiar, it’s because the same song was a single for label-mate Shy Carter (alongside Cole Swindell and David Lee Murphy) in July of 2021. No matter the version, this three-minute, good-time party anthem has plenty of life in it, and co-writers Carter, Murphy and Bryan Simpson are no doubt thrilled it’s getting a second shot at Country radio, and from a superstar no less! Old Dominion has been providing direct support on Chesney’s “Here and Now 2022” stadium tour all summer, and Chesney said as the tour was wrapping up that he “wanted to give everyone something to remember it by” in the form of a collaborative single. Chesney and OD’s Matthew Ramsey trade verses in this version, singing about kicking back in a bar after a long work day, and “seeing life through a rose-colored neon lens.” They sing, “We're gonna get that old jukebox working hard / Before it's over I'll know everybody in this bar.” Chesney says of the song, “We’ve all been there. It doesn’t matter if it’s four years or yesterday, there’s nothing like hitting that local bar with your friends. That’s what this whole tour has felt like – every city, every face, every song … It’s so much more than a show or a concert, it’s really letting go, and I wanted to capture that in a song. ‘Beer With My Friends’ is all of it.” If you’re not in the mood to go home and drink alone (not recommended, by the way), then this is the song for you!
Nobody does story songs better than Country music, and this one is a doozy. HARDY and co-writers Hunter Phelps, Jordan Schmidt, and Renee Blair offer up a master class here in how to spin a yarn that literally begins on a dark and stormy night, then keeps the listener spellbound ’til the end. The addition of Lainey Wilson’s pure Country vocals were a stroke of genius, too, as she elevates the story (and the song) with just the right amounts of vulnerability and pathos. The song tells the tale of a stranger who happens upon a woman in the road who has been badly harmed physically, presumably by a domestic partner. He offers her refuge in his truck, then immediately sets out to exact vengeance on her behalf, ultimately gunning down the man who left her “bruised and broke from head to toe.” Wilson takes her turn in the chorus, expressing gratitude to the outsider who offered her a “day of justice.” The song’s narrative format is most effective when both artists simultaneously recall the moment he told her to “wait in the truck,” suggesting they’re both re-living it in their minds. We won’t give away what happens next (you’ll have to listen to find out), but the addition of a gospel choir at the end ads a element of spirituality and a call for redemption with its repeated “have mercy on me” refrain. Absolutely epic from start to finish, this powerful song will leave your listener thinking about it, and deciding for themselves whether this good Samaritan went too far. HARDY, who calls it “the best song I’ve ever written,” hopes it will “give people a platform to maybe speak out about stuff that might be going on in their own homes.”
He may not have had a hand in writing it, but this powerful song reflects everything Craig Morgan is: a veteran, a devoted and faith-driven family man, and someone who has endured painful losses in his life and rose from them stronger. Anyone who watched Morgan compete on the recent CBS reality series “Beyond The Edge” already has a strong sense of his integrity and leadership qualities, both of which make him the perfect person to sing this song that, he says, “makes a powerful statement about how you have to go through things, and sometimes experience difficult things in life, to become a better human.” Morgan’s vocals soar in the moving chorus, where he sings, “It's the good days, bad days, goodbye heartbreaks / Tail lights fading 'cause you didn't say enough / The loss and the tears, and the laughs, and the beers / The wars you fight, the ones you walk away from / You run, you crawl, you rise, you fall / You hit your knees 'til you learn to stand / Yeah, that's how you make a man.” Goosebumps!! Written by Michael August, Megan Conner and Skip Black, and produced by longtime Morgan collaborator Phil O’Donnell, “How You Make A Man” is the lead track from the artist’s upcoming “God, Family, Country (Deluxe Edition),” aptly set to release on Veterans Day (November 11th). The album will be preceded by Morgan’s memoir, also titled “God, Family, Country,” out September 27th via Blackstone Publishing.
Dylan Scott is happily in love with his wife and, in his new single, he’s encouraging others to find that kind of relationship bliss for themselves. But his message pointedly comes with a warning about finding someone special that “Jolene” writer Dolly Parton would likely appreciate: “You can’t have mine.” Written by Scott, Josh Melton, Dallas Wilson and Matt Alderman, the ballad first found viral TikTok success earlier this year under its full title of “Can’t Have Mine (Find You A Girl)” before being included on Scott’s recently-released sophomore album, “Livin’ My Best Life.” Its release as a radio single quickly follows the recent chart-topping success of Scott’s third career #1, “New Truck.” In the song, Scott advises others about exactly what to look for in a partner, someone who “likes to do all the things you love to do / And even on your worst day / She still thinks you hung the moon / Find you a girl that's like fine wine that just gets better with age / Boy, you'll have it made.” He gets even more specific in the chorus, where he sings, “Find you a girl that leaves you speechless / Gets wild on the town but still loves Jesus / One that's worth the wait even when she ain't on time / Find you a girl that loves her daddy / And talkin' 'bout babies makes her happy / Yeah, take it from me, that's the kind you need to find / You just can't have mine.” Scott knows what he’s talking about. Just ask his high school sweetheart and wife of six years, Blair, who inspired the sweet song.
There’s no denying that the ‘90s Country sound is hot right now, and Blake Shelton is all about it. Although he didn’t have his first hit until 2001, Shelton was raised on the music of the fertile decade that came before, and moved to Nashville to pursue his career during that time. He tips his hat to it with his latest single, “No Body.” The lyrics are sly (“Don’t want to wake up kissing no body / No body but yours”), yet manage to work in references to Country songs of the era, including “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” and “Straight Tequila Night”. Just for good measure, writers Rodney Clawson, Chris Tompkins and Josh Kear also toss in one from the ‘80s, name checking Conway Twitty and his “I’d Love To Lay You Down.” In the song’s funny accompanying music video, Shelton dons the cowboy hat and a slightly more blonde version of the mullet he was known for early in his career. The Country superstar has had previous hits with the song titles “Nobody But Me” (2005) and “Nobody But You” (2020). Now adding “No Body” to the mix is sure to further confuse Google song searches for years to come.
Like previous hit “Take My Name,” which topped the charts in June, Parmalee’s new single, “Girl In Mine,” started its life on TikTok. That’s where a video of frontman Matt Thomas signing the chorus began building fans (to the tune of 1.8 million views), many of whom them made their own clips using the music. The two-and-a-half-minute-long song is now radio-ready and impacting on Monday (8/22). In addition to a social media origin story, the new single shares three of the same writers as “Take My Name” -- Thomas, Ashley Gorley and David Fanning -- who composed it alongside Travis Wood and Casey Brown. Fanning also produced both songs. This sweet song pays tribute to the woman who “took the single out of my life,” as Thomas sings. The band says it’s “about that girl who’s in your t-shirt. The one next to you in your ride. The one you can’t stop thinking about.” The song’s best lines come in the chorus, where the band sings, “In that picture, in my pocket / On my cell phone when I lock it / It's all you, no lie / Baby, you're the only girl in mine.” Says Thomas, “With [hit collaboration with Blanco Brown] ‘Just The Way’ and ‘Take My Name,’ we really found something that connected with our fans. We look forward to continuing that with our new single, ‘Girl In Mine.’”
With two #1 singles under his belt buckle already (including 2021's “To Be Loved By You,” which topped the chart earlier this year) and 2020's “Pretty Heart”), Parker McCollum is squarely setting his sights on chart-topper #3 with this new single that makes clever use of two very different definitions of the word “handle.” Written by McCollum and Monty Criswell and produced by Jon Randall, the midtempo song about trying to drink away a ruined romance sets the scene in the opening lines: “I went and bought the biggest bottle they got 'cause you’re gone / Dropped a needle on a vinyl and cried to an old Haggard song / Sittin’ at the table, baby, breakin’ the seal, gonna see how much of this pain I can kill.” The tale of woe continues in the chorus, where McCollum sings, “I’ve been fightin’ with your memory, I hate the way it hits me / I wake up every day, black and blue / After all this back and forth, a fifth won’t do / Yeah, I finally got a handle, finally got a handle on you.” Later in the song he explains, “I tell myself that I should quit but I don’t listen to drunks.” Funny stuff! And speaking of funny, asked to cough up a quote about the song for a press release, McCollum offered the shortest, and most succinctly droll statement of all time: “I know I have written quite a few songs about heartbreak and drinking, so here’s another one.” What more is there to say?
A riveting vocal performance coupled with a beautifully written lyric makes Tyler Braden’s “Try Losing One” an early favorite for 2023 Song of the Year consideration. As Braden unspools the story of a love found, and then lost, the song’s dynamics build thrillingly — beginning with eight simple piano notes — until the singer’s anguish is palpable. “If you think finding a girl you can't live without / Is the hardest thing you've ever done / Try losing one,” he sings in the emotional chorus that puts a new twist on a relatable theme. After months of airplay on SiriusXM’s “The Highway” (where it reached #1 on the “The Highway Hot 30 Countdown” in June), this song is more than warmed up for a fast build at terrestrial Country radio. The former firefighter earned some additional name recognition when he made it to the finals on NBC’s “American Song Contest” earlier this year, as well as while opening shows for Brooks & Dunn and Brantley Gilbert. “Try Losing One,” written by Braden, Brian Davis and Adam Wood, is from his “What Do They Know” EP, released late last year. “I got to write this with some amazingly talented writers,” Braden said of the song. “I think we did what we try to do in every write … We found a new angle on an age-old story. We wanted to keep the production simple, and Adam and Randy Montana absolutely nailed it. The music supports the lyrics, the meaning, and the feel of the song. It builds on emotion and really hits you hard. I’m so proud of this one and so lucky to have such talent involved.”
