Several years ago, Josh Schott started a weekly feature on the now-reborn Country Perspective blog that asked a simple question: Based on Billboard’s country airplay charts, just how good (or bad) is country radio at this very moment? In the spirit of the original feature, I decided to try my hand at evaluating the state of the radio myself.
The methodology is as follows: Each song that appears is assigned a score based on its review score. 0/10 songs get the minimum score (-5), 10/10 songs get the maximum (+5), and so on. The result (which can range from +250 to -250) gives you an idea of where things stand on the radio.
This week’s numbers are from the latest version of Country Aircheck, but I’m going to link to their archives since I never remember to update this from week to week. Without further ado, let’s crunch some numbers!
*The actual gain here was +2, but the grade for “Front Seat” was revised from -1 to -2.
Best Song: “More Hearts Than Mine,” 8/10
Worst Song: “Hell Right,” 3/10
Mode Scores: 0 (17 songs)
Gone:
- Miranda Lambert, “It All Comes Out In The Wash” (recurrent)
Leaving:
- Keith Urban, “We Were” (max-spin week is over)
In No/Some/Real Trouble:
- It’s December, which means we have no idea…
Is Thanos:
- Luke Combs, “Even Though I’m Leaving” (down from #1 to #2, but it’ll take a while before this truly goes anywhere)
Bubbling Under 50:
- Jameson Rodgers, “Some Girls” (5/10)
- Ashley McBryde, “One Night Standards” (10/10)
- Runaway June, “Head Over Heels” (7/10)
On The Way:
- Lindsay Ell, “I Don’t Love You” (6/10)
- Morgan Evans, “Diamonds” (4/10)
- Miranda Lambert, “Bluebird” (4/10)
- Matt Stell, “Everywhere But On” (5/10)
- Brantley Gilbert, “Fire’t Up” (4/10)
Overall Thoughts: There really isn’t a whole lot to say here, besides “‘Tis the season.” The holiday monster that I hypothesized was surreptitiously siphoning off spins last week isn’t bothering to hide its tracks this time: A whopping twenty songs lost their bullet this week (in fact more songs lost their bullet than changed their position this week), ranging from Old Dominion at #1 to Hootie And The Blowfish at #44. The year is officially in winding-down mode, and with the one major being Carmichael joining the party and bolstering the Pulse (and with Thanos being the slowest chart-leaver in the history of history), we just might be able to stay in positive territory for the rest of the year.
Mediabase isn’t listing any new single additions until January 13th right now, so while the folks at the top might share the wealth among themselves (“Remember You Young” probably hits #1 before the New Year), I don’t expect to see a whole lot of movement otherwise. Seeing McBryde break into the Top 50 would be a nice holiday gift though…
So what do you think? Are the numbers better or worse than you expected? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
Kyle's Korner 