It’s the year of the country mega hit.
Oklahoma country singer Zach Bryan topped last week’s Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with “I Remember Everything,” his duet with fellow Nashville star Kacey Musgraves.
It marked the Hot 100’s fourth country chart-topper in a row, following hits by Oliver Anthony Music, Jason Aldean and Morgan Wallen, in a year that has been utterly dominated by country music: In the last 26 weeks, or half a year, country songs have topped the chart all but six of those weeks.
It’s even more significant given that Wallen’s “Last Night,” which notched 16 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, was the first country song to hit No. 1 since Lonestar’s “Amazed” back in 1999. (Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” hit No. 1 in 2021, but that’s more pop than country, and some say Billy Ray Cyrus’ presence on Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” puts the 2019 smash in the country realm, but that’s a stretch.)
Meanwhile, Luke Combs has spent two full months at No. 2 on the chart with his cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” knocking on the door of the No. 1 spot but continually getting blocked by his peers.
What’s fueling the chart resurgence in country music? It’s complicated, and the reasons are as different as the songs themselves. But the genre is displaying a commercial prowess it hasn’t in decades.
Billboard reports country music consumption skyrocketed 20.3 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2023, largely due to the monster popularity of Wallen, whose album “One Thing at a Time,” released in March, topped the Billboard 200 for 15 weeks.
It was Wallen’s second album to hit No. 1 — 2021’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” led the chart for 10 weeks — and Wallen hit the road for a massive tour this year, including two sold-out nights at Ford Field in June.
His “Last Night” is a hungover, morning after lament about a booze-fueled argument between two lovers. Relatable subject matter, sure, and Wallen’s starpower — which weathered the singer’s 2021 racial slur controversy — pushed it to Song of the Summer status as it became the longest running No. 1 by a solo singer in Hot 100 history.
Aldean’s balled fists anthem “Try That in a Small Town” took a more inflammatory route to the No. 1 spot, where it landed for one week in early August. Its success came after its controversial video was pulled by CMT and conservative backlash rocketed it up the charts, and paid downloads of the song — which are weighed heavier than streams in Billboard’s chart formula — sent it to No. 1. The following week it crashed to No. 22, evidence its success was more manufactured than organic, and “Last Night” returned to the top spot.
“Last Night” remained there for two weeks until the previously unknown Oliver Anthony Music came from out of nowhere to debut at No. 1 with “Rich Men North of Richmond,” a stark working man’s plea expressing frustration with politicians, the machine and the Powers That Be. (He also takes on welfare recipients and the obese, putting a fine point on some of the song’s more vague targets.) Like “Try That in a Small Town,” chatter around the single first circulated in online spaces, and sent the Virginia folk singer, whose real name is Christopher Lunsford (Oliver is his grandfather’s name, Anthony is his middle name) from obscurity to the limelight virtually overnight.
There’s a political bend to “Rich Men North of Richmond’s” initial left field success, but since blowing up, Anthony has refused to align himself with either side of the political spectrum. That has made his narrative difficult to pinpoint, but the anguish in his voice has made his country-folk tale reverberate with many who feel oppressed, which is a lot of people these days. The song spent two weeks at No. 1 before dropping five spots to No. 6.
Zach Bryan, meanwhile, scored his first No. 1 last week with “I Remember Everything,” while also landing the week’s No. 1 album with his self-titled fourth studio album and a high-profile arrest on an obstruction of investigation charge, making quite a week for the 27-year-old.
“I Remember Everything,” which also marks the first No. 1 for six-time Grammy winner Kacey Musgraves, is a sparse ballad that plays like Wallen’s “Last Night” if the song’s central relationship is recalled years later and with both parties getting an equal say. It’s about booze and perception and memories, and is an example of Bryan’s stripped down, naked approach to sonics and songwriting.
Taken individually, any of the songs could be seen as a fluke for hitting the top of the charts, while any three of them together could be seen as a trend. But all four — along with Bryan’s “Fast Car,” still hanging tight in that runner-up position — is a movement, proving country’s might as a genre, its direct connection to fans’ emotions and younger generations’ embrace of its aesthetics.
The songs are just as similar as they are different, and they show modern country’s wide reach: It’s singer-songwriters but it’s songwriting by committee, too, it’s rock and pop and roots music, it’s cowboy hats and it’s also baseball hats, it’s songs about people and struggles and times both good and bad. And, unquestionably, it’s the sound of right now.
