It was clear early on that “Fancy Like” by Walker Hayes was going to be a song that nobody liked except the audience. The first PD I talked to was cringing at the notion of playing it. The one thing we agreed on was that the time was now, to take advantage of its social media and streaming activity. Even in a Country format where non-superstar records develop glacially, “Fancy Like” wasn’t a record that audiences were going to take 40 weeks to become familiar with or understand.
At this writing, “Fancy Like” is up 48-38 on BDSRadio’s Country chart with 920 spins and +344 spins from last week, all in its fifth week since cracking the 100-spin mark. It’s a fast start for a non-superstar title. It is also, as Country Insider editor Brian Mansfield notes, the No. 1 Country streaming song. Citing the streams vs. airplay difference for Nelly & Florida Georgia Line’s “Lil Bit” as well, Mansfield asks if radio is acknowledging streaming enough. The radio-station programmers he interviews are split between those trying to react more quickly to streaming stories and those still skeptical of whether they’ll translate to familiarity or preference in other research.
As Country radio grapples with the chasm between a glacial chart and other metrics, one of the issues has been that the chart covers stations on three different templates, as if Mainstream AC, Hot AC, and CHR stations all reported to one pop chart, in which no song could go No. 1 until making it to WLTW (Lite FM) New York, roughly 9-15 months after release. Nashville has resisted the concept of multiple charts, but wouldn’t an “Active Country” and a “Mainstream Country” chart create more stories that could reinforce each other?
Through all of this, I’ve wondered which stations count as “Active Country.” Is it the Cox stations that are relatively aggressive on new music and triage it more like CHR stations? Is it the big-market outlets that have CHR-like high spin counts, but still add songs to daytime rotation slowly? Using Mansfield’s story as an impetus, I used BDS to put together a custom chart of stations playing Walker Hayes, Nelly/FGL, and a third streaming hit, Elle King & Miranda Lambert’s “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home).” I also threw in a few other stations I considered aggressive on new music.
I tried the chart with and without Sirius XM’s The Highway. That version also included Nashville rimshotter (but monitored) WYCZ (Young Country), a Country reporter, but really a young-end CHR that plays Country music when it’s hot at its own format, not much later. I looked at mostly stations in the top 125 markets; I found myself with about 70 reporters, half of what BDS uses overall.
Walker Hayes is a different type of song from the Nelly/FGL and Elle/Miranda debuts, which bend the parameters of the format for some programmers. But they are the No. 1, No. 2, and No. 6 most-streamed Country songs, according to BDS. I figured a station that would champion any of the three would be one that shows some enterprise on music. I looked for stations playing any of those songs at least 10x a week and took out a few where 70% or more of those spins were in overnights.
So who was playing all three? KUPL (the Bull) Portland, Ore. KWNR (the Bull) Las Vegas; WCKN (Kickin’ Country) Charleston, S.C.; WIL St. Louis; WJVC Long Island, N.Y.; WWKA (K92) Orlando (and rival WOTW). Not surprisingly, WYCZ was playing all three. The Highway was playing only the Walker Hayes song.
So how much did looking at the custom panel speed up the chart process? Not so much, except, as you’d expect for the songs in question:
- Wade Hayes was No. 29 on our custom panel vs. No. 38 overall;
- Elle King & Miranda Lambert was No. 31 vs. No. 39;
- Nelly/FGL was No. 38 vs. No. 50.
Beyond that, my custom panel’s differences were relatively modest, usually within a chart position or two of the full chart. But there were a few other boosts:
- Old Dominion, “I Was on a Boat That Day,” No. 13 custom panel vs. No. 17 overall;
- Jason Aldean & Carrie Underwood, “If I Didn’t Love You,” No. 23 vs. No. 27;
- Chris Stapleton, “You Should Probably Leave,” No. 27 vs. No. 30
- Eric Church, “Heart on Fire,” No. 37 vs. No. 40.
With the exception of Stapleton, who has always benefited from streaming stories, most of those songs were already on a relatively fast track. The Aldean/Underwood duet is a fast-breaking song already; it’s just faster yet at our group of stations. Same for Old Dominion, which was able to get on a fast track by being summer-themed.
There are a few other streaming hits that weren’t much different on either chart. Dan + Shay’s “Glad You Exist” was No. 3 custom chart vs. No. 4 overall. Ryan Hurd w/Maren Morris’ “Chasing After You” is No. 4 in streaming, but only one position higher (No. 19) on our custom chart.
Even those stations that are responsive to a high-profile story or two aren’t that much faster than the overall chart, in part because they’re part of the same chart process as everybody else. If there were two Country charts, those stations would be worked on different label priorities. With everybody still reporting to one chart, even the most aggressive station is going to be asked to power a 44-week-old song on its quest for No. 1.
To some extent, it’s going to be hard for radio programmers in any format not to trail a song’s rank in streaming for a while, especially now that streaming can often propel a song to No. 1 in its first week. A song such as BTS’s “Butter” that is top 20 after 10 days is both slower than its streaming story and faster than any other BTS single to date. The question for the Hayes single now is whether the initial boost moves the song onto the fast track usually reserved for superstar and summer songs, or whether programmers are still wondering if it’s power-rotation-worthy in November.