2016: Country's Top 10 Songs, Top 5 Artists, and 5 Thoughts for 2017

We’ve made a list and checked it twice (actually, it’s more like a dozen times).

The “list” is our annual A&O&B Top Songs and Artists of the Year list for the year 2016.

Each year we create our research-driven list using a formula heavily weighted by our online and callout data, and data rankings for every song we played and tested for at least six weeks.

Getting right to it, here is A&O&B’s Top 10 for 2016:

Rank	Artist	Title
1	Rhett, Thomas	Die A Happy Man
2	Swindell, Cole	You Should Be Here
3	Florida-Georgia Line	H.O.L.Y
4	Bentley, Dierks	Different For Girls
5	Bryan Luke w/Karen Fairchild	Home Alone Tonight
6	Rhett, Thomas	T-Shirt
7	Hunt, Sam	Make You Miss Me
8	Swindell, Cole	Middle of a Memory
9	Bryan, Luke	Huntin' Fishin' and Lovin' Everyday
1o	Bryan, Luke	Move

The Songs:

This year we could use "contrast" to sum up a lot of what we saw: many songs showing higher Like A Lot  scores yet lower Total Positive scores.

The Like A Lot average for the 88 songs we tested improved compared to last year.  However the Total Positive scores for the Top 1/3 of the best Like A Lot testers tied a six-year low. 

Also troubling this year was the decline in the percent of songs scoring well enough to be retained in one of our recurrent categories. In fact, the percent of 2016’s currents that went on to recurrent is the lowest percent since we began tracking this metric.

This should generate a number of thinking points.


The Artists:

Meanwhile on the artist front, based on our Top Songs of 2016, Luke Bryan was A&O&B’s Top Artist of the year. He placed the three songs (including his duet with Karen Fairchild) in the Top 10.

Rounding out our Top Five Artists for 2016 were Thomas Rhett, Carrie Underwood, Florida-Georgia Line and Keith Urban. With two songs in the Top 10, Cole Swindell had a strong year as well.

We always track the impact of New Artists, particularly those that break through with top testing songs – something that’s never been easily accomplished.

Without getting into speculation about why that may be, the fact remains that historically our Top 1/3 contains scant few first timers. This year is no exception as just three artists - William Michael Morgan, Maren Morris and Chris Stapleton – had songs that finished in the Top 1/3.



Tempo:

“We don’t have enough tempo songs!” was oft echoed in programming’s hallowed halls this year. In fact, one label was quick to point this out as they worked a non-ballad.

And yes, at least as far as the Top 1/3, there were a lot of ballads.

It was the second strong year in a row ballads have had. Four of the top five songs both this year and in 2015 were ballads. Top 10 ballad presence was strong too with ballads accounting for 6 of the Top Ten testing titles (seven last year, five in 2014, four in 2013 and three in 2012)

Whether the higher number of top testing ballads is coming from stronger ballads and/or story-lines, listener tempo saturation, or other issues, for the second year in a row and fourth time in six years, ballads indexed higher than non-ballads when it came to the percent of songs that tested in the Top 1/3.



Five Things to Do in 2017

1. While an up-tempo presentation – music, talent, quick fun, etc. makes for a highly listenable station, don’t fear ballads; they have tested very well especially over the past few years.
2. Give fresh consideration to the number of currents you’re playing and to their exposure. Similarly, review how you’re managing Recurrents.  Balance "churn" and "burn."
3. Absolutely play today’s Core Artists but, as a current-based format, we need to develop the next group of Superstars to augment our current list (many of whom have now been Core Artists for a decade or more). But be selective; embrace those that polish your brand.
4. Giving appropriate exposure to high passion songs while taking lower Total Positive scores into consideration will be a challenge in 2017.  Weekly, LOCAL music research is your secret weapon.
5. Music coding will be critical as programmers need to manage higher passion/lower positive songs as well as control for the six different genres of music the format has. Revisit your existing coding and rules to make sure they reflect the current music landscape and work together to give you the sound you seek.

Thanks for the read.  Anytime in the coming months that you feel like having a conversation about the country format, your station, talent, or radio in general, we hope you’ll ring us up.

And, as we roll into another year, the entire A&O&B team wants to pass along our warmest wishes for health, happiness and success!

Read about 2015’s Top Songs and Artists here.

Read about 2014’s Top Songs and Artists here.

The extended Client Only version can be accessed here  (password required).

Country: Jumping the Shark and Growing the Beard?

We may look back on last week as a time when country “jumped the shark.” 

There was Pitbull (@Pitbull), Cheap Trick, Fifth Harmony and Pharrell (you could make a case for Pharrell given his collaboration with Little Big Town) on a country awards show. 

Then there were releases to country radio that had some programmers feeling the pop envelope had been pushed too far.

A the same time a “growing the beard” trend may also have started, rooted in conversations about the expectations of country P1s and P2s, what constitutes a balanced country playlist, and a “music line” which one crosses at their own risk.

The phrase “jump the shark” of course marks a point in time when something takes a noticeable downturn (see its origins here).

Meanwhile “growing the beard” (origins here) marks a moment of turn-around.

But before we go back down the rabbit hole of last week, perhaps we should first ask, “So what?”

The 18-49 numbers from last week’s CMT Awards Show came in with a 0.97 rating and 3.3 million viewers; and that was the combined audience on three different networks. 

This pales in comparison to both the most recent CMA Awards Show (3.8 rating,13.58 million viewers) and ACM Awards Show (2.3 rating,11.18 million viewers). 

Even May’s American Country Countdown Awards show on Fox had more eyeballs (1.0 rating, 3.8 million viewers).

But again, so what?  If a TV show disappoints the audience, that's on the television network, not on radio.

Similarly, if an artist wants to release something that we, as programmers and music curators believe in our heart of hearts is too far outside the parameters as our listeners have defined them and as we understand them, then so what? We don’t play it.

On this subject – music - listeners have given us solid guidance. 

In A&O&B's "Roadmap 2016" – our national online perceptual study of 9000-plus country radio format users - 18-54 format listeners told us that "current music from today's stars" is their preferred music cluster. 

But they've also told us to be careful with the mix - especially with music that is on the fringe.

For me, it's perfectly fine if an awards show or an artist wants to push or push past the boundaries. It's art, and art needs to be true to itself. I can choose to embrace it or not.

However there are boundaries on winning radio stations. While they may be unique across stations, they exist to help stations meet the desires and expectations of their audience.

Last week provided us multiple opportunities to thoroughly dissect, bisect, scrutinize and analyze all things country and non-country.

As we start this week, let's embrace the art and the boundaries and we'll all be helping to “grow the beard.”

Country Infographic: A Half Dozen Facts to Make You The Most Interesting Person at the Thanksgiving Table

Haven't had time to do show-prep for the family Thanksgiving Dinner?

No worries!

Here's a Country Thanksgiving Infographic from A&O&B guaranteed to help you keep the table entertained between seconds and dessert.

Visually stimulating, fun, and shareable, Infographics also make great email content. Additionally, Socialmediatoday.com reports Infographics as a marketing tool can increase traffic 12%. 

Chew on that for a while and have a great Thanksgiving!

A&O&B Poll: We're Open To More Country From Taylor

Taylor Swift may have left country a “goodbye note” but the majority of the more than 60 Country PDs, MDs, Talent and Station Executives who took part in Albright & O'Malley & Brenner's quick, and admittedly unscientific straw poll this week said they’ve left the light on for her.  

By more than 4:1 the panel hoped that Taylor Swift would cut another country song in the future with 30% feeling country radio would miss Taylor. 17% said they didn’t think they would play any new Taylor Swift songs now that she’s “gone pop.”

Regarding “Shake It Off,” the first single from Taylor's new pop project, 89% of our panel had heard the song /watched the video. When asked to think about it not as a country song but as a piece of music, 60% said they liked it “A Lot” while 27% liked it “Some.”

72% said their station had talked about “Shake it Off” on the air with 41% saying their station played all or some of it.

We also invited comments. Among the most common were 1) she’s been a cross-over artist for some time, 2) that her music wasn’t any more or less country than what’s being played on country radio now, and 3) an expectation that she will record something country in the future.

There were several “ambivalent” opinions on Taylor’s past or future impact on country and country radio listeners, but no one in the poll expressed anything negative.

Not that I expected to see that from our stations, but I’ve moderated enough listener panels where respondents were quick to dis on Taylor.

So I loved this from Facebook post from Cumulus/Dallas OM J. R. Schumann/@JRSchumann1

"Every time Taylor Swift puts out a new song/album it's amazing to me the hate speak she receives. Grown men and women say terrible things about a girl making music - music with a positive message, mind you. Music that tells kids in their most formative years to be themselves and not let the world get to them. Year after year...Taylor Swift (who has never been pictured drunk, partying, doing drugs, arrested, or anything) remains the subject of so much hate, and we wonder why the world is the way it is. 

Let's just hope the kids of today listen to her lyrics and not what the adults around them are saying."

Apparently he's struck a chord. J.R. says this has been favored over 1500 times and has 1400 re-tweets.

Much success, Taylor.

If you decide in the future to cut something country, there will be people in the format who will want to hear it.

Country in the First Half of 2014: How This Year’s Music Compares to Last Year's at the Half Way Mark

Earlier this month Inside Radio reported that “no format had more momentum than country” heading into the second half of 2014 and that the format had already matched its PPM high of last July during the “summer of country.”

Also in that article partner Becky Brenner referenced A&O&B’s “balance” philosophy when she stated that “a balanced menu from Music Row is seen as essential for growth.”

So how is this year’s music shaping up so far compared to the first six months of last year?

To explore this, A&O&B looked at our music testing data from January 1 to June 30^th of this year and compared it to our data for the same time last year. We focused on two metrics: “Total Positive” and “Like A Lot” and compared songs completing their life as currents in the first six months of each year. This included all songs played in the first half of each year, whether or not they went on to be played as recurrents.

First, the Total Positive and Like A Lot scores for the first halves of 2013 and 2014 were nearly identical.

	Total Positive Average (higher is better)	Like A Lot Average (lower is better)
All Songs First Half 2013	72.6	9.1
All Songs First Half 2014	72.7	9.0

Digging a bit deeper and looking only at the Top 20 Testers, the scores again were nearly identical.

	Total Positive Average (higher is better)	Like A Lot Average (lower is better)
Top 20 Songs First Half 2013	77.7	4.2
Top 20 Songs First Half 2014	77.5	4.2

Finally, we compared the Top 10 Testers for the first six months of each year.  Here, with smallest sample – just 20 titles – 2014 scores were slightly softer than 2013.

	Total Positive Average (higher is better)	Like A Lot Average (lower is better)
Top 10 Songs First Half 2013	78.9	2.4
Top 10 Songs First Half 2014	76.6	2.8

Looking back over the past several years (as a company we've been tracking and trending music data since the late 90s), year-end scores have softened slightly since the peak of 2011. 

And, while this year’s top-10-to-date are scoring slightly below those from the first half of last year (we are talking small changes not dramatic drops among a tight group of titles) overall the format remains in the strong music cycle that began in 2009.    

Still, tenths of a shares matter and identifying and giving maximum play to the songs that mean the most to your listeners is a no brainer.

For many stations the budgeting process for next year is getting underway making now an appropriate time to explore ways to make music testing part of your budget for 2015 (disclosure: A&O&B stations have access to free, online current and gold online music testing using the company’s software).

And while you’re at it, why not have a discussion about the many ways you can interact with listeners and commit to a plan of action.  

Keep the momentum going.

Music Discovery Spans Country Demos Though Who Is Being Discovered Varies Considerably

A & O & B’s Roadmap 2014 - our just-released annual online perceptual of some 9,000 country fans – included an in-depth look at music discovery.

Nearly 58% of the 18-54 respondents said they had “discovered a new artist in the past 12 months that is becoming one of their favorites.” 90% said they had discovered a new artist via FM radio though discovery via social is certainly trending up.

It gets quite interesting when you break out discovery by demo.

Discovery is higher among 18-24s with nearly 70% saying they’ve discovered a new artist in the past 12 months vs. 52% of 45-54s. 52% is no small number but 70% is big.

Who listeners have discovered also looks different by demo.   

Luke Bryan, The Band Perry and Florida-Georgia Line have some pretty significant discovery differences 18-24 vs. 45-54. 

These differences are less dramatic but they certainly exist for Thomas Rhett, Cole Swindell and Jason Aldean. 

There are many other examples.

A take-away for programmers is, given country’s wide demos, that while listeners may be on the same page for things like artist discovery, they are not necessarily reading the same paragraph.

A &O & B’s annual Roadmap online perceptual is a free service to clients who also receive a separate, local report with feedback from their market’s listeners. For information, contact Mike@AandOandB.com or Becky@AandOandB.com.  

Country Music 2013: The Top Songs, Artists, and Stats

If we were talking about wrestling, Blake Shelton and Luke Bryan would have been the Tag Team of the Year.

While that’s one of the few awards Country doesn’t have yet, Blake and Luke do win our award for best A&O&B chart performers of 2013.

The Songs

Driven by our weekly research, here is how A&O&B’s Top 10 for 2013 shaped up.

The Artists

2013 was another great year for Blake Shelton. He not only placed three songs in our top 30, all were in the top 10 including the number one song “Boys 'Round Here.”

This is the second time that Blake has had three songs reach our top 10 (he did it in 2011 as well) and the fifth time overall that this has been done by a single artist in the past 10 years: Blake as we noted in 2013 and 2011, Luke Bryan in 2012, Zac Brown Band in 2010 and Toby Keith in 2003.

Meanwhile Luke Bryan had three songs in the top 30 including two in the top ten plus song 24 for the year - the Jason Aldean-Luke Bryan-Eric Church title, "The Only Way I Know."

Jason Aldean, Lee Brice, Eric Church, Florida-Georgia Line, Tim McGraw and The Band Perry each placed two songs in the top 30.

90% of the Top 1/3 titles in 2013 were by Millennial Artists. Those of you who follow our Roadmap studies know that in February this year we detailed the appeal of various country music clusters with “New Songs from Millennial Artists” being the number one music cluster for multiple demos including 25-54.

While 90% is a big number, new artists didn’t necessarily benefit. In fact, 2013 was a mixed bag for them. Four first-time charters had songs that scored well enough to average a rank of 10.0 or lower (lower is better) during their time as current. However, only one new artist cracked the top 1/3: Tyler Farr. This is just the second time that only one new artist has broken into the top 1/3 on our list since we began tracking this statistic in 2001.

Meanwhile there continues to be minimal chart presence for Historical Superstars. Tim McGraw (2 songs including the “Highway” duet with Taylor Swift) and George Strait (1) were the only Historical Superstars (which we define as core artists with multiple chart hits prior to 1997) to have songs in the top 1/3. For perspective, there were 11 in 2008.

The Stats 

In addition to artists and titles, A&O&B tracks a number metrics. As we usually do let’s look at two: Total Positive and Like A Lot.

Total Positive scores were off for the second year in a row following 2011’s peak. Songs ranking in the bottom 2/3 declined at a slightly greater rate than songs in the top 1/3. We’re looking at higher overall scores than we had for most of the first decade of 2000 but lower scores since 2011. 

The Like A Lot metric was mixed. 2013's average Like A Lot score for our top 1/3 was flat from last year however the average for songs in the bottom 2/3 fell for a second straight time. That drop was big enough to make the gap between the Like A Lot ‘have and have-nots’ the widest it’s been in four years.

Stations whose primary source of music information is tracking spins are vulnerable to a competitor who is tracking their listeners’ tastes.

As we wrote last year, a great programming resolution for the New Year would be to regularly take your listeners pulse on the music you play.  

A&O&B offers client stations online music testing, free, as part of our full service commitment. We’ll be glad to answer your questions about how it works.

Country Too Pop? Too Rock? Listeners on Living in Harmony

We’ve all read it or heard it by now – the CJJR-FM interview where Zac Brown called Luke Bryan’s current single, “the worst song I’ve ever heard” and that some songs on country radio make him “ashamed to even be in the same genre.”

Well, at least we know where he stands.

And of course he’s not the first to bemoan the state of country music over the years.

I speak to hundreds of country radio listeners while conducting Listener Panels for stations, and we always speak in depth about the music.

These fans are quick to list the big stars, the up-and-comers, and those who they’ve grown tired of.

Luke and his music have fared extremely well, as have most of the millennial artists. There’s great passion for our music – all the genres.

Still, in nearly every group, there is some admonishment to “keep the music country.”

While no panelist has threatened to “throw up” if they hear another song referencing trucks or tailgates, listeners have some concerns over country music becoming “too pop.” They express concerns about rock too but, anecdotally, that seems to come up less frequently.

Country radio has always been able to successfully expose a number of different styles simultaneously.  And we can see great testing as well as sales across these genres – and for the past few years, strong ratings.

But we enter the danger zone is when too much of any one style (be it pop or rock, tempo or texture) dominates.  That’s especially true if too much of the material we’re trying to manage lives at the edges.

Today, the job of balancing each quarter hour of music is both increasingly challenging and of critical importance.  

Review your library coding for relevance at least every six months. Our music is constantly changing and our rules and coding need to help us manage the ebb and flow of the imbalance du jour.

Consider balance when making adds. What theme/style/genre do you have too much or too little of? It best add may or may not be "chart obvious."

Find time to do critical listening to your station, paying particular attention to balance. 

It’s rarely about any one song.  As one listener put it recently, “We like it all. We just want you to mix it up.”

Or, as my partner Jaye Albright blogged, "(the) diversity of sound, borrowing generously from what's "hot" and adapting fresh ideas are the very things that keeps country growing. It's regrettable when any of us who understand the business disparages artists, songs, radio stations or record companies. A bit of the mud, when that happens, splashes on all of us."

Before And After Pictures: Country's Musical Landscape In 2009 and Now

“Before and after” pictures can sometimes be startling. Especially when something that was iconic has changed dramatically, is no longer present or when something new “suddenly” appears.

Because we’re paying attention to our formats on a daily basis and appropriately navigating our stations through changes, good programmers aren't generally subject to before-and-after-shock.

Even so, side-by-sides of the past and present can be both interesting and useful in giving us a perspective on the pace of change.

Here’s a “before and after” look at Mediabase’s Top 10 Most Played Artists (all stations) for the year 2009 and just 3 ½ years later the most played artists to date in 2013. Only three artists - Kenny, Tim and Brad – appear in both snapshots. Seven artists from 2009 have been replaced by seven different artists so far this year.

2009	Artist	Spins		2013	Artist	Spins
1	KENNY CHESNEY	1093702		1	CHESNEY, KENNY	529588
2	TOBY KEITH	1043185		2	SHELTON, BLAKE	481823
3	TIM MCGRAW	882167		3	ALDEAN, JASON	481657
4	GEORGE STRAIT	847920		4	PAISLEY, BRAD	458663
5	BRAD PAISLEY	846708		5	UNDERWOOD, CARRIE	426473
6	RASCAL FLATTS	835130		6	BROWN, ZAC BAND	404099
7	KEITH URBAN	825170		7	MCGRAW, TIM	381991
8	ALAN JACKSON	750887		8	BRYAN, LUKE	359250
9	TAYLOR SWIFT	636428		9	LADY ANTEBELLUM	345478
10	BROOKS & DUNN	625323		10	LAMBERT, MIRANDA	331575

If we pull the lens back a bit to look at the Top 20 most played artists over the same time period, we can see more consistency in names but a number of rankings are significantly different and  there’s quite a bit of churn at the bottom of both lists.

2009	Artist	Spins		2013	Artist	Spins
1	KENNY CHESNEY	1093702		1	CHESNEY, KENNY	529588
2	TOBY KEITH	1043185		2	SHELTON, BLAKE	481823
3	TIM MCGRAW	882167		3	ALDEAN, JASON	481657
4	GEORGE STRAIT	847920		4	PAISLEY, BRAD	458663
5	BRAD PAISLEY	846708		5	UNDERWOOD, CARRIE	426473
6	RASCAL FLATTS	835130		6	BROWN, ZAC BAND	404099
7	KEITH URBAN	825170		7	MCGRAW, TIM	381991
8	ALAN JACKSON	750887		8	BRYAN, LUKE	359250
9	TAYLOR SWIFT	636428		9	LADY ANTEBELLUM	345478
10	BROOKS & DUNN	625323		10	LAMBERT, MIRANDA	331575
11	DIERKS BENTLEY	606851		11	URBAN, KEITH	327423
12	MONTGOMERY GENTRY	570204		12	THE BAND PERRY	326189
13	CARRIE UNDERWOOD	560249		13	STRAIT, GEORGE	310322
14	SUGARLAND	526223		14	KEITH, TOBY	306397
15	DARIUS RUCKER	511694		15	BENTLEY, DIERKS	299723
16	JASON ALDEAN	499024		16	RASCAL FLATTS	280816
17	ZAC BROWN BAND	474769		17	BRICE, LEE	279473
18	BILLY CURRINGTON	458349		18	CHURCH, ERIC	277111
19	GARTH BROOKS	447462		19	FLORIDA-GEORGIA LINE	276032
20	RODNEY ATKINS	444324		20	HAYES, HUNTER	271619

A look at album sales yields a similar picture; fully half of the artists making up this year’s top 10 selling albums (Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan, The Band Perry, Hunter Hayes and Little Big Town) weren’t in the top 25 for the year 2009.

Again, this is not particularly surprising. Back in February at CRS, A&O&B reported that listeners claimed to have '"discovered" four of these five acts within the past 12 months (Florida Georgia Line being the exception). 

As a "before and after" side note, not too long ago, stations’ “Core/Key Artists” lists often numbered somewhere between 6 and 9.  For many stations today that list is 50% longer.  And that’s a good thing for the format.

None of this should be surprising of course, and that’s the point.

“Before and after” is fun and makes for an interesting look at the speed with which things change (or don't change). But staying on top of listener trends is a far better way to be relevant.

A&O&B provides clients free, ongoing opportunities to keep up with their listeners’ preferences and attitudes with online music surveys including twice-monthly testing of currents, and quarterly testing of gold titles; plus, our annual online Roadmap survey which reports listener behavior and perceptions on a large number of topics. Learn more here and at aandoandb.com.