With it, March is here, the inevitable deluge of brackets, basketball, and corny March Madness jokes. For those of y’all here seeking refuge from them in a column on country music, I hate to say you’re out of luck. To this lowly statistician, the week of MLB’s Sweet Sixteen and Opening Day is objectively the greatest in sports. It has more close and exciting games, more passionate fanbases, and far less obnoxious commercialization than the Super Bowl. As a bonus, you get to choose the music you listen to at halftime or the 7th inning stretch (although I’m being informed that the Super Bowl halftime show is why they made the mute button).
This reminds me: as much as I’d love to get paid to give get-off-my-lawn speeches about sports, this is still ostensibly a music column, so let’s get into this month’s CC50 numbers. The top 5 rankings remained unchanged this month, although Wallen gave back many of his gains from the last few months; we’ll get into that later. Ty Myers, quietly one of the biggest success stories of the year, broke into the top 20 for the first time, while Eric Church and Jon Pardi built up momentum ahead of their upcoming album releases. Below is the full data table:
Biggest Risers & Fallers
As we mentioned in the article intro, Ty Myers has quietly put together one of the more impressive stretch runs over the past 6 months, more than doubling his audience interest since his CC50 debut in October of 2024. The young Texan has been taking the country music world by storm at the same age (17). Most of us worried about who our high school basketball team was playing on Friday. After a smattering of singles throughout 2023 and 2024, most notably “Ends of the Earth” last fall, we were finally treated to the first full-length Myers album in January, which landed instantly with listeners. The graph below shows the CC50 breakdown of Interest-Disinterest-Unsure over time for Ty Myers. After gradually ticking up through the end of last year, he saw a surge in audience Interest between January and February, the same time he released the album. Since then, he’s slashed his Unsure numbers, a very positive sign for new artists, showing that they are increasing name recognition among casual fans. He recently released the Deluxe version since the March voting; it will be interesting to see if it also lands well with listeners!
I know; Wallen dropping nearly 7 points shortly before announcing his new album looks dramatic, so let’s address it. While this seems like an anomaly, it’s likely more the result of some slightly inflated numbers in the last couple of voting periods, with them falling directly after the release of “Smile” and “I’m the Problem.” Last month also was slightly abnormal from a demographic standpoint, with higher voter turnout from fans of Wallen and a collection of similar artists, most of which saw reversions to their historical numbers this year. There is no cause for concern for Wallen here, although a weak performance in April’s upcoming voting could be concerning after his album announcement. I expect to see him bounce back quickly.
Quick Hits
- Remember last month when, in this very same spot of the article, we talked about the “inauguration bump” Carrie Underwood and Parker McCollum experienced after getting some publicity right before the February voting? Unsurprisingly, those gains proved illusory as both reverted to their normal levels of Interest, with Carrie dropping 5 points and Parker dropping 2.5 points since last month. It continues the trend where interest movement based on music releases tends to be lasting, and interest movement based on headlines is illusory. Does anyone remember when Chris Young broke into the CC50 last January after his well-publicized Nashville arrest? Probably not, and that says something.
- Jon Pardi has been mired in a months-long swoon but showed some signs of life, getting a 3-point bump in Interest in advance of Honkytonk Hollywood coming on April 11th. The California native broke out in a big way, rolling out hit after hit on his debut album, California Sunrise. “Dirt on My Boots,” “Night Shift,” “Heartache on the Dancefloor,” and “Head Over Boots” were just a handful of the songs that won over country listeners with their fun, rollicking feel and neotraditional sound. Since then, though, the country world has seemingly passed him by with raspier, less produced sounds gaining the upper hand over the glossier Bakersfield production on his follow-up Heartache Medication and Mr. Saturday Night albums. This next album could be decisive in determining his career trajectory, but it looks like he’s off to a good start, given these preliminary numbers.
- Overall listener interest rose substantially in March, with an Interest percentage of 39.5% (indicating that the average artist on the CC50 has 4 in 10 audience members interested in their releases), up two full points from last month’s mark of 37.6%. This also marks the highest Interest since July of last year, an indicator that interest in country music is highest in the spring/summer when many of the biggest releases happen, and activities like spring break and summer parties boost music consumption/interest. The overall vote count was 360,406.
Wildcard Watch
2025 has continued to be unfriendly to wildcards, as the most recent batch disappointed. Marlowe, Ballerini, and Smith all dropped out as quickly as they had returned, while Rucker unconvincingly clung to the 45th spot to live another month. HARDY fared only somewhat better, with his 25% Interest and 41st ranking failing to inspire, but still indicates a stay in the CC50 of likely at least 3 months. I’ve heard rumors of him working on new, more country-sounding music that could give him the boost he needs to climb back up in the rankings after last year’s collapse.
March’s Wildcard voters were optimistic in March, with all 5 of the promoted artists posting interest of over 50%. That said, I would be surprised to see any of these five clear 25% in April’s CC50 voting, as the CC50 voter base doesn’t completely align with the CC50 Wildcard voting base and tends to be tougher on artists in general. Turnpike Troubadours and Braxton Keith led the way, breaking 60% Interest, followed by 49 Winchester, Sturgill Simpson, and Brad Paisley. None of these artists are strangers to the CC50 promotion/demotion system. Still, I give Braxton Keith the best odds of making a lasting stay, as he has a dedicated, if small, fanbase, and his release of “Bye in a Goodbye” in March will give him an edge over the other wildcards in April’s voting. Another Wildcard voting thing to note: Charley Crockett narrowly missed promotion by 2 points but saw a major boost leading up to his release of Lonesome Drifter in March. We haven’t seen Charley in over a year, back in February 2024, and that was his only appearance ever in the CC50, but he seems to have some real momentum behind him right now.
While these Wildcards can dream of a Cinderella run in the CC50, we’re unfortunately already out of Cinderellas after just the first week of March Madness. It turns out college basketball is as susceptible to the transfer bug as football. But hey, the Vols are still in it, so life is good as long as they don’t run into Purdue (I still have nightmares about Carsen Edwards and Zach Edey). Enjoy the basketball and the Spring weather, and I’ll see ya here in April!
