Two years ago, in September 2023, I finally convinced my benevolent overlords at Country Central that what the world really needed was a monthly survey to build one of the leading views into listener interest in the industry, and more importantly, a goofy column each month recapping the results that almost no one would read. Well, the survey was a much bigger success than I could have ever imagined, and 10,313,183 votes later, the CC50 is a statistical playground of data that I’ve only scratched the surface of with a toothpick. Against all odds, the column has chugged merrily alongside, as evidenced by you sitting here and reading this. Somewhere between the interminable sports references, punctuation inconsistencies (how are you supposed to choose between: and -, anyways??), and rambling thoughts, we’ve been able to piece together enough interesting musical and statistical tidbits to give y’all an entertaining 10-minute read every month.
To celebrate this 2-year milestone, we’ll take a step back in this month’s column and take a look at the CC50 from a total view, as we sometimes do. Below are the current rankings and Interest compared to the 2023 numbers. If you take a good look, you’ll immediately notice that 4 of the current top 10, including the #1 spot, weren’t even in the CC50 when we launched this 2 years ago. In addition, 19 of the original artists are no longer in the CC50 (RIP Dan + Shay and Maren Morris; your sub-15 % Interest marks still hold the record for the worst interest % scores ever).
Biggest Risers
Most of these birds-eye lookbacks we do here in Inside the CC50 tend to focus on the epic surges of wildcards (think Zach Top, Ella Langley, or more recently, Gavin Adcock) or collapses out of the CC50 entirely (like HARDY or Oliver Anthony). For good reason too, because those are some of the most important stories in country music over the last 2 years. That said, it can often lead to smaller stories being overlooked. For this article, we will only examine CC50 members who were also in the rankings at the start. That immediately gives us a surprising top 5 biggest risers. We’ve discussed Barber in here, and Riley Green has had a very successful two years, but these five have received very little airplay, primarily due to their consistently high scores. Aldean has kept his loyal following in the twilight of his career, with a huge hit in 2023’s Try That in a Small Town. Flores has turned himself into a household name with two fantastic albums since the CC50’s launch, and my favorite song from 2024, “Sober Sundays” with the Castellows. Luke Bryan is a little more surprising to see his Interest% increase over the last two years, but ‘Mind of a Country Boy‘ was entirely pleasant, and hey, a brand name is a brand name.
Biggest Fallers
On the more ignominious side of things, Zach Bryan has had a rough go of things after nearly a year of undisputed reigning on top of the CC50. Tough newscycles have followed one after another, and the underproduced acoustic fatigue has dinged artists all across the rankings. Still, over half of listeners are interested in new ZB music, albeit at a lower rate than the remarkable 80% support he received in 2023. Songwriter darlings ERNEST and CWG have struggled to connect with their audiences. In ERNEST’s case, I think it is as much a result of Wallen and Big Loud’s influence as it is not carrying as much cache as it did in 2023. I’m still partial to his NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE album, but who am I to force well-written music with beautiful traditional production on anyone? Industry darlings BZ and Lainey looked poised to take over the music scene in 2023 (#9 and #11 respectively), but milquetoast releases and lack of standout tracks have doomed them to the mid-30s Interest quagmire. Still, both are young and talented enough to win back listener interest, and tracks like “Holy Smokes” and “Out of Oklahoma” make it easy to dream of their possibilities.
Quick Hits
- In this column, we spend a lot of time (okay, okay, more like all our time) looking at what is changing in the country music landscape. From Oliver Anthony’s flareout and Zach Bryan’s recent implosion to the summer of Post Malone and Zach Top’s wildcard climb, we’ve analyzed and overanalyzed every trend and piece of white noise from here to Luckenbach. But what about what hasn’t changed in the 2 years of the CC50? Well, being told that the listener-voted CC50 rankings are “all wrong” in the Instagram comment section, for one. But in all seriousness, this question intrigued me, and sure enough, two standout artists have had almost no movement or callouts in this column. Who are these stolid, immovable bastions?
- Chris Stapleton and Parker McCollum instantly made sense to me when I ran the numbers, and they stood out amongst the ever-shifting crowds. Both were established brands at the launch of the CC50, so there was really no one “discovering” them in the last two years. Both of them have a unique appeal that has attracted a stable and loyal listening base, which has been bolstered by a few inoffensive releases from each since the launch of the CC50. The chart below is a truly remarkable illustration of consistency. No real seasonality to either artist, although Stapleton is *maaaybe* a little more popular in winter than summer, but that’s kinda stretching it.
- Speaking of things staying constant, another analysis I conducted for this article turned out remarkably consistent results. I calculated the average Interest Rate for the 1st, 25th, and 50th placed artists for each month of the last two years and plotted them out. As I spoiled already, there hasn’t been much change – first-place artists have pretty consistently scored about 75% Interest, with 25th place at about 30% and 50th at 20%. There has been a slight drop-off for the 1st-place artists in recent months (which is accentuated when considering the entire top five). Regular. Regular readers of this column will recall that trend being discussed over the last few months. Also notable is the greater disparity between the top handful of artists and the average artists (proxied by the 25th place) compared to the gap between the average artists and those in the demotion zone. That’s the same reason why artists with Interest% in the 20s and 30s have much more volatility in their rankings than the artists with 50%+ Interest; there’s just a lot more of them.
- Overall listener interest was strong in September, with an Interest percentage of 40.8% (indicating that the average artist on the CC50 has 4 in 10 audience members interested in their releases). The overall vote count also increased slightly to 311,278. This was slightly better than the CC50 historical average Interest figure of 38.8%, but slightly worse than the CC50 historical vote total, which stood at 412,504.
It’s hard to believe this is the 24th time we’ve sat down together in this column to talk about country music and data tables. I guess it is true that time flies when you’re having fun. When I wrote the first one of these, I had just leaped, moving back to Tennessee, where I hadn’t lived since I was playing t-ball. Erik Ainge was still under center for the Vols, and as I sit writing this on the porch, listening to my wife play piano inside, I can’t imagine calling anywhere else home. Country music and all y’all have been the constant through every step of these past 2 years, and I can’t wait to see where the next 2 years take us. But for now, we’ll turn our sights to the immediate horizon and October’s voting, which is just a week away. Until I see y’all then, take care and enjoy that apple cider while pretending 80 degree weather is fall, one of the oldest Southern traditions!
