Despite the best efforts of IG story glitches, the December CC50 voting results are here and evidently none the worse for the wear. The holidays are always a slow time for country music and social media in general, probably because evidently y’all have better things to do than listen to writers ramble about nerdy statistics (I know, shocking, right?). With that in mind, we’ll do what we can to keep this month light and save the 2023 overview stats for January. Buckle in, let’s get this show on the road!
The top of the chart remained fairly stable since the last time we saw it in November, with the most notable move being Stapleton sliding behind Wallen and Combs into 5th. Gossett and Flores made major gains moving into the mid-20s of the rankings and look primed to continue their climb. Lee Brice was the only existing artist to fall out of the rankings this month, as the other 4 spots were taken up with the rest of November’s wildcards. Munsick nearly overtook Rucker but came up empty by a mere 24 votes.
The elephant in the room is that the right-most column in the above table no longer equals the difference between the November and December columns. Moving forward, for the Biggest Risers and Fallers sections we’re going to use a metric that adjusts the raw increase or decrease by the overall monthly market trend. In other words, if an artist sees a 2% increase in interest but the overall market interest also increases 2%, the artist’s market-adjusted increase would be 0%. If the overall market interest decreased by 2%, the artist’s market-adjusted increase would be 4%. This allows us to see how the artists performed relative to each other.
With that housekeeping out of the way, we unsurprisingly saw Gossett and Flores continue their ascent up the charts. Flores’ recent album release was his strongest to date in my opinion, and y’all seem to agree. His distinctive storytelling and heartfelt delivery continue to win new fans as he moves into the top half of the rankings. Dylan Gossett similarly has had a breakout year, making a strong contention for CC New Artist of the Year despite falling to Flores.
On the other end of the spectrum, we see a few artists sliding dangerously close to the cut line. Anthony’s precipitous and predictable drop-off over the last few months has left him below 30% in the “Agree” column for the first time since the launch of CC50. Whiskey Myers, a wildcard entry last month, and Thomas Rhett, a former mainstay who has had an unremarkable year outside of “Mamaw’s House,” find themselves in a similar predicament. I would be surprised if any of them fell completely off the chart in January, but it could happen by February barring a major swing in sentiment.
Quick Hits
-Any hopes that Stapleton might get a voting boost from his November album release Higher proved faulty, as he actually saw the third biggest slide of any artist this month. While unlikely that this portends some sort of sea-change in Stapleton’s popularity (I’ll give you a hint: he’s still wildly popular), it is a sign that at the very least, Higher hasn’t landed quite the way he would have hoped. Still, audience reactions to albums can be notoriously slow, as they discover more songs from them, so I wouldn’t close the book on this album yet, it just wasn’t an instant hit.
-Riley Green’s ascent over the last few months has slotted him comfortably in a tier just below the Big 5, but still well ahead of the rest of the pack. He feels like an artist with a lot of great music but missing that one signature album that could launch him up to the heights of Bryan, Combs, Johnson, Wallen, and Stapleton.
-The overall mood this month was pretty similar to November, with voters moving just a touch in the pessimistic “Disagree” direction, but mostly at the expense of the “No Opinion” voting rather than the “Agree” voting. The overall vote count was also slightly lower, largely due to IG not letting a large chunk of voters interact with stories for a few days, but engagement among those who did vote went up (voting on more artists rather than just the first few).
-It was a bad month to be a wildcard, with four of November’s debuts making a one-and-done appearance. This is largely by design, it is hard to climb out of the bottom 5 story spots (think of it as a “home-field advantage” for artists above them who have already earned their spots) without a large ground-swell of support, which was largely absent for the November debutants. I anticipate eventually having a group of 10-15 “AAAA” artists that rotate in and out of the rankings: too good to be left out of the rankings altogether, but not popular enough to earn a permanent spot.
-Okay, I’ll admit it: until recently, I hadn’t really gotten the Noah Kahan appeal and found myself firmly in the “he’s another Zach Bryan knockoff but we’ll include him because he’s popular” camp. But as I’ve spent more time in New England this fall (or the last month or so, “stick season”) and gotten to know the culture and people there better, his lyrics have really come to life. While he sounds very little like our favorite country crooners out of Tennessee or Texas or West Virginia, I think the argument can be made that he represents the “country” spirit of New England. The same stories and emotions are there, just through a different, ultra-regional lens. So, yes, I hear the vocal minority complaining about his inclusion, but the majority of y’all think he belongs and I’m on board now as well.
Wildcards to Watch
I know there’s been a lot of hoopla about how hard it is for a wildcard to climb out of the bottom 5 slots and earn a permanent place in the rankings – and it’s absolutely true. That said, I think we have two strong contenders in this month’s wildcards to not only survive another month but perhaps even move into the mid-table range. Red Clay Strays, buoyed by “Wondering Why’s” success, and Treaty Oak Revival, fresh off the release of Have A Nice Day, have been quietly building support in the Wildcard voting the last few months, finally breaking through in a big way in December. Of course, anything can happen when they get thrown in with the big boys in the CC50 in January, but a lot of the pieces are there: passionate and vocal fans, recent successful releases, and an upward voting trajectory. I’m excited to see where these groups land.
Lyric of the Month
“Some guy won Olympic gold
Eight years ago, a distance runner
And that makes a lot of sense
This place is such great motivation
For anyone tryna move
The fuck away from hibernation”
-Noah Kahan, Homesick
Some of the best lyrics are those that are simultaneously hyper-specific and yet broadly relatable. Of course, those things often work against each other, forcing writers to either write too niche or bland of a song. But every once in a while, we get a dinger and Noah Kahan pulls it off here. In the middle of a rather clever opening verse painting a dreary picture of a small New England town and turning the meaning of “homesick” on its head, we get this hilarious anecdote about an Olympic runner from this backwoods town, who clearly achieved his success trying to, ahem, run his way out of town. Yet this very specific story lands because every small-towner has a requisite “famous person” we tell visitors about. Maybe they played a few games for the Steelers back in the 80s, maybe they opened for one of Garth Brooks’s tours, or maybe they were a war hero from a century or two ago. By including this anecdote, Noah is acting as our “tour guide” to the small town, simultaneously cracking a joke and evoking a common experience almost all of us have. This is the kind of writing Nashville could use a lot more of.
Well, that wraps it up for this column and the CC50 for the year. 2023’s been a great year here at CC, thanks to all of y’all and your supporting projects like this. I’m excited to see where the next year takes us at Country Central and specifically how we can grow these rankings and columns. Wishing y’all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year from all of us here at CC!
