Speaker 1: If you're a newer artist only has one or two
Speaker 1: hits and it spends fifty weeks on the chart and
Speaker 1: it tests well as a public heer. That's the kind
Speaker 1: of hit you want more than a song by Luke
Speaker 1: or Morgan or somebody that's just gonna fly up and
Speaker 1: come back down.
Speaker 2: Episode four sixty five Drew Baldridge, who was on weeks ago.
Speaker 2: His whole story is had a record deal, lost a
Speaker 2: record deal because his record company went could put years
Speaker 2: and years, struggled to get by with playing people's backyards,
Speaker 2: had a song go viral, played more backyards.
Speaker 3: Then it was like, I'm just gonna.
Speaker 2: Start my own label, run his own label now, and
Speaker 2: he has a soul them that's about to go number one.
Speaker 4: It is a wild story.
Speaker 2: If you get a couple of minutes, go back a
Speaker 2: few episodes, listen to that.
Speaker 5: Drew Baldridge show.
Speaker 2: What he's been able to do with the resources he
Speaker 2: has had quite amazing. But I wanted to bring him
Speaker 2: in again and not just talk about that because he
Speaker 2: had to learn so much about the industry. Also, Chris Owen,
Speaker 2: somebody that followed on social media. He is a savant
Speaker 2: with music data.
Speaker 5: And he worked in radio up in the Northeast.
Speaker 2: Now he works for corn Man Records, right, Cornman Music, Yeah,
Speaker 2: corn Man, it's corn Man is a Cornman or corn
Speaker 2: Man Okay, And so the guy he's like a rain
Speaker 2: man of like musical facts and why I sort of
Speaker 2: following what social media was. He just randomly pos statistics
Speaker 2: all the time. But he has a really good idea
Speaker 2: of what's happening now in the music industry, like the
Speaker 2: industry part of it. And you know, we have some
Speaker 2: ideas and how we can fix it, some ideas and
Speaker 2: how we've screwed it up.
Speaker 5: So Eddie's also here.
Speaker 2: But we had a roundtable with Drew Baldridge, which you
Speaker 2: can go Drew Baldridge Music, Chris Owen at Chris Owen Country, Oh, Edward,
Speaker 2: and myself. This is episode four sixty five. This one
Speaker 2: was super fun. This is definitely in the weeds, meaning
Speaker 2: we talk about a lot of inside industry. They call
Speaker 2: it inside baseball, although there will be no baseball discussed
Speaker 2: episode four to sixty five of the Bobby Cast. Something
Speaker 2: in this will get me in trouble for sure, but
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoy it. So the first time we've
Speaker 2: done this this is like a panel where we're just
Speaker 2: gonna talk about music from the different Oh, my shoes
Speaker 2: are in here. I was doing a job interview with
Speaker 2: somebody a few minutes ago. I let my shoes right
Speaker 2: in the floor in the studio.
Speaker 4: Hey, you can't see it on the cameras though.
Speaker 5: Thanks true.
Speaker 6: Yeah, oh you're Birkenstocks.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: I was down here like twenty minutes ago interviewing someone
Speaker 2: for a position, and my shoes are just right in
Speaker 2: the floor. My bad. So okay, I want to intruce everybody.
Speaker 2: Chris Owen, I know Chris from Twitter. I don't know Chris,
Speaker 2: but I know Chris from Twitter because he's always like
Speaker 2: shut up. He's always like, seventeen years ago, this was
Speaker 2: the number seven song according to all diaries in the Meridian,
Speaker 2: Mississippi market.
Speaker 5: He's so detailed, he knows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sounds much cooler than what I do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Chris, what's the deal?
Speaker 2: Like, what what are you doing now? Because you live
Speaker 2: here now?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Because when I start first started following you, I think
Speaker 2: you're like upstate New.
Speaker 3: York YEP, Western New York YEP. From Buffalo.
Speaker 5: So what do you do now? What's your job?
Speaker 1: I am the creative director at Cornman Music with Brett
Speaker 1: James and Nate Lowry.
Speaker 5: Oh so you get a real job.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What's really cool is and I could be wrong with this,
Speaker 2: but and we've had a couple of people in here
Speaker 2: who have really prominent positions in the Nashville music community
Speaker 2: who started out writing comments or tweeting, and people went, oh,
Speaker 2: they actually kind of know what they're talking about. Let
Speaker 2: me learn more about them than it was. Oh, they
Speaker 2: actually do know, let me hire them.
Speaker 5: Is that kind of what happened for you.
Speaker 3: That's pretty much how it happened.
Speaker 5: How did that job position come about?
Speaker 1: I mean I was coming down here for like a
Speaker 1: year and a half before I actually got hired. So
Speaker 1: I didn't think I was going to do the music
Speaker 1: industry thing. I thought I was just.
Speaker 3: Going to do radio forever.
Speaker 1: And then I had one interview that turned into two
Speaker 1: interviews and three and then it's kind of snowballed. And
Speaker 1: so I met Jesse Frazier, and Jesse's written a bunch
Speaker 1: of hits before, and he put me in touch with
Speaker 1: then Vaughn, who who runs Warner Chapel, and Ben put
Speaker 1: me in touch with Brett James, and Nate Lowry not
Speaker 1: with them for about an hour. I thought it went great.
Speaker 1: Didn't know much about corn Man, but I knew a
Speaker 1: lot about Brett. And then a week and a half later,
Speaker 1: I get the call asking if I.
Speaker 3: Wanted the job.
Speaker 5: So what job were you doing?
Speaker 1: I was doing radio, So I actually got promoted to
Speaker 1: the assistant PD back in Buffalo at the station I
Speaker 1: worked at last summer.
Speaker 5: Is there like a wing place there that's awesome? For real?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Like, I haven't found good wings yet in Nashville, okay,
Speaker 1: so and please tell me if you found them, so
Speaker 1: wings here?
Speaker 5: Yeah okay?
Speaker 2: But also I don't have the palette to understand what
Speaker 2: a great wing is. But sometimes the cliche isn't always true,
Speaker 2: meaning Buffalo, the inventor of the Buffalo wing must have
Speaker 2: the greatest Buffalo wings.
Speaker 5: But you're saying they do.
Speaker 3: They do.
Speaker 1: You just gotta know what places to go to, so
Speaker 1: don't go to the quote unquote tourist traps.
Speaker 5: BW three in Buffalo.
Speaker 3: It's like the office where Michael stop.
Speaker 2: He's in New York and he's gonna get the New
Speaker 2: York slo I, but he goes to uh yeah, So.
Speaker 6: You're telling you're telling me wings are from Buffalo, Like,
Speaker 6: that's why they're called buffalos.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're Buffalo's.
Speaker 4: I mean there's a there's a like og spot there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, mind blown.
Speaker 1: I did not know that the actual sauce and everything
Speaker 1: you know Butters and Frank's red Hot is.
Speaker 5: Where did you grow up?
Speaker 3: Buffalo? Oh that's home born and raised.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so and said, I say this in the
Speaker 2: most positive way because I am one as well.
Speaker 5: You're a nerd I am now about music and dad, yeah, and.
Speaker 3: Not a nerd about anything else.
Speaker 2: But I think that's what got you here again to
Speaker 2: say that in the most complimentary way.
Speaker 5: When did you become so nerdy about music?
Speaker 1: I think it was like maybe around middle school or
Speaker 1: high school, where I would listen to the countdown shows.
Speaker 1: I would listen to like Lon Helton and Bob Kingsley,
Speaker 1: And then I found out that you actually see these
Speaker 1: charts online a week before they actually have them on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then that just opened up a whole new world,
Speaker 1: and I started doing like predictions for the chart and
Speaker 1: all this stuff and wasting class time. And I don't
Speaker 1: know it, like it always fascinated me to do that.
Speaker 2: Did you ever reach out to any of the Countdown guys,
Speaker 2: like any of the host or anything, or even in
Speaker 2: local the local I think I.
Speaker 1: Used to like write some stuff for them, you know
Speaker 1: where you do like the email or like you try
Speaker 1: to send a letter to Bob Kingsley and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Ever get on the air, and I would like no,
Speaker 1: And I would reach out to the local station that
Speaker 1: I got hired at years later about the charts and
Speaker 1: about music and became friends with Brett Allen who does
Speaker 1: mid Days up there, and.
Speaker 3: So I would like reach out, but I wouldn't. Like
Speaker 3: I didn't think I could.
Speaker 1: Make a career out of radio or make a career
Speaker 1: certainly at the music industry until like years later, and
Speaker 1: my dad's like, you can actually go to college for
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 2: And also in here is Drew Baldridge, who I don't know.
Speaker 2: He runs a label, he's an artist. He digs ditches.
Speaker 2: If the ditch will actually get you.
Speaker 5: To number one, he'll dig Yes, where are you this week?
Speaker 5: As we number eight?
Speaker 4: Right now?
Speaker 5: What's hold on? Chris? What the advanced show?
Speaker 3: Do you still keep up with the chart?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do, It's like less time now just because I'm
Speaker 1: so busy every day, but I try to like log
Speaker 1: onto the media base account as much as possible.
Speaker 5: How's Chris's momentum?
Speaker 1: Yeah, about to say my momentums.
Speaker 5: How's Drew's momentum right now? At eight?
Speaker 3: It's doing great?
Speaker 1: And what makes it more impressive is the fact that
Speaker 1: you have Morgan has two songs one with Post right
Speaker 1: now in the top three or top two, and then
Speaker 1: you have the Cody Johnson single and the Shaboozia thing,
Speaker 1: which is this flying up. Sure, there's so much competition
Speaker 1: right now and Drew is still crushing it.
Speaker 2: How do you feel, Drew about your spot? Do you
Speaker 2: feel are you getting tighter every week? Going just last
Speaker 2: another week? Get me one more spot?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I feel I'll be honest, Like when we were here
Speaker 8: last time a couple of weeks ago, I was like
Speaker 8: pretty stressed, you know, of like what's going to happen?
Speaker 8: And now I feel like we're in a good groove.
Speaker 4: Like every week.
Speaker 5: Oh no, you don't want to get in that place.
Speaker 2: I know that's the worst place to be, Like, dud confidence.
Speaker 8: Is deadly really good though, just like Chris that I've
Speaker 8: just been watching it and seeing, like you know, our
Speaker 8: upspins and radio friends that you know. I think the
Speaker 8: coolest thing is they are cheering us on like the
Speaker 8: the you know, obviously we did this kind of by ourselves,
Speaker 8: crazy way.
Speaker 4: We talked about it.
Speaker 8: Last time, and they are hitting me up like, we
Speaker 8: want to see this happen for you, you know, we
Speaker 8: want to try to try to champion that.
Speaker 5: Hey, what do you think about Drew song? Does this
Speaker 5: good or suck? It's awesome.
Speaker 4: He's got to say that I'm here. I'm here, Bob,
Speaker 4: I trust me.
Speaker 5: He doesn't have to say that. No, not at all. Drew,
Speaker 5: you have the odd roll.
Speaker 2: Of spearheading your entire promotion you as an artist. It's
Speaker 2: a multi pronged approach to having a record that's number one,
Speaker 2: but you're all the prongs.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And since we talked last week, talked on here
Speaker 8: about maybe signing with UT I actually got a booking
Speaker 8: agent now.
Speaker 4: I went with UTA, which is super exciting.
Speaker 8: So I don't have to book my own shows now,
Speaker 8: which I was doing for the last year five years.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Bobby.
Speaker 2: He's got himself to a numberrate by himself. But I
Speaker 2: take it for one interview where we're talking, I'm totally
Speaker 2: kidding when I said.
Speaker 8: But yeah, it's been you know, super super crazy ride.
Speaker 8: And I think, now what's the hardest thing is enjoying
Speaker 8: it because everybody's like, what's next, what's your next single?
Speaker 4: Where are you at with that?
Speaker 8: And I'm just like, dang, dude, I just feel like
Speaker 8: I've been fighting goliath this whole time, and now like
Speaker 8: I'm having trouble enjoying the top ten because I'm stressed
Speaker 8: about what the next single is and and because this
Speaker 8: town moves so fast all the time, and is that
Speaker 8: next single gonna be me again by myself?
Speaker 4: Right now? Yeah? You know, I don't have like a
Speaker 4: bunch of labels calling or anything.
Speaker 2: I would still say. I would say, no, it will
Speaker 2: not be by yourself. That's what I would guess. Listen,
Speaker 2: Success draws attention, draws people who want to make money,
Speaker 2: and if they say you can make the money, I
Speaker 2: mean this.
Speaker 5: Is we're in capitalist world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: I think you just got a booking agent. Far too
Speaker 2: late for that to actually have happened. But it's gonna
Speaker 2: this stuff's gonna start stumbling in when you're not even
Speaker 2: gonna want some of it. Honestly, You're gonna have learned
Speaker 2: things where you're going, Oh, I don't even need to
Speaker 2: have this type of person because I know how to
Speaker 2: do it, or I don't have to have a full
Speaker 2: capacity person.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and I think I'm to that point where I
Speaker 8: do want somebody, you know, if anybody's.
Speaker 4: Listening out there, and once it's time in a record deal,
Speaker 4: come on.
Speaker 2: But but okay, great, great point you do. But I
Speaker 2: would say, like a Cody Johnson, for example, signs to Warner,
Speaker 2: but still he had created a business, his own path,
Speaker 2: owns owns basically everything, had the leverage to make that
Speaker 2: deal a little better. I think you'll have either the
Speaker 2: leverage to make it a little better or not take one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is the best place to be, do you know
Speaker 2: at the Cody Johnson situation?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure he has. He has one of the
Speaker 1: best record deals in town. He gets i mean full
Speaker 1: creative control, and he gets so much of his music
Speaker 1: back in terms of just you know, the masters and
Speaker 1: money and all that. And I mean he had all
Speaker 1: the leverage before he signed with Warner. He could have
Speaker 1: just like stayed Indie and still sold out every single
Speaker 1: show he played. But he decided to part orner with
Speaker 1: Warner because it was the best opportunity to help him
Speaker 1: with mainstream radio, but still keep all the stuff that
Speaker 1: he wanted to keep.
Speaker 2: So it's like, what advice the world would you give
Speaker 2: Drew here about because he's gonna he's going to have
Speaker 2: labels coming at him and it may not be the
Speaker 2: biggest or it may not be the most money, or
Speaker 2: it might be right or maybe people that can provide
Speaker 2: a certain type of service that you need. What what
Speaker 2: advice would you give Drew about labels when they come calling?
Speaker 1: I would say, definitely try to explore every single option
Speaker 1: in terms of what what does this record deal give
Speaker 1: to me that I can't do on my own? And
Speaker 1: what do I need help with? What do I not
Speaker 1: need help with? And then all of the you know,
Speaker 1: all the money that you could be making with a
Speaker 1: record deal, and how did the masters look and all
Speaker 1: this other stuff. You have the factor and so definitely
Speaker 1: don't like take the first thing that's offered to you.
Speaker 1: And again you you know, I mean, Drew holds all
Speaker 1: the leverage right now. And when you have a number
Speaker 1: one song like this where you're doing it all yourself, Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: I think a problem that you could get into as well,
Speaker 2: and it's a great problem to have. And I have
Speaker 2: a bit of this where I just did everything myself
Speaker 2: for so long that it's just expected, even though I
Speaker 2: have teams that I'm just gonna do it myself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, where they're.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, you know that he's already done this. It's
Speaker 2: like even the radio show when I started, I was
Speaker 2: paying for the whole thing. I was funding the whole thing,
Speaker 2: even the syndication. I was buying the equipment. I was
Speaker 2: calling the stations. I was hustling station. I was losing money,
Speaker 2: broken equipment didn't work half the time. We were syndicating
Speaker 2: the like two cities, I'm not I'm sure they're real cities,
Speaker 2: you know. And so but because I made it work
Speaker 2: without any sort of budget for.
Speaker 5: Promotion, like oh, we don't have given promotion. He can
Speaker 5: do it himself.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 8: And see, that's something that I think about all the
Speaker 8: time now, is like, you know, if you go to
Speaker 8: one of these labels, I know how it works, you know.
Speaker 5: So they can't really pull the wool over. They can't.
Speaker 4: There's no wool, you know.
Speaker 8: Like there I'm gonna know, like, hey, did you call
Speaker 8: so and so to about this?
Speaker 4: Because that's what we did.
Speaker 8: On this last one, and I think I don't know
Speaker 8: if that's a good thing or a bad thing in
Speaker 8: their eyes, but I will say, like I do have
Speaker 8: a problem now of a little bit of like control
Speaker 8: of my business and what's going on, because I'm like,
Speaker 8: I've been doing this alone for a long time and
Speaker 8: it's all your money now, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4: All my money.
Speaker 8: I fund it all, you know, and it's it's a
Speaker 8: lot when you start looking back at it, but obviously
Speaker 8: it's an investment in us moving forward. But yeah, just
Speaker 8: like you said, funding your own show, buying your own gear,
Speaker 8: you know, it's like that's what we're doing right now,
Speaker 8: funding it, buying it, going on tour, paying for the guys.
Speaker 8: And I saw your post just last week breakdown of
Speaker 8: artists pay you know, and stuff that's real, you know,
Speaker 8: of like artists normally makes about fifteen percent when after
Speaker 8: the show's done or whatever. We're very lucky that the
Speaker 8: Masters don't do that.
Speaker 2: But but what do you Chris with with TikTok? The
Speaker 2: longevity of songs and we can even say chart specific,
Speaker 2: how has TikTok affected that?
Speaker 3: I think it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: It's changed a lot in the past two or three
Speaker 1: years where I think three years ago you saw radio
Speaker 1: stations really not not that they didn't pay attention to TikTok,
Speaker 1: they just didn't jump on the old trend right when
Speaker 1: it was happening. And then after Last Night by Morgan,
Speaker 1: they're like, no, we're gonna like jump on this immediately.
Speaker 1: You're seeing it with the Shaboozie song right now, like
Speaker 1: radio loves it and people love it.
Speaker 5: Fought it though for a long time too, right, I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Mean it's almost like you have to start playing when
Speaker 3: it's that success.
Speaker 2: Walker Hayes was the first one that I saw and
Speaker 2: see like, yeah, radio fight, but then lose and they
Speaker 2: were like fine, we'll freaking play and it was massive
Speaker 2: and it tested massive. But it's like I think that
Speaker 2: taught radio lesson like sometimes get out of your own way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it still doesn't all the way all the time.
Speaker 2: Most of the time it doesn't.
Speaker 8: And that's what our song was at, you know. But
Speaker 8: it took two years to like put it out to radio.
Speaker 5: But you mentioned Applebe's in the song.
Speaker 4: It would have worked.
Speaker 8: But I just think too, like the testing is what
Speaker 8: is so big, and they send it out to their listeners.
Speaker 4: They already know it because of this.
Speaker 2: App great point about testing, because research, testing, whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call it, what happens is at least my verse.
Speaker 2: And I haven't been in the music part of the
Speaker 2: world I'm in in years, right, So I play a
Speaker 2: song if I like it, but I don't get involved
Speaker 2: in that anymore. I'm just there to create compelling content
Speaker 2: with my buddy Eddie, and then we tour and then
Speaker 2: we come home.
Speaker 6: That's it, right, That's.
Speaker 5: All we do. So I was the first part of
Speaker 5: my Nashville stay. I was breaking artist. You could break
Speaker 5: anartists like crazy.
Speaker 2: I could at the platform I had, So I would
Speaker 2: try to understand more about the charts and what to play,
Speaker 2: when to play that type of thing.
Speaker 5: What's my point? I don't know. I was going somewhere
Speaker 5: really good. What are we talking about testing? Thank you?
Speaker 5: We researched these songs.
Speaker 2: I would never research them, but I would see the
Speaker 2: results of the research, and I sometimes I see the
Speaker 2: results now. I never asked for it, but someone will
Speaker 2: come to me and go like, hey, what do you
Speaker 2: think about this song? And I'm like, I don't know it,
Speaker 2: and they're like, what do you mean You don't know
Speaker 2: what I'm like. I hear like six songs we might
Speaker 2: play if in two hours.
Speaker 5: A song or two Yeah. Otherwise I don't listen to country.
Speaker 5: I don't. I'm not somewhe where a radio is.
Speaker 2: If I'm not working on I'm home or I'm picking
Speaker 2: songs that I like. I listened to country music, but
Speaker 2: I'm not looking for the chart the top twenty songs
Speaker 2: to play. And so they would research these songs, and
Speaker 2: what they would do is they would play they get
Speaker 2: a listener on the internet. Now it's now it's web based.
Speaker 2: For the most part, they played over the phone. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: they play all these clips hooks over the phone, and.
Speaker 8: And what's crazy is you got ten seconds. That's it
Speaker 8: a clip, that's all that matter. They rate it, and
Speaker 8: that's what's scary. Like when you send this out for me,
Speaker 8: I remember they would they would call back and be like, hey,
Speaker 8: you had a bad research and we're going to move
Speaker 8: your song down.
Speaker 4: Be like, well, what hook are you testing? Somebody?
Speaker 8: Be like oh, part of the second verse, and what
Speaker 8: was your samper can why you know.
Speaker 2: This?
Speaker 3: Here's the chorus so small too?
Speaker 1: Like with research, it's like, that's not how Dad it
Speaker 1: should work if you have such a small sample size,
Speaker 1: you're playing such a small clip of the song, and
Speaker 1: you're determining, I mean, careers like out of this, especially
Speaker 1: if it's a debut single, and basically and basically.
Speaker 5: They're like, Okay, here's a little part of a song.
Speaker 5: It's it's you ever heard this?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And do you like it? And the problem is it's
Speaker 2: hard to go do you ever heard this? To a
Speaker 2: song that's not play a lot? And they're researching a
Speaker 2: song that's not played a lot to see if people
Speaker 2: like it, but they can't like it if they haven't
Speaker 2: heard it.
Speaker 3: It's a vicious cycle.
Speaker 2: TikTok has actually fixed that so much. An example, the
Speaker 2: Alexander k Riley Green song all over TikTok right, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know who's playing it, why they're
Speaker 2: playing it, but I just wanted playing it.
Speaker 5: Because it's good. Excuse me, do you know where that is?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: That's not a radio currently, but it should be a
Speaker 1: radio because it's so big it's and I didn't look
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 2: Sometimes, like once every two or three months, I'll ask Mike,
Speaker 2: I got checked on your song the other day? Because
Speaker 2: you're fine your medium mid as the kids would say.
Speaker 2: And but I didn't even ask, And I was like,
Speaker 2: we're just gonna play it because it's ubiquitous on TikTok
Speaker 2: and Instagram.
Speaker 5: It's everywhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, everybody knows it.
Speaker 2: And I bet that song would research okay to pretty
Speaker 2: good with never being played on the radio.
Speaker 5: So I just were playing it.
Speaker 8: Well that's what we You know, a lot of stations
Speaker 8: when we first sent this out they didn't believe in
Speaker 8: my team and what we were doing because this is
Speaker 8: really hard to do. So I would just go to
Speaker 8: them and say, hey, test it, not even asking you
Speaker 8: to play it, just throw it in your research please.
Speaker 8: And it took weeks and weeks and weeks and they
Speaker 8: were like, well, we need to see you get this
Speaker 8: many stations on before we test it. And then I
Speaker 8: would hit that like please test it, and then that's
Speaker 8: what That's how we got our airplay was all by
Speaker 8: people researching and it testing in the top five, and
Speaker 8: because there.
Speaker 2: Was all over social media, they would hear it there
Speaker 2: because they weren't gonna hear it on the radio because
Speaker 2: I wasn't playing it.
Speaker 4: It was all because of social media.
Speaker 2: That's a great point that has actually helped artists in
Speaker 2: testing when the song goes viral or viral ish in
Speaker 2: the format.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't like it if you don't know it.
Speaker 2: That's always been the problem, right with the art, Like, Okay,
Speaker 2: it's at twenty eight, we're going to test it. If
Speaker 2: it does well, we'll move it up. But if it doesn't,
Speaker 2: it's like, it's twenty eight. What are you playing it overnights?
Speaker 2: People don't even get to hear it. Yeah, and you
Speaker 2: want to has something to see if people like it
Speaker 2: when they've actually never heard it, So then you're making
Speaker 2: them And I don't know many people to hear a
Speaker 2: song the first time.
Speaker 5: Ago Death Song's awesome, Yeah, I mean I.
Speaker 3: Haven't been published in all the time.
Speaker 1: It's like you play a song for you know, somebody
Speaker 1: hoping that it gets cut, and you play a verse
Speaker 1: chorus and they pass on it. It's like, man, you know,
Speaker 1: that's really not how music works in the real world.
Speaker 1: It's like you play a song and you kind of
Speaker 1: like it, and then you hear it again and again
Speaker 1: and now you love it. And we've had so many
Speaker 1: songs of you know, which is a perfect example of that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how music was to me growing up.
Speaker 1: I would hear a song more and more and I
Speaker 1: loved it more and more.
Speaker 2: So I never liked new songs when I was just
Speaker 2: a listener. I'd be like, what is something new? Third time, like, oh,
Speaker 2: I got it.
Speaker 4: Right, you love it.
Speaker 9: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
Speaker 9: and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 5: Let's do this round the room.
Speaker 2: You heard this song, it could have been on the
Speaker 2: radio or streaming, and you're like, oh my the first time,
Speaker 2: because it's only happened like two or thee times in
Speaker 2: my life where I'm like, this song is such an awesome,
Speaker 2: massive hit. You're gonna laugh at one of mine where
Speaker 2: I heard it the first time and I was like, what,
Speaker 2: this song is a monster. It doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: in your professional time. Okay, Chris, I'm sure you have
Speaker 2: one hundred of these, but what's one for you? The
Speaker 2: first time you heard it, you were like, there is
Speaker 2: no doubt this is a hit.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I think the first time
Speaker 1: it ever happened to me, I was maybe twelve thirteen.
Speaker 1: It was Mark Wills in nineteen something. First time I
Speaker 1: heard that, I'm like oh that's big that there's no
Speaker 1: way this isn't a huge hit.
Speaker 3: And it was. But there are certain songs that have
Speaker 3: come out that I thought were going to be a
Speaker 3: huge hit and it ended up like bombing.
Speaker 1: At radioh me too same and there's no more. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's one of the least favorite parts of the job,
Speaker 1: is when you're so confident in something and it just
Speaker 1: flames out it piece of like thirty six or something.
Speaker 2: And the fair thing is, which is actually unfair, The
Speaker 2: fair thing about what you're saying is that it probably
Speaker 2: wasn't even that the song wasn't awesome.
Speaker 3: You know, there's so many other factors.
Speaker 2: They didn't get strategically researched at the right time, with
Speaker 2: the right part of the music to the right sample size.
Speaker 5: Therefore it dies.
Speaker 1: It might have been bad timing, like I know, you
Speaker 1: know one example in twenty fifteen with Logan Mize can't
Speaker 1: get away from a Good Time. I think you needed
Speaker 1: a million in audience just to crack the top sixty
Speaker 1: on Billboard, and I've never seen that before, and it
Speaker 1: was just so competitive and it was bro country, and
Speaker 1: it was kind of like you're set up for failure.
Speaker 1: There's nothing you can do. It's just horrible timing and
Speaker 1: bad logistics. And it's not your fault, it's not the
Speaker 1: song's fault. There's so many factors. I mean, I wish
Speaker 1: it was just we all think the song's good, it's
Speaker 1: going to be a hit, and it's just not that
Speaker 1: way unfortunately.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean timing is such a big thing.
Speaker 8: I mean obviously for us, She Somebody's Daughter came out
Speaker 8: twenty nineteen, you know, and it did not just sit
Speaker 8: there until.
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, is that fair though, because you're labeled, I mean.
Speaker 4: My label closed.
Speaker 8: And also to Neil Towns had a song called Somebody's Daughter,
Speaker 8: so I couldn't put it out and just sit there,
Speaker 8: you know for two years until we got married, and.
Speaker 5: There wasn't the opportunity for virility as much.
Speaker 8: There and there there wasn't there was no for you
Speaker 8: page right, that did not exist, you know that for
Speaker 8: you Page coming changed artists life forever. Like I remember
Speaker 8: when that first came out, and that was like whoa,
Speaker 8: you can be discovered somewhere other than the radio or
Speaker 8: playing shows, because I mean every artist out there that
Speaker 8: before TikTok goes hey play one hundred and fifty shows
Speaker 8: a year, and all these little bars go play for
Speaker 8: fifty people.
Speaker 4: Go back and hold that was the for you page
Speaker 4: of the eighties.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you hope the one hundred people show are and
Speaker 8: then go back and then hope one hundred and fifty
Speaker 8: people show up and hopefully you can get your song
Speaker 8: played on the radio. Or you know, it was just
Speaker 8: Facebook where they already followed you.
Speaker 4: You know, it was like.
Speaker 8: There's no way to be discovered at all other than
Speaker 8: the hearing it on the radio or somebody hitting the
Speaker 8: share the share button.
Speaker 4: Maybe that was it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just wondering how many record deals twenty years
Speaker 1: ago would have been successful had you have had a
Speaker 1: TikTok or a Twitter or an Instagram or Facebook and
Speaker 1: you had DSPs.
Speaker 2: Or how many songs never became the massive like super
Speaker 2: nova as they could have been except for timing strategy,
Speaker 2: wrong clip, wrong gatekeeper who didn't like a record guy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all of that factors in.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, and it's so much even though we're talking
Speaker 2: about like the technical parts of it that.
Speaker 5: Aren't pure to the art, which they rarely are, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but relationships are still such a big part of
Speaker 2: the world. That we live in that's supposed to be
Speaker 2: just based off of audience and consumption and what do
Speaker 2: they want, It's still so relationship based. Yep, Eddie, the
Speaker 2: song that you heard that you're like, oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm going to take it back to our
Speaker 6: experience with it, because I mean, before I joined the show,
Speaker 6: we did this show. Like, I didn't listen to music
Speaker 6: like that. I didn't even think about charts or whatever.
Speaker 6: If it was good, it was good.
Speaker 3: And I liked it.
Speaker 5: I liked it.
Speaker 6: But for us, I think when Cam played Burning and Howe,
Speaker 6: that was kind of to us, like to me, like, oh,
Speaker 6: this is the song's amazing, And I mean that was
Speaker 6: part of Bobby kind of just like this song is
Speaker 6: really good. We took her on tour, we played the
Speaker 6: crap out of that song and it did end up
Speaker 6: being a big song. But we knew immediately. I mean,
Speaker 6: I don't know if you did, Buzz, I mean immediately
Speaker 6: you hear that.
Speaker 5: Song is we I'm the one that freaking made her
Speaker 5: stay and played over and over again. It changed her
Speaker 5: single that day.
Speaker 6: Well, and that could have been why I thought it
Speaker 6: was awesome too.
Speaker 2: I just saying we I like talked to the head
Speaker 2: of Sony and I was like, you got to change
Speaker 2: a single? This is yeah, this is not but it's
Speaker 2: a I remember talking to him. It's like it's a ballot,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. And I'm also I also say, I
Speaker 2: have no idea what I'm talking about, because anybody that
Speaker 2: knows what they're talking about when it comes to art
Speaker 2: has no idea what they're talking about. So but just
Speaker 2: take this as based on my experiences. I think this
Speaker 2: song x y Z and they've changed the single that day,
Speaker 2: that's it, and then.
Speaker 4: It was our biggest song.
Speaker 2: Well so, but the revision is history, right, I go
Speaker 2: change a single, they change a single.
Speaker 5: She's a star. That's revision is history.
Speaker 2: The real story is because it's easy to say that,
Speaker 2: like look at me, I'm a hero, because I got
Speaker 2: like five or six those revisionous here history stories like
Speaker 2: girl Crush, Oh I launched it. They're a massive story.
Speaker 2: That's really not how it worked. But with Cam the
Speaker 2: head of Sony Sony not Nashville, Sony, New York, because
Speaker 2: that was well yeah, he calls and it's like, what's
Speaker 2: going on? Why are you playing the song over and
Speaker 2: over again? And not mean, but like, what do you know?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I know nothing except I'm watching at
Speaker 2: the time, iTunes could dictate what my audience liked. I'm
Speaker 2: watching this in real time, and he's like, should we
Speaker 2: change it? But it's a ballad. I'm like, if you're
Speaker 2: asking me, I think ballads are better anyway. But I
Speaker 2: understand what research says. But if you want to break
Speaker 2: a new female artist at that time was more impossible.
Speaker 2: You gotta do something different. Odds are it's going to fail,
Speaker 2: but it's the only shot you have to crush.
Speaker 5: And to their credit, they flipped it.
Speaker 2: But what what really happened was after they flipped a single,
Speaker 2: it just didn't go to number one.
Speaker 5: I called Rod Phillips.
Speaker 2: Who is We've been together for twenty years, and I
Speaker 2: was like, hey, we need to bet on her.
Speaker 5: There was a movement I just started.
Speaker 2: I negotiated my contract and negotiated out an hour of
Speaker 2: national time for female artists.
Speaker 5: I was doing what I could without pandering.
Speaker 2: I was doing what I could, even behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: to at least get them to like the thirties so
Speaker 2: they'd have a shot.
Speaker 5: I was like, we and hopefully you can.
Speaker 2: So they made her the on the verge Artist, which
Speaker 2: then guarantees you so much, which then allows you to
Speaker 2: get to a place to be tested in a healthy
Speaker 2: spot where people have heard the song because they've made
Speaker 2: a big point on the verge artist with like a
Speaker 2: little thing, I'm cam, I like yellow, here's my song.
Speaker 2: And so people had heard all that, and then it
Speaker 2: naturally turned into a.
Speaker 8: Smasher and it's so interesting. You know, you're talking about ballads.
Speaker 8: That's such a big conversation.
Speaker 4: It rate.
Speaker 5: It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 2: And it's so difficult, like they act like everybody wants
Speaker 2: to have the top down in their car driving to
Speaker 2: the beach.
Speaker 8: And I sit down with the radio guy one time
Speaker 8: because this was always a big thing for us. But
Speaker 8: she's somebody's daughter, like, well, it's a ballad, and we
Speaker 8: don't play ballads. I had some people tell me straight up,
Speaker 8: we don't play ballads on our station. And then I
Speaker 8: was sitting with the radio guy one time and he said, hey, man,
Speaker 8: I got the fifty best songs of all time written
Speaker 8: down on my phone. I was like it really, He's like, yeah,
Speaker 8: check them out, and he pulled up songs jumped to me.
Speaker 8: I started reading them down.
Speaker 4: I was like, dude, you know what's crazy?
Speaker 8: He said, well, I said, all those are ballads.
Speaker 4: He was like, oh my gosh, you're right.
Speaker 8: And I was like, without ballads, what is country music?
Speaker 3: I mean that is those are the home runs, Those
Speaker 3: are the home runs.
Speaker 2: Those are stick those are mad, those are sticky. They
Speaker 2: didn't have to be number one to be sticky, though,
Speaker 2: And we're talking about number ones versus songs that last.
Speaker 8: Yeah right live like you were dying. I mean, you
Speaker 8: don't have those songs with the ballads, the dance, the dance.
Speaker 8: I mean, we can sit here and talk about it.
Speaker 5: No we can't, because I got a pickleball player.
Speaker 2: Oh yah yeah, yeah yeah, the song that I It's
Speaker 2: happened a few times because I've been very fortunate to make.
Speaker 2: I made a lot of wrong guesses too, But people
Speaker 2: don't remember the winds. It's like gambling buddies.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 5: All he does is win.
Speaker 2: No, he just tells you about the winds like those
Speaker 2: last I've made countless wrong declarations, but I've had some
Speaker 2: really big wins.
Speaker 5: Buy me a boat. I was about to say it
Speaker 5: was a big one.
Speaker 2: Chris just messaged me that before it even came out,
Speaker 2: played it whatever, girl crush. I was talking to Karen
Speaker 2: the night before and she was like, so I just
Speaker 2: started playing it over and over again, turned to the
Speaker 2: huge controversy, the best thing that ever happened for them.
Speaker 2: Then I backed away because other radisources would then go, well,
Speaker 2: he always behind it. So then I also learned the
Speaker 2: strategy of go out, take a piss on it, and then
Speaker 2: get away. Yeah, because then people would start to hold
Speaker 2: people accountable or punish them because they were sociated with me,
Speaker 2: although I don't even know them.
Speaker 5: I just liked the song.
Speaker 2: But the one that I had nothing to do with
Speaker 2: that I heard and I was like, oh, I got
Speaker 2: chill bumps on my arms because I was like, this
Speaker 2: song is so good.
Speaker 5: Let the dogs out close. It's close, It's close.
Speaker 6: Oh shoot, it's jumble warm bo.
Speaker 2: No, No, it's not pop. I was too young for that.
Speaker 2: It's it's a country song. Okay, it's I would even
Speaker 2: say it's a it's a corny country song. Were the
Speaker 2: first time I heard it, I was like, I looked
Speaker 2: at the screen at the time, it was going to
Speaker 2: scroll across your car there. Yeah what No, I didn't know,
Speaker 2: although I did go on The Good Today's Show.
Speaker 5: Mid Day after that it was meant to be, meant
Speaker 5: to be.
Speaker 2: I was like, that's the catchiest song I've ever heard
Speaker 2: in my whole life. There were like seven words to
Speaker 2: that song, and people would be like, anybody can write that, Okay.
Speaker 5: Well then do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, That's what I would get so annoyed with with
Speaker 2: when people would hate on like body like a background
Speaker 2: or meant to be like simple, but there's beauty.
Speaker 5: If you can nail simplest.
Speaker 3: It's hard to get a great melody.
Speaker 2: And it's catchy, and that song was all catchy hook
Speaker 2: and the melody of that hook.
Speaker 1: That's a corn Man song. By the way, Josh Miller
Speaker 1: was a writer for corn Man.
Speaker 2: Tell mister corn and you know what, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't like the song personally, it's fine. The song,
Speaker 2: it's fine. I don't not like it, but it's not
Speaker 2: like I'm like, that's my favorite.
Speaker 8: So I think that's one of the only few diamond
Speaker 8: songs in country history.
Speaker 2: Like part of a two B b Rex of popside
Speaker 2: got a bunch of play as well. Those are a
Speaker 2: little unfair. I'm being honest. No, I could see that,
Speaker 2: but it's just so catchy. Yeah, so I don't even
Speaker 2: love the song, but I was just like, this is
Speaker 2: a catch thing I've ever heard of my life. When
Speaker 2: I heard is Meant to Be, and that was the
Speaker 2: whole song, it to be, Baby is meant to Be,
Speaker 2: It's meant to be, I.
Speaker 4: Was like, Wow, this is the.
Speaker 5: Song I can get down with. I know the words already.
Speaker 2: I think at times people can overthink, Like you said,
Speaker 2: no ballads summer songs.
Speaker 5: I think you could go.
Speaker 3: I think overthinking it's a huge problem.
Speaker 2: Chorus a big time, big time, because well, people don't
Speaker 2: want to lose their job.
Speaker 3: Right, that's it.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to be wrong. So you end up taking
Speaker 1: no chances on everything.
Speaker 2: And if you do take somewhat of a chance, you're
Speaker 2: going to take it on a chance that has data
Speaker 2: behind it that says all of these things over the
Speaker 2: years have proven this is right.
Speaker 5: So I think you could go.
Speaker 2: Chorus verse, chorus bridge, chorus two forty massive song start
Speaker 2: with the freaking out. We were talking to Stephen Tyler
Speaker 2: in our studio with the mike's fronts were off and
Speaker 2: he was talking about sweet emotion. It's the first time
Speaker 2: I've ever thought about chorus first, and I've heard many.
Speaker 5: I've heard a few songs with chorus first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he was like, people thought we were crazy
Speaker 2: because Sweet Emotions star itself with that like.
Speaker 5: And then sweet Him.
Speaker 2: He was like, people thought we were out of our
Speaker 2: mind because we started with the chorus. And I remember thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: I guess that's not traditional. And I could see where
Speaker 2: people would think that's crazy, But I don't thinking about it,
Speaker 2: that makes a ton of sense. Hit them with what
Speaker 2: they know at the very hit him with the strongest
Speaker 2: and what they know. That's what the chorus is the catchiest,
Speaker 2: strongest part. Why not hit him right in the face
Speaker 2: with it at the beginning.
Speaker 1: We hear all the time that man like it took
Speaker 1: too long to get to the chorus. It took like
Speaker 1: a minute to get there. We're back and too long.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was crazy. They do they do like two
Speaker 5: verses in the chorus they do.
Speaker 4: At second intro. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's our part.
Speaker 1: George Straight had a hit called You'll be There in five.
Speaker 1: It went to four and I listened to that song,
Speaker 1: I think like a week or two ago. It's I mean,
Speaker 1: you got to the end of the first chorus like
Speaker 1: two twenty in it's the most I'm like, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you would never do this nowadays.
Speaker 5: There were also four and a half five minute songs.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 5: Then different time.
Speaker 4: People listen to music differently, you know, like, but.
Speaker 2: They didn't have any other choices. This is my theory.
Speaker 2: I don't think people are any better smarter like things anymore.
Speaker 2: They just had two choices. So it's listen to this
Speaker 2: seven minute thing or this six minute thing. You had
Speaker 2: no chance for an option for a two minute thing.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 5: The probably would have liked that.
Speaker 6: You would talk about a song where you were on
Speaker 6: the radio and you're like you loved it because it
Speaker 6: was your bathroom song, like well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Matchbox twenty yeah, back to Good. It's like it's
Speaker 2: like CD and five minutes and twenty seconds.
Speaker 8: It makes me think, like, what was that in the set?
Speaker 8: Rich Girl was like two forty that was a song
Speaker 8: you just wanted to play over and over. You're like
Speaker 8: holling oas, yeah, hall of Notes.
Speaker 5: Where did you play it? Oh?
Speaker 4: I didn't play it. I was just saying like that
Speaker 4: was yeah show.
Speaker 8: I just meant like that was one of my favorite
Speaker 8: songs from that time because it was like two minutes
Speaker 8: thirty seconds and it's like soon it's over. Oh I
Speaker 8: got to play this thing again, played again, played again,
Speaker 8: played again.
Speaker 2: What would you change, Chris, I'm gonna make this extremely
Speaker 2: vague because you can put any answer to it you want.
Speaker 5: What would you change about the chart process?
Speaker 3: Ooh man?
Speaker 1: I mean corporate programming is a big reason why songsters
Speaker 1: staying on the card for fifty staying on the card
Speaker 1: for fifty sixty weeks, and it I mean it's a
Speaker 1: vicious cycle like we talked about before, because that means
Speaker 1: the label has to pay more money for singles nowadays
Speaker 1: because they're pushing it longer and they stay.
Speaker 2: Explain, pay more money because people are gonna think that
Speaker 2: means you're paying money.
Speaker 1: No, they're not paying radio to play it. They're paying
Speaker 1: their promotion staff. And you might have a Northeast REP,
Speaker 1: a Southwest REP, a Midwest rep. You're paying for all
Speaker 1: their travel expenses, for flights, for rental cars, for dinners,
Speaker 1: all this other stuff you're paying the band, This stuff
Speaker 1: that the average consumer does not realize goes into trying
Speaker 1: to push a song to radio. And if you I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're promoting song for a year, that adds up
Speaker 1: to a ton of money. And there's been instances where
Speaker 1: I think it's almost made a label go broke just
Speaker 1: because it takes so long to get that song up
Speaker 1: the chart, you spend so much money to do it.
Speaker 1: I would love for it to go back twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: where you had twenty week chart runs all the time
Speaker 1: and you were able to get three singles out on
Speaker 1: one artist per year. That just doesn't happen anymore. I
Speaker 1: think it'd be a healthier way to do business nowadays
Speaker 1: for the country format, But I think just because of
Speaker 1: corporate programming and the monster that they have created, really
Speaker 1: not trying to create the monster, just that this is
Speaker 1: how we have to do things nowadays, where you'll have
Speaker 1: one song spend a year on the chart, and then
Speaker 1: it's been so long we have to move on the
Speaker 1: new music because we can't keep sending songs to radio
Speaker 1: off this one album because that isn't going to make
Speaker 1: us any kind of money.
Speaker 2: So I think one of the little tributaries that have
Speaker 2: come from that is with traditional linear trend what do
Speaker 2: you call it, terrestrial yeaes and those charts is that
Speaker 2: yet that does suck. But what it is cool now
Speaker 2: that we didn't have back then, when you did have
Speaker 2: songs that were moving faster, is that you have other
Speaker 2: places to actually quote unquote get a number one yep.
Speaker 5: Meaning And a lot of the stuff is just programmers.
Speaker 2: Like I have friends at work at serious they just
Speaker 2: picked their number one song. They don't there's no real track,
Speaker 2: but they can, right everybody can say whatever they want.
Speaker 5: It's awesome.
Speaker 2: And what I like about that is that they don't
Speaker 2: just have to go with whatever's been on the chart
Speaker 2: for forty one weeks. They can just say this is
Speaker 2: the number one. What's annoying too is they can just
Speaker 2: pick their friends the same time. Yeah, but win lose.
Speaker 2: But with streaming and streaming numbers, with TikTok, they're all
Speaker 2: these ways now to have a career and have your
Speaker 2: own version of a number one or number eleven without
Speaker 2: actually being on the charge.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And that's what's cool for an artist is like,
Speaker 8: you know, why should somebody's art.
Speaker 4: We can still put out songs.
Speaker 8: We can put out songs to DSP, Spotify, Apple Music,
Speaker 8: post about it on our socials, get people excited, and
Speaker 8: you know, you can see what raises its hand to
Speaker 8: do the next one or whatever. But you know when
Speaker 8: I first in twenty sixteen, when I first sent my
Speaker 8: first single to country radio, that was unheard of, Like
Speaker 8: you could not put another song out because if.
Speaker 5: You did, You're right, it was if.
Speaker 4: You did, they're like, oh, is he changing this?
Speaker 5: You're moving on, You're moving on and on.
Speaker 3: You must be moving your own single.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you a torpedo, And everybody'd be like, you can't
Speaker 8: put music out. Well, then you would be sitting there
Speaker 8: like these some of these songs a year on the
Speaker 8: chart and you're not allowed to put music out for
Speaker 8: a year.
Speaker 4: That was crushing careers back then.
Speaker 8: And now at least, hey, if it takes a year,
Speaker 8: which our song is probably going to take about a year,
Speaker 8: we can still put music out and not be crushed
Speaker 8: because of that because we can.
Speaker 4: Hey, Spotify, Apple, all that stuff.
Speaker 8: This is still our single obviously because it's on the radio,
Speaker 8: but this is all this other new stuff we're.
Speaker 1: Putting and you don't want to let it go either,
Speaker 1: because if you spent this long to get it to
Speaker 1: a certain point on the chart where you get this
Speaker 1: level of airplay that's helping streaming. It's like, man, if
Speaker 1: I let it go, it's gonna take forever to get
Speaker 1: back up to this.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'm already like thinking about doing this over again.
Speaker 5: You're just like, oh my god, I know it's like starting.
Speaker 4: There's just like zero. You're like, oh, man, whole other
Speaker 4: year of my.
Speaker 6: Life are the days of like the modern of the
Speaker 6: monster hits gone, Like where you know you have those
Speaker 6: multiple number one, those multiple week number ones where it's like, oh,
Speaker 6: it's this huge song, everyone will remember it. Like now
Speaker 6: it's such a quick turnover, next song, next song.
Speaker 3: I think it's getting better than it was maybe several
Speaker 3: years ago.
Speaker 8: I think too, Like there's also hits on radio that
Speaker 8: aren't hits for sure, and there are songs that aren't
Speaker 8: hits that are hurts. Yeah, like it's number one that nobody,
Speaker 8: nobody knows it, nobody knows who the artist is. It
Speaker 8: just blends in.
Speaker 2: Then there are songs like you said that maybe peak
Speaker 2: it eleven yeah, or last.
Speaker 8: Or like this Ella Ella l Engley and what you're
Speaker 8: just talking about Riley. If that doesn't go to radio,
Speaker 8: it's already a hit. It's it, and and it's super
Speaker 8: interesting how there's some songs that are bigger hits, Like
Speaker 8: sometimes number ones are like it's crazy to me, Like
Speaker 8: it's not as big as this other number one. It's
Speaker 8: not the same, you know, it's super interesting, and.
Speaker 5: There are threes that are bigger than some ones.
Speaker 1: Yes, Little Big Town Boondocks peaked at nine, and that
Speaker 1: sounds bigger than so many number ones you're having nowadays.
Speaker 8: I think number ones were bigger back then because that
Speaker 8: was the only place where like when you think about
Speaker 8: the more legitimate yeah, and I think too, like that
Speaker 8: was the only place to hear music, right, So it
Speaker 8: was like there was a.
Speaker 5: Good point, like some of the channels, all the shows
Speaker 5: are bigger.
Speaker 8: All the shows, like the Countdown was like that was
Speaker 8: you heard it there so many times and now you're like, oh,
Speaker 8: I'll listen over here, this person. There's so much music
Speaker 8: diversified them out amongst everybody. That That's one thing I've
Speaker 8: noticed last couple of years. Even when I go to
Speaker 8: award shows and watch like the hits people are singing
Speaker 8: in the crowd, you don't feel people singing as much
Speaker 8: as they do when they sing. Dolly Parton gets up
Speaker 8: there and sings one of her hits, everybody singing nine
Speaker 8: to five, you know, or like, you know, it's just
Speaker 8: a different feeling when those songs from the nineties are
Speaker 8: being sung in those award shows.
Speaker 7: I don't know why the Bobby Cast will be right back.
Speaker 7: This is the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 5: You know, Chris, you talked about a song and be
Speaker 5: on the chart for a year.
Speaker 2: I think also now there is with certain artists deservingly
Speaker 2: so they fly through the chart, they hit number one,
Speaker 2: and there it's gone, gone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So.
Speaker 2: It's almost polar somebody stays in the chart forever and
Speaker 2: it's like, come on, you can do it, you can
Speaker 2: do a buddy, come on. Or it's like a wall
Speaker 2: and song that does eleven weeks and is gone and
Speaker 2: you're like, wait, I don't even remember that as a single.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're a publisher now that I'm in
Speaker 1: the publishing world, you want the songs that stay on
Speaker 1: the chart for a year, because that means that the
Speaker 1: publisher and the writers that song are going to make
Speaker 1: more money versus something that flies up than twelve weeks
Speaker 1: and then is you know, and then is gone. Because
Speaker 1: if you're Morgan or Luke, you have so many songs
Speaker 1: in your catalog that radio still plays. It's almost like
Speaker 1: they have to pick and choose what songs to play.
Speaker 1: If you're a newer artist only has one or two
Speaker 1: hits and it spends fifty weeks on the chart and
Speaker 1: it tests well, radio is just going to keep playing
Speaker 1: that song over and over again. And as a publisher,
Speaker 1: that's the kind of you want more than a song
Speaker 1: by Luke or Morgan or somebody that's just gonna fly
Speaker 1: up and come back down.
Speaker 2: So what's the marsh to get through? What's the hardest
Speaker 2: part of the marsh of the chart?
Speaker 1: I would say probably the thirties and forties is the
Speaker 1: toughest part of the chart.
Speaker 2: If you get to what part of the chart, you
Speaker 2: kind of have a new breath of air.
Speaker 1: If you get top thirty, I think you get your
Speaker 1: second wind. I mean, especially if you have the research
Speaker 1: to back it up and you see a lot of
Speaker 1: songs not just Drew's where you get top thirty and
Speaker 1: then you go faster. Back in the day Steve Holy
Speaker 1: and Brand New Girlfriend was that where it just beent
Speaker 1: forever in like the fifties and forties, It got to
Speaker 1: the thirties and then it just started taking off. Because
Speaker 1: once it got that research back and once more people started.
Speaker 3: Believing in it. It sucks that it's that way.
Speaker 1: You have to, you know, burn through twenty thirty forty
Speaker 1: weeks in some cases to get to that point, which
Speaker 1: is a lot of money to pay staff to promote
Speaker 1: this song the radio. But I mean, if it works,
Speaker 1: it works, and you're able to hopefully be a gold
Speaker 1: title one day and be a recurrent and still get
Speaker 1: played on there.
Speaker 5: And that means a goal.
Speaker 1: Tie is it's basically a recurrent. I forgot the exact
Speaker 1: threshold for how many spins you get to.
Speaker 5: But it's just like a oh, it's a popular song
Speaker 5: that we have.
Speaker 1: Like Kenny Chasney and when the Sun Goes Down, which
Speaker 1: Brett James wrote.
Speaker 3: That's a gold title like he plugs his own stuff radio.
Speaker 2: So I mean I was an example that's good, a
Speaker 2: random example.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean Kansas are Brett James and Ashley
Speaker 1: Gourley are going to have a lot of lots of
Speaker 1: goals for you to.
Speaker 3: Go to for those guys.
Speaker 6: Is that thirty spot tough? Because radio plays the same
Speaker 6: songs over and over.
Speaker 2: Well the point of radio playing And again I'm not
Speaker 2: a music but the point of radio playing it over
Speaker 2: and over is the average person doesn't listen for that long. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So when they, let's say the average person listens for
Speaker 2: I'm going to make up a number, twenty eight minutes.
Speaker 2: That's the amount of time they can listen to a
Speaker 2: song radio, and I guess i'll speak for radio for
Speaker 2: a second. They want to make sure that when the
Speaker 2: person listened to that twenty minutes, they hear the absolute best,
Speaker 2: biggest songs.
Speaker 5: So if you're listening for two hours straight, which.
Speaker 2: Is abnormal, an abnormal amount of listening at one block
Speaker 2: of time, you're gonna hear that song an abnormal amount
Speaker 2: of times if it's the biggest and best song. So
Speaker 2: if you listen to the radio front twenty eight minutes
Speaker 2: like everybody else, you're not gonna hear the song twice.
Speaker 2: But if you listen for three hours and eighteen minutes
Speaker 2: while you're on a boat straight, you're probably gonna hear
Speaker 2: that song at least twice. And it's gonna feel like
Speaker 2: didn't I just listen to this? Chris, anything you'd like
Speaker 2: to say about what I just said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean that's going back to familiarity. Radio
Speaker 1: wants to play enough of the recurrence because that's the
Speaker 1: song that people know, and if people know them and
Speaker 1: they like them, they're gonna keep tuning in to the
Speaker 1: radio station, which means your ratings go up, you get
Speaker 1: more advertising money, and that's how radio people make money.
Speaker 1: So if you're playing stuff that people don't know, they're
Speaker 1: more inclined to turn.
Speaker 3: The station off or switch the station. So that's a
Speaker 3: big deal.
Speaker 1: And like radio wants to play enough recurrence, but they
Speaker 1: got to play a certain amount of news singles to
Speaker 1: stay on the panel, which means they get all the
Speaker 1: shows and labels and artists will come play their shows
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So it's a give and take
Speaker 1: for them.
Speaker 2: So the answer is, it feels like songs are played
Speaker 2: all the time because radio wants to make sure and
Speaker 2: that average listening span listeners hear the best songs possible.
Speaker 5: But they're not gonna do it twice, but they are
Speaker 5: going to hit it.
Speaker 2: Back when I was on pop, we did it like
Speaker 2: at an hour forty five, and that felt like we
Speaker 2: were burning them hard. Like that felt like it was
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh, some stations play a song what you Know eighty
Speaker 1: ninety times a.
Speaker 2: Week, which that's I remember seventy being huge se I
Speaker 2: was like, wow, they're playing a song seventy.
Speaker 1: Times station I worked at up in Buffalo. We would
Speaker 1: play like the top song maybe fifty times, which is
Speaker 1: still high, but not nearly as high as some other
Speaker 1: stations playing at eighty ninety times.
Speaker 4: We'll take all them ninety.
Speaker 3: Yeah about that, well, you got I think about it.
Speaker 2: Let's just say seventy because that was a crazy number
Speaker 2: for me back ten years ago. I was like, man,
Speaker 2: seventy times a week. That is, let's break it down.
Speaker 2: It's ten times a day, so that's not even once
Speaker 2: every two hours, and that's a that was crazy that
Speaker 2: would be played that much.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And I think what was crazy was I didn't
Speaker 8: see any really daytime airplay except for some stations, and
Speaker 8: TA was like almost fifteen on the chart. I thought
Speaker 8: at age fifteen, I was think, bro, No, I mean,
Speaker 8: like fifteen, it's not on the chart just because it's like,
Speaker 8: that's what's so hard we fight with is like just
Speaker 8: for your song to be heard, you're getting airplay and
Speaker 8: it's working up the way of sharp, but it's all
Speaker 8: from seven pm to seven am.
Speaker 2: And nobody's really listening, and nobody's really limited listening.
Speaker 8: Maybe your truck driver and you're like, man, when do
Speaker 8: I get this daytime airplay?
Speaker 2: A couple of things before we jump here. We had
Speaker 2: Tracy Lawrence on the show today, Chris. Tracy's awesome. I've
Speaker 2: known him for a long time. But we were talking
Speaker 2: about paying Me at Birmingham. He's talking about the song
Speaker 2: fun fact about paying Me at Birmingham.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ken Mullens also recorded that song and had it out
Speaker 1: at pretty much the same time, maybe a month or
Speaker 1: two difference from when Tracy released at the radio. It's
Speaker 1: pretty crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they both were I mean they were both
Speaker 2: charting songs.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they were Like they weren't.
Speaker 3: Just out, they were starting at the same time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that would not happen to me.
Speaker 2: Another thing that I didn't know until I would just
Speaker 2: play this song a lot, unlike the dance party. And
Speaker 2: I was talking to Gary Lavaux, who's buddy of mine,
Speaker 2: and I was talking about life is a highway from cars.
Speaker 2: Actually wasn't.
Speaker 1: That was never And they're a single goal and it
Speaker 1: only got to eighteen. And I love people's minds when.
Speaker 3: I tell them that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but getting to eighteen and not even a single,
Speaker 2: not even a single race.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, yeah, because I mean that was way before
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram and all this stuff on social media.
Speaker 1: Like the Cards movie came out and their versin's really good,
Speaker 1: and stations just started playing it.
Speaker 3: Lyrics Street.
Speaker 1: Their label put My Witch out to radio after Me
Speaker 1: and My Game as the official single, and radio is like,
Speaker 1: we don't care, We're still going to play this one.
Speaker 1: We will also play that one, but we're still going
Speaker 1: to play Live as a highway. You ask any average fan,
Speaker 1: they think Live is a highway.
Speaker 3: Oh, their biggest hit, and it is their biggest hit,
Speaker 3: but it never even got top ten.
Speaker 5: I thought it was a massive hit.
Speaker 4: I was like, look at that how many That's crazy.
Speaker 1: It's the best streaming songs still to this day, and
Speaker 1: it never even got to the top fifteen at radio.
Speaker 2: Wow, Joe, which think of that TikTok I did about you?
Speaker 2: Was that accurate?
Speaker 5: That was No? I'm not like telling me you like me?
Speaker 5: I mean was that accurate?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 4: It was super accurate, because after.
Speaker 2: I finished it, I was like, I just said a
Speaker 2: bunch of craft from what I roughly remembered from talking
Speaker 2: to Drew and like, I really enjoyed our time together.
Speaker 2: And then I was like, don't want to go and
Speaker 2: fact check it and pull it down cause I was
Speaker 2: kind of wrong about a couple things, or I just
Speaker 2: want to leave it up. And then I thought, man,
Speaker 2: if I'm wrong, but I never looked at it again.
Speaker 4: No, dude, it was great.
Speaker 6: Was he wrong about anything.
Speaker 8: I'm trying to go through it in my head to
Speaker 8: see if there was anything that he was wrong about.
Speaker 5: It's like, there's this guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's doing it.
Speaker 5: He's you never believe it. He's only born with one eye,
Speaker 5: I think.
Speaker 8: And you said ten million streams when we woke up
Speaker 8: with ten million views, but that was the only thing.
Speaker 8: Ten million views on TikTok and I think you said
Speaker 8: ten million streams.
Speaker 4: You know, but that's the same.
Speaker 5: Thing kind of streaming a video.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're streaming a video.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's like Patato Drew man, that's why people don't
Speaker 2: like you.
Speaker 5: Crap like that.
Speaker 4: No, it was great, though.
Speaker 2: What I'll say is I've heard from so many individual
Speaker 2: radio stations ones that either I'm on, who have sent
Speaker 2: a message to me or just randomly random dms from
Speaker 2: people talking about you. Just randomly showing up at the
Speaker 2: radio station.
Speaker 4: Oh no way like I did. That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Like they'd be like, oh yeah, either they saw the
Speaker 2: clip of me talking about you, or this clip from
Speaker 2: this podcast or the video that I did on Ticknook
Speaker 2: that you know, got half a million strays that I love,
Speaker 2: and they were like, oh, that guy, he just showed
Speaker 2: up at the station one day. It was like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm drew An artists and we're like, okay, come in
Speaker 2: and like we love them.
Speaker 5: But you just showed up.
Speaker 8: Showed up man, and that was I'm glad that you
Speaker 8: shared that story because I think I've been trying to
Speaker 8: get that this story out for so long and I
Speaker 8: haven't been able to do it. And tell this your
Speaker 8: podcast you're posting that, you'd be amazed how many messages
Speaker 8: I got people listen to this podcast hugely, gonna be
Speaker 8: so surprised, buddy.
Speaker 4: I am so now's you'll never believe this. Everybody so surprised.
Speaker 8: I'm not getting like like I'm obviously I know what
Speaker 8: you do is special. And I told you that when
Speaker 8: we hear like you break artists and the amount of messages,
Speaker 8: it was like your endorsement for me, as an art
Speaker 8: was a huge deal, Bobby, and it was just that
Speaker 8: since then more radio stations started playing. I got texts
Speaker 8: from so many radio friends were like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 8: do you see Bobby's TikTok. They started sharing it with me.
Speaker 8: That's how I found it, and that is like life
Speaker 8: changing for an artist. To tell this story has been
Speaker 8: so difficult, Like you have blogs right about all this stuff,
Speaker 8: but sit down and tell the podcast long form.
Speaker 5: It's hard long form and get the opportunity to Like.
Speaker 4: You don't get this opportunity.
Speaker 8: And the amount of artists that have reached out, young
Speaker 8: artists all around the world in the country that listened
Speaker 8: to your podcast, messages that I got in my DM
Speaker 8: of like, hey, your story has inspired me and wants
Speaker 8: me to keep going. I'm in little Montana right now
Speaker 8: and I listened to Bobby's podcast because it helps me
Speaker 8: inspire me to play music. And he was like that
Speaker 8: that drive that you're not you always believe in yourself,
Speaker 8: not giving up makes me think that I can keep
Speaker 8: going and doing this and that is a huge, huge
Speaker 8: deal for all artists out there.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll say, and that's very kind. I don't think
Speaker 2: anybody can break an artist anymore. I think that is
Speaker 2: a superpower that has gone. I understand what you're saying,
Speaker 2: like we were able to shed light on a specific
Speaker 2: story with an audience and it's spread. I don't know
Speaker 2: how you feel about this, Chris. I don't thinknybody can
Speaker 2: break an arist anymore. No, I think it's an artist
Speaker 2: by a single entity is unbreakable. A mass amount of
Speaker 2: people on a platform can show the significance of an
Speaker 2: artist or a song. But I think the breaking I
Speaker 2: don't have that power anymore. I'm not even arguing what
Speaker 2: you're saying, but I understand what you're saying. But I
Speaker 2: used to have the power to break an artist. Now,
Speaker 2: though I would say it's even more valuable. I think
Speaker 2: what I do is even more valuable, not because it's me,
Speaker 2: but because even though it's harder to do because the numbers,
Speaker 2: there are one hundred thousand people now trying to do it.
Speaker 2: So if you have one person that can do it
Speaker 2: and have any audience at all, with any sort of texture,
Speaker 2: the value of that is almost worth more than what
Speaker 2: the value used to be when I could break an artist.
Speaker 8: Well, just the value of your story, like just walking
Speaker 8: there and you tell in two minutes of that, like
Speaker 8: you said, reached half a million people or whatever, like
Speaker 8: there were so many people that just reach out to
Speaker 8: me like, oh my goodness, you're the she somebody's daughter guy,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean, Like we didn't know that
Speaker 8: till we till we saw your story, Like how hard
Speaker 8: you had to work to get your song on the radio.
Speaker 8: We didn't realize it was that difficult we sawt Oh,
Speaker 8: when artist puts a song out labels like it they
Speaker 8: signed you, it works its way up the charts, Like
Speaker 8: not for freaking me, you know, like that did that
Speaker 8: wasn't how it work. We and even like people that
Speaker 8: have followed my journey back home for years and years
Speaker 8: and years, they're like, we did not realize you lost
Speaker 8: everything and you had to build all of this alone,
Speaker 8: you know, and that was like super kind of you
Speaker 8: to do that, So thank you.
Speaker 5: I mean, if it was a good story, I deleted
Speaker 5: it very nice. And also people will see and be like, wait,
Speaker 5: you're not to Neil Town's.
Speaker 4: Yeah that's right, Yeah, that Neil Town's guy.
Speaker 6: Look, you know you forgot that Drew showed up my algorithm.
Speaker 4: I don't know what two years I remember that. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean it's a long time ago. As like on Instagram,
Speaker 6: he just kept popping up. I didn't follow him, but
Speaker 6: Drew Balder.
Speaker 4: Was like you and somebody somebody listened to your.
Speaker 5: I came with those radio stations.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this guy just keeps coming around. That's what I
Speaker 4: always felt like. I felt like I was one of
Speaker 4: those guys in Nashville's like he's just here. There's Drew again,
Speaker 4: there's Drew again.
Speaker 8: It's like, well, finally we got a somewhorre to talk about,
Speaker 8: you know.
Speaker 4: But that was super cool that that happened.
Speaker 2: So a couple of things because we're gonna wrap up.
Speaker 2: We've done over an hour. Chris, You're awesome, dude. I
Speaker 2: never got to meet you until now. Like I want
Speaker 2: you to come back and just we just talk like
Speaker 2: nerdy music stuff.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 3: That's I mean, that's what I do, the only thing
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 5: Good. No, it's crazy, very interesting, man, it really is.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Drew rooting for you man, you know, thanks man,
Speaker 8: thank you. And I've heard so many people text me
Speaker 8: in town. Bob he's talking about you right now on
Speaker 8: air and play the song and man, thank you, like
Speaker 8: life changing really truly.
Speaker 2: But if we didn't think it was good or your
Speaker 2: story was good, we wouldn't. So it's not just I
Speaker 2: like you, because I do like you, but if your
Speaker 2: song sucked, I wouldn't play it well, or if your
Speaker 2: story sucked, it wouldn't it wouldn't resonate with people like
Speaker 2: you own that. I was just a conduit well at
Speaker 2: the appropriate time that allowed your story to get out
Speaker 2: and to resonate.
Speaker 5: With folks like that's what it is. It's you. It's
Speaker 5: you and your song, like right now.
Speaker 2: I got lucky to be a vessel on the time
Speaker 2: it was right, so I didn't do anything only and
Speaker 2: if it wasn't good, we did delete it. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I appreciate you guys coming over and just talking about
Speaker 2: this is very granu a little bit.
Speaker 5: I like that because it's not always like that.
Speaker 2: We we can talk about charts and have an artist understanding
Speaker 2: and have Chris who studied it and worked in radio
Speaker 2: and worked in publishing.
Speaker 5: And then also it's good to have Eddie here.
Speaker 6: I mean, I learned it.
Speaker 5: I didn't say anything, but else was really interesting. I
Speaker 5: knew nothing about it.
Speaker 2: Follow Chris at Chris Owen Country on Instagram and Drew
Speaker 2: Baldridge Man Go Over and Drew Baldridge Music Drew Baldridge
Speaker 2: at Drew Baldridge Music. Both you guys are killing it.
Speaker 2: Thank you for coming and it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Thanks guys, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 7: Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cat best Production.