[ad_1]
Is country radio an easy, inevitable home for Beyoncé’s new single, “Texas Hold ‘Em”? That’s what some top radio executives say, contrary to some early speculation about how she would fare on a superstar crossover record.
Although these executives note that it will ultimately be up to listeners to decide, they say they see no reason why a song that is in the pocket musically of one of the world’s biggest superstars should be cause for a showdown rather than a confrontation.
“Why wouldn’t we play this? This is a gift,” says Brian Philips, chief content officer at Cumulus Media, who just oversaw a Zoom call Wednesday with programmers from the network’s top national stations, during which he said everyone spoke enthusiastically about “Texas ”.
“I thought, ‘How can we not try?’ This adds a completely unforeseen and unimaginable new angle to country radio. We’ll get calls, we’ll get responses, and some of the old school (listeners) will probably reject it and then everyone else will love it, and that’ll be the result. We have 55 major national stations and it is very difficult to get them to agree on anything. But everyone in the country wants to play it. We don’t have guys saying, “It doesn’t fit our core sound.” We have people who want to be part of the story and everyone will do the same thing: play it and talk about it and bring out everything negative and everything positive in the audience and see what the reaction is. “It seems to me to be a very simple, catchy and successful pop-country song.”
iHeartMedia is also on board. In a statement provided to VarietyTom Poleman, director of programming and president of the network, says: “Beyoncé is an innovator who continues to push creative boundaries in music. “Many of our country’s and Top 40 programmers started playing the new single earlier this week and now that it’s officially released, we’re excited to share their new song with our listeners across the country, including the entire iHeartCountry platform.” .
Tim Roberts, Audacy’s vice president of programming and country format captain, also made a statement saying, “We think it’s a good record and country is so popular right now that it’s great that she wants to be here. “Just like we do with any song on our playlist, now the listeners will decide.”
Coleman’s use of the phrase “officially released” presumably refers to Sony Music sending the song to country stations and actively promoting it there, something that was left uncertain immediately after Beyoncé made a surprise release Sunday night after of a reveal in a Super Bowl Commercial. Sony Nashville began that promotional push for the format Tuesday night, after the song received an official boost on pop stations. Before that, in a Variety In Tuesday’s story, Country Insider tip sheets editor Brian Mansfield said most country stations might be reluctant to play the song without having yet been assured it would receive a format. official. Some radio insiders theorized that the company’s promotion team in Nashville might have been caught as off guard as the rest of the world when the superstar introduced her new look and sound to the world, given the closely guarded nature of all the releases. her. In any case, when it became known that it was being officially promoted on Tuesday night and Wednesday, then it was launched. (Representatives for Sony Nashville have not responded to requests for comment on the release or plans for the tune.)
Some say they were optimistic about the tune before receiving the promotional BatSignal. “I didn’t care that they didn’t ship it” from the beginning, Philips says. “Everything is everywhere, everything is available. I don’t care who attends to what; I connect to the Internet and there it is: that means I’ve been taken care of, if I can find a WAV file! I don’t care what your marketing plan is. If someone at Sony made a mistake in calculating that the country wouldn’t be interested in this, it was a mistake. It just sounded to me like it hit that Dixie Chicks chord of fun, cheers and reckless abandon, and it sounded like a natural country song to me. I’d be very surprised if there’s any reaction, except from very old, calcified country fans who say, ‘Well, I came here to hear a George Strait song, not this clap-and-woo-woo-woo thing.’
“If the public rejects it, we will know. But we can’t imagine it, because everyone we’ve played the song to has liked it. My job is to break down this idea that national programmers are gatekeepers who keep things away from people who would otherwise like them, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. Let’s hit it hard and fast and see what the reaction is. In the top 40, it’s called a reaction record, where you say, ‘Look, put this on the air and see what happens,’ and that’s where we are.”
The perception of a possible showdown was fueled Monday by reports from a station in a small Oklahoma town that had reacted to an emailed request for the song with a response that said Beyoncé would not be played on the medium, because she It is not a country. artist. Tens of thousands of tweets calling the station racist followed. As it turned out, the person who sent that email hadn’t watched the second half of the Super Bowl and still had no idea, after sleeping in the next morning, that the singer had released an actual country song. The small station quickly added the melody and apologized, but not before inadvertently causing a national storm.
SiriusXM country stations have been keeping tabs. Says Johnny Chiang, senior director of country programming at SiriusXM Pandora: “When I first heard there was a possibility of Beyoncé releasing a country song, a real country song, I was excited. She is one of four or five artists in the entire world that, when she speaks, you stop and listen. So on Sunday night during the Super Bowl, I was sitting in front of my laptop on our backend system and I kept hitting refresh, waiting for the song to play. I immediately added the song to multiple Pandora country stations and then we also played it on ‘The Highway’ for the first time on Sunday night. Then the next morning the morning show aired it and we immediately incorporated it completely into ‘The Highway,’ so it’s in full rotation.”
Chiang only sees advantages in a marriage between Beyoncé and the countryside. “First of all, it’s a good song and a legitimate modern country song. And she’s iconic, so it’s a no-brainer,” says the SiriusXM executive, who used to program a major country station in Beyoncé’s native Houston. “I can’t speak for the PDs of the terrestrial countries, and I imagine there will probably be some disquiet. But I think this is nothing but good for our format. Whether terrestrial, satellite or DSP, the core country audience is still that 35- to 45-year-old soccer mom, and they’re not just listening to country, they’re listening to pop, where Beyoncé has a huge impact. So why wouldn’t it work?
Chiang continues: “Over the last 10 to 15 years, country has evolved into one of the most diverse-sounding genres out there. Hell, probably our highest profile male artist in the country today is Jelly Roll. Everyone knows about his background (hip-hop, face tattoos) and they welcome him. So why not Beyoncé? With ‘Texas Hold ‘Em,’ if you didn’t know it was Beyoncé and you just heard it, you’d think it sounded pretty country compared to some of the other stuff in the genre today.”
Cumulus’ Philips makes the same comparison when explaining why he thinks country will be a welcoming format for Beyoncé today. “In general, the new generation of people who arrive shows a better side of country fans. I think a guy like Jelly Roll is the embodiment of the good will and good spirit of the common country that uplifts everyone when he’s around them. AND, it’s a good time… Our 55 national stations agree that this is an interesting new facet of the country. And the country is in a phase where it seems to be enjoying an interesting new turn, so it’s not really that big of a leap. Country has been the most popular format for a couple of years, so I think by nature it will be a little more experimental, a little more welcoming. “It’s a very different format than it was even in 2017 or 2015.”
One thing that has remained true for a decade now is the complete absence of black women breaking records in the country format, even as black men like Kane Brown, Darius Rucker and Breland have enjoyed major hits on the charts. Programmers have been inclined to say, year after year, that the format is eager to welcome a black female star, but the right singer, with the right charisma and the right, undeniable song, hasn’t come along… an argument Which Mickey Guyton fans and others would be against, of course. It’s the backdrop against which many inevitably view Beyoncé’s introduction to the format, even if her sudden entrance as an existing megastar introduces an entirely different set of variables.
However, it seems like country radio would love for their audience to love the song. One programmer believes that “Texas Hold Em” will be better accepted in the country than in the superstar’s native formats. “The Top 40 don’t know what to do with it because their audience doesn’t know how to react to it. Which makes sense,” says the programmer. “So they are those about whom it should be written that they have a dilemma.”
Philips says genre distinctions matter less than ever to the average listener, whatever the format, including the traditionally more parochial country. “We all have all this doctrine and dogma that comes with the country, and I think a lot of those layers are being stripped away by the new consumer, who just has no idea why something doesn’t belong in their country. the other. Beyoncé fits into the world of most people between the ages of 18 and 49. And if she comes with a catchy country song, why should there be a social confrontation over what to do about it? “I’m not sure that (the idea of resistance) isn’t a bit of a tempest in a teapot, at least from Cumulus’ point of view.”
It remains to be seen if fans of these stations truly welcome a new feature or want to dedicate airtime to more turns for Kane Brown, Cody Johnson and Thomas Rhett. In the country format, it typically takes several months for a song to become a top 10 hit; stations can show their cards (so to speak) on “Texas Hold ‘Em” with less delay. With actual additions to Beyoncé’s playlist just beginning to trickle in from reporting stations as of Thursday, the prevailing winds may become evident when the suggestion sheet addition lists are released next week.