BILLBOARD.COM/NEWSLETTERS EDITED BY TOM ROLAND, tom.roland@billboard.com MARCH 12, 2015 | PAGE 1 OF 9

INSIDEMakin’ Tracks:

Gary Allan’s ‘Hangover Tonight’ >page 2

Stark Report: Drunk

Request-Line Callers >page 4

Questions Answered:

WQMX Akron PD Sue Wilson

>page 6

Stars Align For The ACMs

>page 6

K.T. Oslin’s 15 Years Of

Silence Ends Simply >page 6

Shania Twain scores her highest rank in more than a decade on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, as Shania: Still the One: Live From Las Vegas (Mercury/Universal Music Group Nashville) rockets 31-2 in its second chart week (9,000 sold, up 622 percent, according to Nielsen Music). The set serves as a souvenir of her two-year residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace and features six of her seven Hot Country Songs No. 1s, all tallied from 1995 to 1998. (The folky “No One Needs to Know” is absent from the album, but it does include her 33rd and most recent Hot Country Songs hit, “Today Is Your Day,” which reached No. 36 in 2011.)

Twain had last ranked as high as No. 2 on Top Country Albums with her previous entry, 2004’s Greatest Hits, which held that spot on the chart dated Feb. 19, 2005 after an 11-week run at No. 1. Her smash 1997 album Come On Over is the second-best-selling set in the United States (15.6 million) since Nielsen began tracking sales in 1991; it trails only Metallica’s self-titled 1991 release (16.1 million). Twain has sold more albums than any other female country artist in that period, and is the fifth-best-selling coun-try act overall, after Garth Brooks (70.4 million; the top sum among all artists), George Strait (45.8 million), Tim McGraw

(42.4 million) and Alan Jackson (40.8 million). She’s the 15th-best-selling album artist among all acts in Nielsen history.

Twain’s chart action enhances her renewed profile. As pre-viously reported, she’ll hit the road for her first North American tour in more than 10 years when her 48-date Rock This Country Tour begins June 5 in Seattle.

Meanwhile, Sam Hunt crowns Top Country Albums for a seventh total (and second consecutive) week with Montevallo (MCA Nashville/UMGN). The set outsold Twain’s by a nearly 2-to-1 margin (16,000, up 2 percent). Hunt concurrently tops Hot Country Songs for a fourth week with “Take Your Time.” The track gains by 2 percent in overall activity and leads Country Digital

Songs (57,000 downloads sold) for an eighth week and Country Streaming Songs (2.1 million U.S. streams) for a fifth frame.

Also on Hot Country Songs, Darius Rucker logs his eighth top 10 with “Homegrown Honey” (Capitol Nashville) (13-10). He last reached the region with “Wagon Wheel,” which became his sixth No. 1 in April 2013.

This article was written by Billboard associate director of charts/radio Gary Trust (gary.trust@billboard.com).

Country MID- WEEK

UPDATE

Viva Shania! ‘Live From Las Vegas’ Vaults 31-2 On Top Country Albums

THE COUNTRY MUSIC INDUSTRY’S MUST-HAVE SOURCE FOR NEWS, ANALYSIS AND CHART INFO EVERY MONDAY AND THURSDAY

Lee Ann Photoglo, 615-376-7931, laphotoglo@gmail.comTO ADVERTISE, CONTACT:

Get your message front and center with top country radio programmers and other

key music infl uencers

Country UPDATE

On the heels of Thomas Rhett’s disco-inflected No. 1 single, “Make Me Wanna,” Gary Allan similarly explores R&B with his latest single, “Hangover Tonight.”

In the context of Rhett’s single, which was inspired by the “Stayin’ Alive” sequence in the 1980 movie Airplane!, it’s easy to hear “Hangover” — with its phat bass lines, synthetic keyboard sounds and a plot that revolves around a taxi cab and the prospect of a late-night rendezvous — as an updated version of Rod Stewart’s 1978 single “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”

But “Hangover” is actually derived from an earlier, and smoother, soul source: The Temptations’ “My Girl,” which spent part of the month atop both the Bill-board Hot 100 and Hot R&B charts during March 50 years ago. Pulling inspiration from the early years of the rock era wasn’t difficult for Allan, who has been known to draw on country influences from the same time period.

“I was always a rockabilly fan, so this Motown kind of vibe was really easy for me to gravitate toward,” he says.

Playing with rhythm and blues wasn’t a fluke. Allan has explored a number of stylistic directions in his ca-reer, and he batted around a handful of options for growth with co-producer Greg Droman as they started plotting a follow-up to the 2013 album Set You Free.

“At one point, I remember saying, ‘Can we look for maybe some R&B kind of influence?’ Just because we’ve never really done that before,” says Droman. “At the time, I wasn’t really sure if Gary would be open to it, or if he would be good at it.”

Droman’s uncertainty was perhaps a tip that Allan would be up for the challenge. “This is like the fourth or fifth time I’ve had to reinvent myself,” says Allan, adding that the process was “uncomfortable.”

“Hangover Tonight” was also a bit convoluted. For starters, Allan was rebuffed when he tried to record a different song: “Crash and Burn,” which had been sent to him by mistake. Rhett had already put that song on hold and wasn’t about to let go of it. Allan’s manager, Lytle Management owner John Lytle, had a simple solution: set up a co-write for Allan with “Crash and Burn” composers Jesse Frasure (“Sun Daze”) and Chris Stapleton (“Drink a Beer,” “Something to Do With My Hands”).

They wrote together on three different occasions at Allan’s house in Hender-sonville, Tenn., and “Hangover” was penned during the last session on Dec. 1, 2014. It would bear a songwriting credit for Cary Barlowe (“American Honey”), who was never actually present for any of the three co-writes.

“If it’s a No. 1 and we get a No. 1 party, I’m gonna be like, ‘Hey, I need to do this more often,’ ” says Barlowe with a laugh.

Barlowe may not have been in the room with Allan, but he had previously worked with Frasure on the “Hangover Tonight” title with another, unidenti-fied artist. That attempt had proved unsuccessful, and Frasure resurrected the title — and the play on words, which treats “Hangover Tonight” as “hang out to-night” — when he started preparing tracks for that third co-write at Allan’s house.

“I love the sort of retro-ness to a lot of Gary’s music, especially the Smoke Rings in the Dark album,” says Frasure. “We’re going through this whole sort of renais-sance in pop music as well, where you hear a lot of Motown influences. ‘Uptown Funk’ sounds like Earth, Wind & Fire meets Prince, and ‘All About That Bass’

has ’50s influences, and [so does] ‘Shake It Off.’ The thought was, ‘What if Phar-rell Williams was to go back and do a Smoke Rings album?’ ”

Once Frasure, Stapleton and Allan started on “Hangover Tonight,” Frasure honorably decided to split his share of the song with Barlowe, who thus receives one-sixth of the writers’ royalties.

The two previous Frasure/Stapleton co-writes had been Allan’s first to work with tracks. This time, he had grown comfortable enough with the process that

he didn’t even pick up a guitar as they worked through melodic ideas and phrases.

“I stayed seated,” recalls Stapleton. “Gary was more of the pacer in the room. He was walking around look-ing at stuff for inspiration, and we were all kind of feed-ing off of each other, tossing things out.”

“It was like nothing I’ve ever done,” adds Allan. “I remember my daughter walking in and going, ‘I’ve never ever been in the room when you’re writing and there wasn’t instruments everywhere.’ ”

They built a solid, Motownish demo with the tracks, and Stapleton channeled an estimated 15 tracks of background vocal parts, some of them adding a quasi-gospel Mavis Staples feel.

“He sounds like five black women on there,” says Allan. “Those are all his voices.”

Allan already had a session booked two days later at Ben’s Place, formerly known as RCA Studio A. It was called Javelina when Allan recorded his Smoke Rings project there in 1999. “It’s got a great sounding board, and it’s got so much vibe and history,” he says.

The musicians — drummer Chad Cromwell, bass player Michael Rhodes and Allan’s road band — had trouble matching the groove of the demo. Allan’s solu-tion was to pipe the demo into their headphones and have the band play live along with it.

“At one point, I had like over 100 inputs, and we crashed the board a couple of times,” says Allan.

The original intent was to use the human tracks exclusively on the end prod-uct, but as Droman started combing through the material during mixing, some of the programmed parts were irresistible. They decided to use pieces from both the original demo and the live session, and Droman booked Stapleton to come back in and overdub more background vocals as a safety. Ultimately, he canceled that session and went with Stapleton’s date-of-creation performances captured at Allan’s house.

“Chris is really an off-the-cuff kind of guy anyway,” says Droman. “It had such a nice looseness about it that it was like, why re-do it?”

MCA jumped on “Hangover,” releasing it to country radio via Play MPE on Feb. 17. It debuted at No. 50 on the Country Airplay chart dated March 14, 2015 and climbed to No. 43 in its second week.

It appears that programmers are responding positively to Allan’s willingness to get out of his comfort zone. Whether it’s the R&B influence or the presence of tracks, it’s an example of Allan living on the edge as he finds a new way to present himself.

“When you’re doing it, you think, ‘I’m out of my mind, and nobody’s going to like it,’ ” he says. “It’s uncomfortable every time.”

BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE MARCH 12, 2015 | PAGE 2 OF 9

Gary Allan Applies Sweet Soul Music To His Brand Of Country

MAKIN’ TRACKS TOM ROLAND tom.roland@billboard.com

ALLAN

IN LOVING MEMORY OF OUR FRIEND

Wade Jessen1961 - 2015

Your passion, integrity and love of music were unparalleled.You will be greatly missed. - The Curb Records Family

We have made a contribution in Wade’s honor to nclrights.org in support of the Tennessee marriage equality case soon to be heard in the US Supreme Court.

In an eye-catching recent post on Facebook, KIIM Tucson, Ariz., PD/air per-sonality Buzz Jackson wrote, “Today’s request lines are evidently brought to you by Budweiser and Fireball.”

Anyone who has ever answered request lines at a radio station can relate. Im-paired callers are far from uncommon, and often a source of amusement, and sometimes even on-air fodder.

Jackson tells Billboard Mid-Week Country Update, “That post was triggered by a slew of people who evidently had for-gotten how to use their phones, or to speak, or to dial properly that day.”

KUPL (98.7 The Bull) Port-land, Ore., assistant PD/music director/afternoon driver B-Dub had a similar experi-ence the weekend of March 7 on his syndicated Buckwild Saturday Night show. He says one man was trying to request Blake Shelton’s “Boys ’Round Here,” but “was slurring more than a 7-Eleven Slurpee machine in the middle of July. He finally got out, ‘Chew to-bacco spit,’ and we hit the post right at that moment.”

“Every market I’ve worked, no matter the shift, the drunks called,” says Chris Carr, now morning host at KEEY (K102) Minneapolis. He particularly remem-bers a woman who was “just hammered.” She was slurring her words and beg-ging him to come over and help her find her “cat.”

“I asked her to blow into the phone so I could give her an on-air Breathalyzer,” recalls Carr. “She did. I asked her to do it again, and she blew even harder and longer. I asked her to touch her nose with her fingers. She did that, too. Then I asked her to please say the alphabet backwards. She made it to the letter W. I in-formed her that she was above the legal limit, and she certainly shouldn’t go driv-ing around to look for cats. She hung up, or maybe passed out. She did call back about 20 minutes later — and had absolutely no clue that she called me earlier.”

WCOS Columbia, S.C., morning man Kelly Nash fielded a recent drunk call at an unexpected time. “Just a few weeks ago during the St. Jude Radiothon a woman called in, hammered,” he explains. “She said, ‘What the hell are you guys still doing on the air [outside of morning drive?]’ We explained that we stayed on all day to help raise money for kids fighting cancer. [She said], ‘Well, stop playing these sad-ass songs!’ We spike in special songs with patient and parent testimonials. We asked, ‘What song do you want us to play to cheer you up?’ ” The woman’s reply had them on the floor laughing. She requested “ ‘George freaking Jones’ ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today!’ ”

“I’m surprised a country station in Brew City hasn’t started sponsoring request lines with beer,” jokes WMIL Milwaukee morning co-host Karen Da-lessandro. “Doing mornings, drunk callers aren’t real common, but when it happens, it usually sounds like the person has been up all night smoking tons of cigarettes. It’s almost always a song request/dedication that includes all kinds of love for the station or the morning crew. At least we have nice drunks in Milwaukee.”

“I have received one or 14 calls over the years from slightly liquid-impaired people,” says Tim Leary, morning personality of WUBB (Bob 106.9) Savannah, Ga., and host of the newly syndicated 20Twenty Country Countdown.

“The best drunk call I received on the show was actually from an artist,”

says Leary, who declines to name the act. “He was supposed to call into the show the morning after one of the country awards shows. To this day, I still don’t know why I thought that this would be a good idea. He was about 10 minutes late, and when he called, it was obvious that the libations had been flowing, or something had.

“He talked with one stream of thought for 25 seconds straight without using a sin-gle verb until I could quiet him long enough to intro who he was,” continues Leary. “This was followed by his own hys-terical laughter. I asked how much sleep he had gotten. [He replied], ‘Dude I haven’t been to bed yet. I didn’t want to miss anything!’ … Then he recapped the show for one minute with-

out taking a breath, [including] some of the conversations with some other artists backstage during the awards show, [for] which I had to utilize a giant bleep-out. The conversation culminated in a rant about how Toby [Keith] should com-mand more respect.”

Leary told the artist to “drink gallons of water,” then played back on the air what he calls “the funniest phone call ever.”

Kris Rochester of the syndicated Tony & Kris show jokes, “We are usually the drunk ones.” And while he doesn’t have a recent drunk-caller story, he does have an unforgettable one. When Rochester was 16 years old and just starting out in radio doing overnights at WQEN Gadsden, Ala., the adult son of one of the big advertisers in town, a grocery store owner, called the station drunk and demanded to hear a song that was not in the top 40 format.

“I went through all the lines you say every time he called: ‘We don’t play it,’ ‘We don’t have it,’ ‘I’ll try to find it for you,’ ” recalls Rochester. “He got more angry as the night went on until he threatened to have his daddy buy the station and have me fired. I kind of laughed and went on [with] my shift.”

However, the next afternoon the GM wrote Rochester up for being rude to a client’s son and not doing what a client asked. “Luckily, the reel-to-reel still had all the conversations on it, and my PD was able to record all the calls to cassette and play them for the GM and grocery owner to show how his son was acting,” says Rochester. “I kept my job, the advertiser got a free remote out of it because we did not play the song his son wanted, and I went on with my life. But the GM did let me know that I needed to get into another field. Radio was not for me.”

Personalities have different ways of handling such calls for broadcast, with one programmer urging caution.

Says Carr, “Just like with any caller — sober, drunk, high, etc. — if they’re entertaining, I would put them on the air.”

But Jackson says, “If there’s something compelling about a drunk phone call, maybe I’ll use it on the air. But mostly I fear that phone callers you use represent the entirety of the audience to the listener, and I wouldn’t want some soccer mom in the car having to explain to her kids why that man on the phone on the radio sounded like he was having a stroke.”

Have a funny impaired-caller story of your own to share? Email me at p.stark@comcast.net.

BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE MARCH 12, 2015 | PAGE 4 OF 9

This Request Line Brought To You By One Drink Too Many

THE STARK REPORT PHYLLIS STARK phyllis.stark@billboard.com

JACKSON CARR ROCHESTER

https://soundcloud.com/i-r-s-nashville/striking-matches-hanging-on-a-lie-radio-edit/s-3ir9r

we have such a loyal, great group of listeners. We couldn’t have earned the nominations if we didn’t have them listen to us.

Akron is so close to Cleveland. How does that affect your establishing a presence as an Akron station? Having grown up in Akron, I know that we listen to all our Akron stations, but we also lis-ten to the Cleveland stations. I grew up listening to WMMS, the heritage rock station that got a lot of

credit for getting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to Cleveland. It only takes me from my house to get to downtown Cleveland probably 30 minutes, but the in-teresting thing is when you’re in Cleveland radio, you don’t really listen down. So in Cleveland you don’t necessarily listen to Akron stations except in the case of country, because there’s only two in the entire northeast Ohio area. We have a local newsroom that is staffed, we do local Akron news — because Cleveland television news doesn’t cover Akron — so we do have an advantage by being hy-per-focused. We do Akron traffic — if you’re listening to a Cleveland station in morning drive and you’re in Akron getting to work, you don’t have any resource. So I think being hyper-local really helps us with the Cleveland challenge.

If you have a news story that is local, do you call it an Akronism? We don’t, but we should.

WONE PD Tim Daugherty is your fiance, and — thanks to your promo-tion —your employee, too. How does that work? I lost my husband to can-cer 13 years ago, and Tim lost his wife to cancer about six years ago, so when I got to this radio station, his wife was very sick. I knew him, and he used to be the weather guy on the ABC affiliate in Akron. He’s the program director of our rock station, so we met and our friendship organically evolved into a little more than that. He’s been here a lot longer than I’ve been here, and we call him Tim Daugherty, the rock’n’roll authority. My title is a little different than his, but he still runs his own radio station. At this point, it has not been an issue.

What’s your best takeaway from CRS this year? Gosh, there were so many. I kept walking around from panel to panel trying to get a grip on the various sources and the various platforms that people have to find music, and how do we keep radio as one of the main ones that’s relevant? We’re not just competing with other radio stations — it’s us against everyone. I’m more motivated than ever to use the advantage that we have in little ol’ Akron, Ohio, and that’s local ownership and hyper-local. We have a full, live air staff — even overnight — and we’ve got to really take advantage of that benefit. —Tom Roland

BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE MARCH 12, 2015 | PAGE 6 OF 9

Q U E ST I O N S

AnsweredSue Wilson

VP operations, Rubber City Radio/Akron@suewilson

February’s Country Radio Seminar was a hectic one for Rubber City/Akron vp operations Sue Wilson. In addition to overseeing a panel as a member of the CRS agenda committee, WQMX — where she’s both PD and a member of the morning team — claimed the Academy of Country Music Award for medium-market radio sta-tion. The Akron, Ohio, native is a reluctant on-air talent, and she’s transitioning to a smaller role in mornings to give her more room to maneuver after her recent promotion to vp of the four-station Rub-ber City cluster.

Congrats on WQMX’s ACM Award win. How did you find out about it? I was in Nashville at CRS. I was actually in a car. [WQMX music director] Jody [Wheatly] and my phones started blowing up with a lot of texts. We immediately stopped and called up the text con-gratulating us on the ACM. We had been nominated for personality of the year for the morning show, as well as station of the year, so we weren’t sure which one [we won]. We had to go look and it was station. We would have accepted either happily, or both even more happily.

Are you making a big deal about it on the station? We did put kind of a thank-you message, which is basically saying we’re honored to be recognized by the Academy of Country Music as the medium-market station of the year. And I have a little thing that says congratu-lations to our team at WQMX and thank you for your support, as far as a message to our listeners. You know, there’s a fine line. You want to brag about it being announced, but you want to show some humility because they count ratings and what you do for the community, and

ACM AWARDS ALIGNED WITH STARSNot surprisingly, the first-ever awards show from a stadium is drawing a lot of interest from headline acts who could use a little prime-time exposure. Kenny Chesney, George Strait, Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, Eric Church, Keith Urban, Garth Brooks, Luke Bryan, Reba McEntire, Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley and Florida Geor-gia Line have all signed on as performers at the 50th annual Academy of Country Music Awards on April 19 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Also in the lineup are new-artist nominees Sam Hunt, Thomas Rhett and Cole Swindell. The sixth annual Darius Rucker and Friends benefit for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is set for June 8 at Nashville’s Wildhorse Sa-loon. That falls on the Monday before the CMA Music Festival, June 11-14. Guests have not been announced for the 2015 edition. Previous perform-ers have included Jamey Johnson, Randy Houser and Kenny Rogers.

Former Country Music Association female vocalist of the year K.T. Oslin has written her first song in two decades and plans to release her first album in 15 years. Simply is due June 2 on Red River Entertainment with spare ar-rangements of some of her established material, including “Hold Me” and “80’s Ladies.” The new song, “Do You Think About Me,” was co-written with Al Anderson (“Big Deal,” “The Cowboy in Me”).

Americana drummer, radio host and concert promoter Billy Block, 59, died March 11, 15 months after he was diagnosed with stage IV melanoma. A tireless champion of young acts, he was the ultimate example of positivity. “If you see someone without a smile,” he often said, “give ’em one of yours.” In lieu of flow-ers, donations can be made to Nashville Non-Toxic here.

MIDWEEK NEWS UPDATE

BLOCK

AN ENHANCED VERSION OF EVERY ISSUE, FEATURING: PLAYABLE BILLBOARD CHARTS . VIDEOS . PHOTO GALLERIES COVER STORIES . SPECIAL REPORTS . REVIEWS . INTERVIEWS EVENT COVERAGE & MORE

Access the best in music.

billboard.com/ipad

AVAILABLE

FREE TO CURRENT BILLBOARD

SUBSCRIBERS

Hot Country SongsBILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE MARCH 12, 2015 | PAGE 7 OF 9

SALES, AIRPLAY & STREAMING DATA COMPILED BY

THIS WEEK

LAST WEEK

TWO WEEKS

AGOWKS ON CHART

TITLE Artist PRODUCER (SONGWRITER) IMPRINT / PROMOTION LABEL CERTIFIED

PEAK POSITION

l1 1 1 19 TAKE YOUR TIME ★★No. 1 (5 weeks)★★ Sam Hunt Z.CROWELL,S.MCANALLY (S.HUNT,J.OSBORNE,S.MCANALLY) MCA NASHVILLE

1

l2 7 10 9 HOMEGROWN ★★Digital Gainer★★ Zac Brown Band J.JOYCE,Z.BROWN (Z.BROWN,W.DURRETTE,N.MOON) VARVATOS/REPUBLIC/BMLG/SOUTHERN GROUND

2

3 2 3 19 LONELY TONIGHT Blake Shelton Featuring Ashley Monroe S.HENDRICKS (B.ANDERSON,R.HURD) WARNER BROS./WMN 2

l4 4 7 23 AIN’T WORTH THE WHISKEY ★★Streaming Gainer★★ Cole Swindell M.CARTER (C.SWINDELL,A.SANDERS,J.MARTIN) WARNER BROS./WMN

4

l5 6 6 28 MEAN TO ME Brett Eldredge L.LAIRD (B.ELDREDGE,SCOOTER CARUSOE) ATLANTIC/WMN 5

l6 5 8 20 JUST GETTIN’ STARTED Jason Aldean M.KNOX (C. DESTEFANO,R.AKINS,A.GORLEY) BROKEN BOW 5

l7 8 11 28 DRINKING CLASS Lee Brice M.MCCLURE,K.JACOBS,L.BRICE (J.KEAR,D.FRASIER,E.M.HILL) CURB 6

l8 9 12 25 LONELY EYES Chris Young J.STROUD (J.BULFORD,J.MATTHEWS,L.VELTZ) RCA NASHVILLE 8

9 3 2 28 MAKE ME WANNA Thomas Rhett J.JOYCE (THOMAS RHETT,B.BUTLER,L.MCCOY) VALORY 0 2

l10 13 13 28 HOMEGROWN HONEY Darius Rucker F.ROGERS (D.RUCKER,C.KELLEY,N.CHAPMAN) CAPITOL NASHVILLE 10

l11 14 14 21 SAY YOU DO Dierks Bentley R. COPPERMAN (M.RAMSEY,S.MCANALLY,T. ROSEN) CAPITOL NASHVILLE 11

12 11 4 19 I SEE YOU Luke Bryan J.STEVENS (L.BRYAN,L.LAIRD,A.GORLEY) CAPITOL NASHVILLE 1

l13 15 17 24 A GUY WALKS INTO A BAR Tyler Farr J.CATINO,J.KING (M.PEIRCE,J.SINGLETON,B.TURSI) COLUMBIA NASHVILLE 13

14 12 5 25 SUN DAZE Florida Georgia Line J.MOI (C.R.BARLOWE,J.FRASURE,S.BUXTON,T.HUBBARD,B.KELLEY) REPUBLIC NASHVILLE 0 3

l15 19 22 9 SMOKE A Thousand Horses D.COBB (M.HOBBY,J.M.NITE,R.COPPERMAN) REPUBLIC NASHVILLE 15

l16 21 23 7 RAISE ‘EM UP Keith Urban Featuring Eric Church N.CHAPMAN,K.URBAN (J.JOHNSTON,J.STEELE,T.DOUGLAS) HIT RED/CAPITOL NASHVILLE 16

l17 18 21 9 LITTLE RED WAGON Miranda Lambert F.LIDDELL,C.AINLAY,G.WORF (A.MAE,GINSBERG J.) RCA NASHVILLE 14

18 16 24 14 GIRL CRUSH Little Big Town J.JOYCE (L.ROSE,L.MCKENNA,H.LINDSEY) CAPITOL NASHVILLE 16

19 17 15 25 TALLADEGA Eric Church J.JOYCE (E.CHURCH,L.LAIRD) EMI NASHVILLE 2

l20 24 26 16 DON’T IT Billy Currington D.HUFF (J.JOHNSTON,A.GORLEY,R.COPPERMAN) MERCURY 20

l21 23 25 18 SHE DON’T LOVE YOU Eric Paslay M.ALTMAN (E.PASLAY,J.WAYNE) EMI NASHVILLE 21

22 20 19 25 SHOTGUN RIDER Tim McGraw B.GALLIMORE,T.MCGRAW (H.LINDSEY,M.GREEN,T.VERGES) MCGRAW/BIG MACHINE 0 1

23 22 18 24 SOMETHING IN THE WATER Carrie Underwood M.BRIGHT (C.UNDERWOOD,C. DESTEFANO,BRETT JAMES) 19/ARISTA NASHVILLE 1 1

l24 26 30 5 WILD CHILD Kenny Chesney With Grace Potter B.CANNON,K.CHESNEY (K.CHESNEY,S.MCANALLY,J.OSBORNE) BLUE CHAIR/COLUMBIA NASHVILLE 24

l25 28 34 6 DIAMOND RINGS AND OLD BARSTOOLS Tim McGraw With Catherine Dunn B.GALLIMORE,T.MCGRAW (L.LAIRD,B.DEAN,J.SINGLETON) MCGRAW/BIG MACHINE 25

For week ending March 8, 2015. Figures are rounded. Compiled from a national sample of retail store and rack sales reports collected and provided by Nielsen Music.

For inquiries about any Nielsen Music data, please contact Josh Bennett at 615-807-1338 or josh.bennett@nielsen.com

The week’s most popular country songs, ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen Music, sales data as compiled by Nielsen Music and streaming activity data from online music sources tracked by Nielsen Music. Descending titles below No. 25 are moved to recurrent after 20 weeks.

COUNTRY MARKET WATCHA Weekly National Music Sales Report

Hot Country SongsBILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE MARCH 12, 2015 | PAGE 8 OF 9

ALBUMSDIGITAL

ALBUMS*DIGITAL TRACKS

This Week 467,000 163,000 2,214,000

Last Week 454,000 165,000 2,269,000

Change 2.9% -1.2% -2.4%

This Week Last Year 595,000 189,000 2,587,000

Change -21.5% -13.8% -14.4%

*Digital album sales are also counted within album sales.

Weekly Unit SalesYear-Over-Year Album Sales2014 2015 CHANGE

Albums 5,705,000 4,749,000 -16.8%

Digital Tracks 27,492,000 22,661,000 -17.6%

YEAR-TO-DATE

Overall Unit Sales

2014 2015 CHANGE

Physical 3,739,000 2,955,000 9.0%

Digital 1,966,000 1,794,000 -8.7%

Sales by Album Format

SALES, AIRPLAY & STREAMING DATA COMPILED BY

’15

’14

DIGITAL TRACKS SALES

’15

’14

5.7 million

4.7 million

000.0 million

’14

’13

22.7 million

27.5 million

THIS WEEK

LAST WEEK

TWO WEEKS

AGOWKS ON CHART

TITLE Artist PRODUCER (SONGWRITER) IMPRINT / PROMOTION LABEL CERTIFIED

PEAK POSITION

l26 31 33 7 LITTLE TOY GUNS Carrie Underwood M.BRIGHT (C.UNDERWOOD,C. DESTEFANO,H.LINDSEY) 19/ARISTA NASHVILLE 26

l27 29 29 15 LOVE ME LIKE YOU MEAN IT Kelsea Ballerini F.G.WHITEHEAD (K.BALLERINI,J.KERR,F.G.WHITEHEAD,L.CARPENTER) BLACK RIVER 27

l28 27 28 23 LOVE YOU LIKE THAT Canaan Smith B.BEAVERS,J.ROBBINS (C.SMITH,B.BEAVERS,J.BEAVERS) MERCURY 27

29 25 — 2 GAMES Luke Bryan J.STEVENS (L.BRYAN,A.GORLEY) CAPITOL NASHVILLE 25

l30 34 32 18 BABY BE MY LOVE SONG Easton Corbin C.CHAMBERLAIN (J.COLLINS,BRETT JAMES) MERCURY 30

l31 41 44 3 LIKE A WRECKING BALL Eric Church J.JOYCE (E.CHURCH,C.BEATHARD) EMI NASHVILLE 31

l32 40 50 6 SIPPIN’ ON FIRE ★★Airplay Gainer★★ Florida Georgia Line J.MOI (R.CLAWSON,M.DRAGSTREM,C.TAYLOR) REPUBLIC NASHVILLE

10

l33 37 40 5 CRUSHIN’ IT Brad Paisley L.WOOTEN,B.PAISLEY (B.PAISLEY,K.LOVELACE,L.T.MILLER) ARISTA NASHVILLE 33

l34 35 35 16 LAY LOW Josh Turner F.ROGERS (R.COPPERMAN,T.MARTIN,M.NESLER) MCA NASHVILLE 29

l35 36 36 10 ONE HELL OF AN AMEN Brantley Gilbert D.HUFF (B.GILBERT,M.DEKLE,B.DAVIS) VALORY 35

l36 42 42 13 HARD TO BE COOL Joe Nichols M.J.CONES (R.HATCH,J.SELLERS) RED BOW 36

l37 39 — 2 SPRING BREAKDOWN Luke Bryan J.STEVENS (L.BRYAN,A.GORLEY,Z.CROWELL) CAPITOL NASHVILLE 37

l38 43 39 5 I’M TO BLAME Kip Moore B.JAMES (K.MOORE,J.WEAVER,W.DAVIS) MCA NASHVILLE 31

l39 44 41 9 RIOT Rascal Flatts J.DEMARCUS,RASCAL FLATTS (J.BOYER,S.HAZE) BIG MACHINE 39

l40 45 48 3 RIDE Chase Rice C. DESTEFANO (J.SOMERS-MORALES,D.C.TARPLEY JR.) DACK JANIELS/COLUMBIA NASHVILLE 40

l41 46 46 9 GOING OUT LIKE THAT Reba T.BROWN (B.HAYSLIP,R.AKINS,J.SELLERS) NASH ICON/VALORY 28

l42 49 43 9 HELL OF A NIGHT Dustin Lynch M.J.CONES (Z.CROWELL,A.SANDERS,J.BOYER) BROKEN BOW 42

l43 50 — 2 YOUNG & CRAZY Frankie Ballard M.ALTMAN,S.HENDRICKS (A.GORLEY,S.MCANALLY,R.AKINS) WARNER BROS./WAR 43

l44 47 47 10 TROUBLE Gloriana M.SERLETIC (R.REINERT,M.GOSSIN,R.COPPERMAN,J.M.NITE) EMBLEM/WARNER BROS./WAR 42

l45 48 45 19 MAKE YOU MISS ME Sam Hunt Z.CROWELL,S.MCANALLY (S.HUNT,J.OSBORNE,M.RAMSEY) MCA NASHVILLE 32

46 38 27 20 TRAILER HITCH Kristian Bush K.BUSH,T.TAPLEY (K.BUSH,B.BUSH,T.OWENS) STREAMSOUND 25

l47 RE-ENTRY 3 I GOT THE BOY Jana Kramer S.HENDRICKS (T.NICHOLS,C.HARRINGTON,J.L.SPEARS) ELEKTRA NASHVILLE/WAR 33

l48 RE-ENTRY 10 GONNA WANNA TONIGHT Chase Rice C. DESTEFANO (S.MCANALLY,J.M.NITE,J.ROBBINS) DACK JANIELS/COLUMBIA NASHVILLE 34

l49 NEW 1 HANGOVER TONIGHT ★★Hot Shot Debut★★ Gary Allan G.ALLAN,G.DROMAN (G.ALLAN,J.FRASURE,C.STAPLETON,C.R.BARLOWE) MCA NASHVILLE

49

l50 RE-ENTRY 3 FLY Maddie & Tae D.HUFF (M.MARLOW,T.DYE,T.VARTANYAN) DOT 49

THIS

W

EEK

LAST

W

EEK

WKS

ON

CH

ART

TITLEARTIST (IMPRINT/LABEL)

1 1 19 TAKE YOUR TIME SAM HUNT (MCA Nashville/UMGN)

l2 4 8 HOMEGROWN ZAC BROWN BAND (Varvatos/Southern Ground/BMLG/Republic)

l3 6 22 AIN’T WORTH THE WHISKEY COLE SWINDELL (Warner Bros./WMN)

4 2 11 GIRL CRUSH LITTLE BIG TOWN (Capitol Nashville/UMGN)

l5 9 20 LONELY TONIGHT BLAKE SHELTON FEAT. ASHLEY MONROE (Warner Bros./WMN)

6 3 2 GAMES LUKE BRYAN (Capitol Nashville/UMGN)

l7 10 26 DRINKING CLASS LEE BRICE (Curb)

l8 12 18 JUST GETTIN’ STARTED JASON ALDEAN (Broken Bow/BBMG)

l9 17 6 SMOKE A THOUSAND HORSES (Republic Nashville/BMLG)

l10 16 8 LITTLE RED WAGON MIRANDA LAMBERT (RCA Nashville/SMN)

l11 13 20 LONELY EYES CHRIS YOUNG (RCA Nashville/SMN)

12 7 23 MAKE ME WANNA THOMAS RHETT (Valory/BMLG)

l13 19 27 MEAN TO ME BRETT ELDREDGE (Atlantic/WMN)

l14 18 16 A GUY WALKS INTO A BAR TYLER FARR (Columbia Nashville/SMN)

l15 33 4 LIKE A WRECKING BALL ERIC CHURCH (EMI Nashville/UMGN)

l16 22 9 RIDE CHASE RICE (Dack Janiels)

l17 21 11 SAY YOU DO DIERKS BENTLEY (Capitol Nashville/UMGN)

l18 23 12 SHE DON’T LOVE YOU ERIC PASLAY (EMI Nashville/UMGN)

19 11 24 SUN DAZE FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE (Republic Nashville/BMLG)

20 14 2 SPRING BREAKDOWN LUKE BRYAN (Capitol Nashville/UMGN)

21 24 26 LIKE A COWBOY RANDY HOUSER (Stoney Creek/BBMG)

l22 37 7 LITTLE TOY GUNS CARRIE UNDERWOOD (19/Arista Nashville/SMN)

l23 26 24 HOMEGROWN HONEY DARIUS RUCKER (Capitol Nashville/UMGN)

l24 29 19 LOVE YOU LIKE THAT CANAAN SMITH (Mercury/UMGN)

l25 36 4 LOVE ME LIKE YOU MEAN IT KELSEA BALLERINI (Black River)

THIS

W

EEK

LAST

W

EEK

WKS

ON

CH

ART

TITLEARTIST (IMPRINT/LABEL)

l26 34 4 DON’T IT BILLY CURRINGTON (Mercury/UMGN)

27 27 24 TALLADEGA ERIC CHURCH (EMI Nashville/UMGN)

28 20 18 I SEE YOU LUKE BRYAN (Capitol Nashville/UMGN)

29 28 25 SHOTGUN RIDER TIM MCGRAW (McGraw/Big Machine/BMLG)

l30 39 7 RAISE ‘EM UP KEITH URBAN FEAT. ERIC CHURCH (Hit Red/Capitol Nashville)

l31 35 28 WHAT WE AIN’T GOT JAKE OWEN (RCA Nashville/SMN)

32 31 23 SOMETHING IN THE WATER CARRIE UNDERWOOD (19/Arista Nashville/SMN)

l33 45 3 DIAMOND RINGS AND OLD BARSTOOL TIM MCGRAW WITH CATHERINE DUNN (McGraw/Big Machine/BMLG)

34 30 32 BURNIN’ IT DOWN JASON ALDEAN (Broken Bow/BBMG)

35 38 38 LEAVE THE NIGHT ON SAM HUNT (MCA Nashville/UMGN)

36 8 2 I’M A MAN OF CONSTANT SORROW SAWYER FREDERICKS (Republic)

l37 49 2 WILD CHILD KENNY CHESNEY WITH GRACE POTTER (Blue Chair/Columbia Nashville/SMN)

38 41 67 PLAY IT AGAIN LUKE BRYAN (Capitol Nashville/UMGN)

l39 RE-ENTRY CHICKEN FRIED ZAC BROWN BAND (Home Grown/Atlantic/Bigger Picture)

l40 50 28 BREAK UP IN A SMALL TOWN SAM HUNT (MCA Nashville/UMGN)

l41 RE-ENTRY THE HOUSE THAT BUILT ME MIRANDA LAMBERT (Columbia Nashville/SMN)

l42 RE-ENTRY SIPPIN’ ON FIRE FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE (Republic Nashville/BMLG)

l43 48 139 CRUISE FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE (Republic Nashville/BMLG)

l44 NEW HANGOVER TONIGHT GARY ALLAN (MCA Nashville/UMGN)

45 42 67 THIS IS HOW WE ROLL FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE FEAT. LUKE BRYAN (Republic Nashville/BMLG)

46 5 2 HEARTS I LEAVE BEHIND PETE SCOBELL BAND FEAT. WYNONNA JUDD (Pete Scobell Band)

l47 RE-ENTRY LAY LOW JOSH TURNER (MCA Nashville/UMGN)

l48 RE-ENTRY I GOT THE BOY JANA KRAMER (Elektra Nashville/WMN)

49 44 45 DRUNK ON A PLANE DIERKS BENTLEY (Capitol Nashville/UMGN)

50 25 24 ALL SUMMER LONG KID ROCK (Top Dog/Atlantic/AG)

Top-selling paid download country songs compiled from sales reports collected and provided by Nielsen Music. Charts update weekly on Thurdays at www.Billboard.Biz/charts. Copyright 2015, Prometheus Global Media, LLC and Nielsen Music, Inc. All rights reserved.

THIS

W

EEK

LAST

W

EEK

2 W

EEKS

A

GO

WEE

KS

ON

CH

T

ARTIST TitleIMPRINT & NUMBER / DISTRIBUTING LABEL

CERT

.

PEA

K

POSI

TION

1 1 2 19 SAM HUNT MontevalloMCA NASHVILLE 021502/UMGN 1

l2 31 — 2 SHANIA TWAIN Shania: Still The One: Live From Las VegasMERCURY 022017 WMEX/UMGN 2

3 3 4 22 JASON ALDEAN Old Boots, New DirtBROKEN BOW 7105/BBMG 1 1

4 4 6 21 FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE Anything GoesREPUBLIC NASHVILLE /BMLG 0 1

5 5 7 13 CARRIE UNDERWOOD Greatest Hits: Decade #119/ARISTA NASHVILLE 500876/SMN 0 1

l6 8 11 56 ERIC CHURCH The OutsidersEMI NASHVILLE 019402*/UMGN 1 1

7 6 9 29 CHASE RICE Ignite The NightCOLUMBIA NASHVILLE 22573/DACK JANIELS 1

8 2 1 3 AARON WATSON The UnderdogBIG LABEL 400237/THIRTY TIGERS 1

9 9 10 40 MIRANDA LAMBERT PlatinumRCA NASHVILLE 379278/SMN 0 1

10 7 8 83 LUKE BRYAN Crash My PartyCAPITOL NASHVILLE 018733/UMGN 2 1

l11 19 15 17 ZAC BROWN BAND Greatest Hits So Far...ROAR/SOUTHERN GROUND/ATLANTIC 546369/AG 5

12 13 13 17 GARTH BROOKS Man Against MachinePEARL/RCA NASHVILLE 501135/SMN 1 1

l13 18 18 25 GEORGE STRAIT The Cowboy Rides Away: Live From AT&T StadiumMCA NASHVILLE 021477/UMGN 2

l14 NEW 1 ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL Still The King: Celebrating The Music Of Bob Wills And His Texas PlayboysBISMEAUX 1314/MAILBOAT 14

l15 20 17 55 COLE SWINDELL Cole SwindellWARNER BROS. 541372/WMN 2

l16 NEW 1 VARIOUS ARTISTS The Average Joes DJ’s Present: Mud In The Club, Volume 1AVERAGE JOES 263 16

17 12 23 20 LITTLE BIG TOWN Pain KillerCAPITOL NASHVILLE 021360*/UMGN 3

18 11 16 23 BLAKE SHELTON BRINGING BACK THE SUNSHINEWARNER BROS. 544918/WMN 0 1

19 16 14 42 BRANTLEY GILBERT Just As I AmVALORY BG0200A/BMLG 0 1

20 10 5 3 THE MAVERICKS MonoVALORY MV0200A/BMLG 5

21 21 22 24 KENNY CHESNEY The Big RevivalBLUE CHAIR/COLUMBIA NASHVILLE 306274/SMN 1

l22 24 24 26 LEE BRICE I Dont DanceCURB 79392* 1

23 14 3 3 STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES TerraplaneNEW WEST 6328* 3

24 22 25 25 TIM MCGRAW Sundown Heaven TownMCGRAW/BIG MACHINE TM0200A/BMLG 1

25 23 19 43 STURGILL SIMPSON Metamodern Sounds In Country MusicHIGH TOP MOUNTAIN 002*/THIRTY TIGERS 8

THIS

W

EEK

LAST

W

EEK

WKS

ON

CH

ART

TITLEARTIST

1 1 10 TAKE YOUR TIME SAM HUNT

l2 2 37 LEAVE THE NIGHT ON SAM HUNT

3 3 13 I SEE YOU LUKE BRYAN

l4 4 54 THIS IS HOW WE ROLL FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE FEAT. LUKE BRYAN

l5 6 50 PLAY IT AGAIN LUKE BRYAN

l6 5 101 CRUISE FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE

l7 7 20 SUN DAZE FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE

l8 8 35 DIRT FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE

9 9 17 DRINKING CLASS LEE BRICE

l10 15 7 MAKE ME WANNA THOMAS RHETT

THIS

W

EEK

LAST

W

EEK

WKS

ON

CH

ART

TITLEARTIST

l11 13 7 LONELY TONIGHT BLAKE SHELTON FEAT. ASHLEY MONROE

l12 11 63 BOTTOMS UP BRANTLEY GILBERT

l13 10 14 TALLADEGA ERIC CHURCH

l14 14 82 THAT’S MY KIND OF NIGHT LUKE BRYAN

l15 23 2 AIN’T WORTH THE WHISKEY COLE SWINDELL

16 12 23 SOMETHING IN THE WATER CARRIE UNDERWOOD

17 16 61 YOU BELONG WITH ME TAYLOR SWIFT

l18 22 3 HOMEGROWN ZAC BROWN BAND

19 17 2 GIRL CRUSH LITTLE BIG TOWN

l20 21 6 BREAK UP IN A SMALL TOWN SAM HUNT

Country Streaming Songs -The week’s top Country streamed radio songs, on-demand songs and videos on leading online music services. Charts update weekly on Thurdays at www.Billboard.Biz/charts. Copyright 2015, Prometheus Global Media, LLC and Nielsen Music, Inc. All rights reserved.

BUILDING AIRPLAY GAINERSTITLE Label Artist GAIN

HOMEGROWN Varvatos/Republic/BMLG/Southern Ground Zac Brown Band +517

AIN’T WORTH THE WHISKEY Warner Bros./WMN Cole Swindell +318

KISS YOU IN THE MORNING Warner Bros./WEA Michael Ray +292

SIPPIN’ ON FIRE Republic Nashville Florida Georgia Line +245

TAKE YOUR TIME MCA Nashville Sam Hunt +207

LITTLE TOY GUNS 19/Arista Nashville Carrie Underwood +206

DIAMOND RINGS AND OLD BARSTOOLS McGraw/Big Machine Tim McGraw With Catherine Dunn +193

WILD CHILD Blue Chair/Columbia Nashville Kenny Chesney With Grace Potter +184

DON’T IT Mercury Billy Currington +146

LONELY EYES RCA Nashville Chris Young +146

Building Gainers reflects titles with the top increases in plays from Monday through 5pm ET Wednesday, as compared to the same period in the previous week, according to Nielsen Music.

TOP COUNTRY ALBUMSCOUNTRY DIGITAL SONGS

BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE MARCH 12, 2015 | PAGE 9 OF 9

STREAMING DATA COMPILED BY

The week’s most popular country albums, ranked by sales data as compiled by Nielsen Music. Albums are defined as current if they are less than 18 months old or older than 18 months but still residing in the Billboard 200’s top 100. Charts update weekly on Thurdays at www.Billboard.Biz/charts. Copyright 2015, Prometheus Global Media, LLC and Nielsen Music, Inc. All rights reserved.

COUNTRY STREAMING SONGS

SALES, AIRPLAY & STREAMING DATA COMPILED BY

SALES, AIRPLAY & STREAMING DATA COMPILED BY