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