Morgan Wallen pulled country music’s biggest crossover on the charts, ending the year with five of the top 50 most streamed songs of 2023 on Spotify, as well as 11 of the top 100 songs on Apple Music (all U.S. charts). He landed eight songs on the year-end Billboard Hot 100, including “Last Night,” a tale of whisky-fueled love and regret driven by acoustic guitar and clap-along percussion, which held the top spot for 16 weeks, the most for a non-collaboration song in the chart’s 65-year history. It was also the most streamed song on Apple Music globally, contributing to the streaming service naming Wallen its top global music artist of 2023.
Zach Bryan became the second artist to place at least 18 songs on the Hot 100 chart in the same week when he dropped his self-titled sophomore album in August — second only to Wallen’s record of 36 songs, coinciding with the March release of his double-album One Thing at a Time. Zach Bryan is nominated for Best Country Album at the 2024 GRAMMYs, alongside Kelsea Ballerini’s Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, Brothers Osborne’s Brothers Osborne, Tyler Childers’ Rustin’ In The Rain, and Lainey Wilson’s Bell Bottom Country. (More on Bryan later.)
The Hot 100 further indicated the genre’s crossover success in early August, when the top three positions were occupied by country songs: Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town,” Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night,” and Luke Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 classic. Not only was it the first time in history that country songs dominated the first three spots on the all-genre chart, but it also happened two more times on Aug. 26 and Sept. 2. “Last Night” and “Fast Car” also received nominations for the 2024 GRAMMYs; “Last Night” is nominated for Best Country Song at the 2024 GRAMMYs alongside with Brandy Clark’s “Buried,” Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves’ “I Remember Everything,” Tyler Childers’ “In Your Love,” and Chris Stapleton’s “White Horse,” while “Fast Car” is Best Country Solo Performance alongside “White Horse,” “Buried,” “In Your Love.” and Dolly Parton’s “The Last Thing on My Mind.”
What’s more, two of the eight Best New Artist nominees at the 2024 GRAMMYs are country acts, “Son of a Sinner” star Jelly Roll and soulful husband-and-wife duo The War and Treaty. They’re nominated alongside Gracie Abrams, Fred again.., Ice Spice, Coco Jones, Noah Kahan and Victoria Monét.
Lainey Wilson celebrated a banner crossover year both in music and television. Along with parlaying the hit Paramount series “Yellowstone” into more exposure for her music, she became the first female artist in history to have four No. 1 hits on country radio in a calendar year thanks to “Heart Like A Truck,” “Wait in the Truck” with HARDY, “Watermelon Moonshine” and “Save Me” with Jelly Roll — all of which cracked the top 30 of the all-genre Hot 100.
