What Comes Next People often ask us what is coming next in country radio. Nobody knows the answer to that for sure, but I can tell you some trends I see developing. 1) Labels are saying no truck songs. no dirt roads. no tailgates. There seems to be a move away from the bro country types of songs. They arent going to go away, but I think the trend will be moving to other topics. 2) Songs are coming out with more melody. Ive attached Jake Owens What We Aint Got. A beautiful, soaring melody with a deep message. Not exactly what we have been hearing on radio lately. We have jokingly called some of the songs that have very little melody yellodies. There seems to be a move toward more melodic songs. 3) Two opposing trends are going on in regard to production. On one side we have Chillin It that has TONS going on production-wise. On the other side, we have What We Aint Got that is very simple, stripped down production. Which one will win? Not sure. Its encouraging to me, though, that both can exist simultaneously on country radio. There have been times when country radio was VERY narrow in regard to what it played. Opening things up could be a very good thing for songwriters. 4) Labels are signing some VERY country acts. Artists like Mo Pitney and William Michael Morgan are coming down the pike and they are reminiscent of Keith Whitley and Alan Jackson respectively. Radio could refuse to play them or we could have a trend back toward more traditional country music. 5) Artists are taking more chances. Kasey Musgraves leads the charge with edgy topics. Other artists are stretching out as well. This gives writers more opportunities to say different things and to take chances artistically. What does it mean? My recommendation is to write LOTS of different style of music and to take chances. Being great AND different will get you noticed. And DONT stick to writing one thing. If your one thing goes out of style, you are in trouble. The wider the variety of your catalog, the more pitches you have when different types of artists come along. Write a lot. Write great ideas. Stretch outside of your comfort zones. Write on. Marty Dodson
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 13:24:02 +0000
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