Country music: so hot rn

During this year’s Super Bowl, Beyoncé dropped two new songs – “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” – and announced a country album, Cowboy Carter, scheduled for release on March 29 ("tomorrow," aka midnight tonight).

And boy, are listeners excited. “Texas Hold ‘Em” topped Billboard’s Hot Country Songs list on February 24 (it debuted on February 11), making Queen Bey the first Black women to ever hold the #1 spot on that chart, while “16 Carriages” came in at #9. As of this writing, the two songs have racked up ~235 million streams on Spotify.

But country music was on an upswing even before Beyoncé…and this was most likely due to a separate star: Morgan Wallen. Country music streaming grew 24% year-over-year through Q3 2023, with Wallen being responsible for almost a third of the growth, according to entertainment data company Luminate.

• Gen Z and millennials are also contributing to the country surge. In 2023, 36% of streams of Spotify’s Top 50 songs were country songs, compared to 2% in 2016.

…and mainstream artists are increasingly riding the wave🏄. Lana Del Rey and Post Malone are reportedly preparing to release country albums, while Ed Sheeran could also be unveiling a country music project soon, according to Billboard.