Official Charts can confirm that 2024 is the year of the country music renaissance in the UK, with the genre experiencing a 67% surge year-on-year.
New research by the Official Charts Company reveals that combined sales and streaming-equivalent sales of country singles in the UK so far in 2024 have already reached 11.5 million and counting, versus the 6.9 million for 2023 in the same time period (21 weeks).
Two weeks ago, Post Malone's collaboration with US country singer Morgan Wallen, I Had Some Help, debuted at Number 2 on the Official Singles Chart. The first single from a new country-influenced record by Posty, I Had Some Help made its mark as the first UK Top 10 single for Morgan Wallen, a veritable country superstar in America, who scored the biggest hit of 2023 on the Billboard Hot 100 with his single Last Night. It's not alone either, I Had Some Help is one of a hat-trick of country tunes currently riding in the UK Top 10.
Bolstered by several viral TikTok hits - like A Bar Song (Tipsy) by Shaboozey (Number 3 peak) and Austin by Dasha (Number 7 peak) - and of course Beyoncé's chart-topping eighth studio album COWBOY CARTER, the streaming numbers for country as a genre are even more impressive...and opening the doors for newer artists to make their mark on a global scale.
"A lot of people I listen to are getting their flowers," Shaboozey, the rising self-styled maker of "music for modern cowboys" told Official Charts not long before earning his first Top 10 hit. "Vincent Neil Emerson from Texas, Leon Bridges; all homies that’ve been here for a while. Sierra Ferrell, as well."
"They’ve all been doing their stuff for years and the world’s finally come around to them. They’re some of the new pioneers of this new resurgence of Western music."
So far in 2024, country songs have claimed 1.3 billion UK streams, a 63% increase on the 800.1 million streams they received throughout the same time period in 2023.
The UK's most-streamed country songs of all time
POS TITLE ARTIST
1 MEANT TO BE BEBE REXHA FT FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE
2 9 TO 5 DOLLY PARTON
3 TAKE ME HOME COUNTRY ROADS JOHN DENVER
4 LOVE STORY TAYLOR SWIFT
5 ISLANDS IN THE STREAM DOLLY PARTON & KENNY ROGERS
6 THE GAMBLER KENNY ROGERS
7 NEED YOU NOW LADY A
8 SAY SOMETHING JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE FT CHRIS STAPLETON
9 BEFORE HE CHEATS CARRIE UNDERWOOD
10 TENNESSEE WHISKEY CHRIS STAPLETON
11 LIFE IS A HIGHWAY RASCAL FLATTS
12 MAN I FEEL LIKE A WOMAN SHANIA TWAIN
13 HURT JOHNNY CASH
14 10000 HOURS DAN & SHAY FT JUSTIN BIEBER
15 WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS LUKE COMBS
16 SOMETHING IN THE ORANGE ZACH BRYAN
17 WAGON WHEEL DARIUS RUCKER
18 AMAZED LONESTAR
19 ONE TOO MANY KEITH URBAN & PINK
20 LAST NIGHT MORGAN WALLEN
