Parmalee - "Carolina" (Read 676 times)

[Deleted]

New Single by Parmalee - "Carolina"

CLICK HERE to Listen (AllAccess)

Songwriters: Matt Thomas, Scott Thomas, Barry Knox, Josh McSwain, and Rick Beato

Impact Date: February 4 (Stoney Creek Records)

Music Video:



Source: AllAccess

Chart Run: 58-57-54-50-51-49-50-44-45-45

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Recent singles on the Billboard Country Airplay chart:

- Parmalee's debut single "Musta Had A Good Time" charted for 20 weeks, peaking at #38 on 10/27/12.

Current single:

- In its 10th week, "Carolina" is at #45 on 4/20/13 (current peak is #44 on 4/6/13).

[country65]

What is happening with this single? After dropping off the chart a few weeks ago it has bounced back in a big way. It's not a bad tune, but one of the stations I listen to has been spinning it pretty heavily for awhile and it's kinda wearing thin. Wonder how much further it will go?

[Jhomes87]

Aug 24, 2013 23:28:22 GMT -6 country65 said:

What is happening with this single? After dropping off the chart a few weeks ago it has bounced back in a big way. It's not a bad tune, but one of the stations I listen to has been spinning it pretty heavily for awhile and it's kinda wearing thin. Wonder how much further it will go?

It's definitely had an interesting chart run. It did meet Billboard's requirements to go recurrent at one point--it was more than 20 weeks old, and they gave it a grace week, and the following week it couldn't quite re-bullet. That automatically sends a song recurrent on Billboard, but on Mediabase a song gets 3 drop weeks no matter how old it is or where it's at on the chart. I personally like Billboard's rules better but I think it was evident from all the trade ads that Stoney Creek was publishing (they were putting daily ads in the Country Aircheck Today emails) that they weren't gonna give up on "Carolina".

I must also point out that "Carolina" has been selling well ahead of the airplay 'curve' for a while now, and its call-out scores are pretty good too. Those are probably the 2 biggest factors in getting a song played--well, that and the momentum that an artist has, plus the label strength. The Stoney Creek team has really emerged in the last couple of years, and while Parmalee is a new artist, they've built up a solid following already.

On a side-note, it seems to be that the labels are ignoring Billboard more and more. In years past, we've seen the "power up for #1" pushes correlate to a Monday through Sunday week...in other words, the final push would always start on Monday (so the Tuesday MB update)--the 1st day of the Billboard week and the 2nd day of the Mediabase week--and end at the end of the day on Sunday--the last day of the Billboard week, but of course the 1st day in the new Mediabase week. In the last 6-12 months we've seen a sharp change...the pushes are now going from Sunday through Saturday and correlate directly with the 7-day Mediabase week. More and more often, labels/artists are getting that MB #1 and then taking their foot off the gas, especially on Sunday, and so we've seen a lot of split #1's this year--song A getting the MB #1, and song B getting the BB #1. And in most cases, Song B has wound up getting to #1 on Mediabase the next week, which also results in a 2-week #1 stay on Billboard.

I think the issue lies with Billboard's new Hot Country Songs chart. By incorporating cross-over airplay into a chart that they call "the main country chart", I feel like they are really self-marginalizing themselves, and they're too proud to undo the changes they made to that chart. Don't get me wrong--sales and streaming are important and should be tabulated as well, but I just don't think they should all be added together with airplay, and the cross-over airplay makes it worse. The labels can only influence radio charts, and so they're paying more attention to Mediabase now.

I have a problem with it all. For one, I think Mediabase's "revolving door" chart is a joke. I don't like their points system, and I don't like that their chart has virtually no history to it (it only dates back to the 80's), they don't really record their history anywhere, and the chart is overly easy for the labels to manipulate. But I absolutely detest the new Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. The fact that it imported the chart history from when it was airplay-only is absurd. Billboard is really at fault, if they are indeed falling out of favor within the country industry (and I suspect they are).

So far in this chart year (since December 1st), there have been 24 different #1 songs (covering 40 charts) on Billboard Country Airplay. On Mediabase, we've had 34 #1 songs in that same 40-week span. Yes, that's correct--we've had 10 Mediabase-only #1's in the last 9 months, and 0 Billboard-only #1's. The Mediabase-only #1's include Kip Moore's "Beer Money", Brad Paisley's "Southern Comfort Zone", Taylor Swift's "Begin Again", Little Big Town's "Tornado", Carrie Underwood's "Two Black Cadillacs", Miranda Lambert's "Mama's Broken Heart", George Strait's "Give It All We Got Tonight", Brad Paisley's "Beat This Summer", Kip Moore's "Hey Pretty Girl", and Hunter Hayes' "I Want Crazy". But now we've actually just had an 11th Mediabase-only #1, with Carrie's "See You Again".

Only "Cruise", "Goodbye In Her Eyes", "Downtown", "Highway Don't Care", and "Crash My Party" managed to spend multiple weeks atop the Mediabase chart--and each of them only got 2 weeks, no more.

On Billboard, we've had four 3-week #1 hits, and eight other 2-week #1 hits.

I realize I spun way off topic from Parmalee's "Carolina", but I just wanted to illustrate that I think many labels are more focused on Mediabase right now and I don't blame them. Everybody gets a turn at #1 there and so everyone is happy. Parmalee may have gone recurrent on Billboard at one point, but they only suffered a hiccup on Mediabase, and Stoney Creek has continued to fervently push the song throughout.

I actually rarely hear this on the radio, but I've noticed an uptick in plays lately. I wouldn't be surprised to see this make the top 20 or even top 15, but I'd guess that it won't last long enough to make the top 10, considering it's already been on the Billboard chart for 29 weeks now. Still, you never know these days with the new artists and their slow chart runs...

[country65]

Well it now made the Top 20 and seems to still be growing. I could see their label continue to push it into the Top 10. Guess it will depend on the competition as it gets closer.

[Jhomes87]

Parmalee had another big week, pulling away from Miranda Lambert and passing Toby Keith. Their 3.5 million gain also helped them to close to just 1 mil behind Craig Campbell, and they pulled further ahead of Darius, Jake, TBP, and the EYB as well. I could see this one jumped from *17-13 next week, since Justin Moore and probably FlaGa will go recurrent, and they're within striking distance of Craig Campbell, while Charlie Worsham is really slowing down.

[country65]

This looks likely to move into the Top 10 this week. Its still going strong and Top 5 doesn't look out of the question. Age is working against this one, but the label sticking with this even after it fell off the charts for a week has proved successful. How high will it go?

[Jhomes87]

Oct 26, 2013 12:24:40 GMT -6 country65 said:

This looks likely to move into the Top 10 this week. Its still going strong and Top 5 doesn't look out of the question. Age is working against this one, but the label sticking with this even after it fell off the charts for a week has proved successful. How high will it go?

I've started to think this one will go to #1. It's selling well and it has now moved into the #1 spot on Bullseye's Call-out America chart. Stoney Creek's rigorous promotion efforts have really paid off for some of their artists, most notably Thompson Square and Randy Houser. Thompson Square's very first single was actually "Let's Fight" which didn't make it out of the 50's, but I believe the official story was that the label pulled that song because the radio people actually were responding more to "Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not" during Thompson Square's radio tour. So, the label pulled "Let's Fight" and released AYGKMON instead, and it went to #1. They followed that up with a top 10 and a top 15, and then "If I Didn't Have You" went #1 as well. Now "Everything I Shouldn't Be Thinking About" is moving slowly but starting to pick up and it really looks like Stoney Creek is determined to stick with that one.

Then there's Houser, who signed with the label and got his first #1 with his first single for Stoney Creek. "How Country Feels" did take quite a while to peak but again, that's a good effort on the label's part. "Runnin' Outta Moonlight" was an even bigger smash and now his new one "Goodnight Kiss" is off to a great start.

Parmalee started off slower than both Thompson Square and Houser, but the label has stuck with this group too. I'm surprised we haven't heard about an album release, considering they first went into the studio a couple years ago already. I'm fairly certain the album is done, but maybe they were re-cutting or swapping a few songs and decided to wait until after Christmas to release it.

It's true that this song has spent a lot of time on the chart, but it didn't really get going until later in the summer and into the autumn, and it continues to increase its weekly sales numbers, while the listener feedback and research is stronger than ever. This has shown to have very little burn rate, and it's got a lot of momentum, so I don't actually think that the label will have too much trouble getting this to #1.