The Numbers
If you compare the results of this year’s Country Music Critics’ Poll with Billboard’s list of the year’s best-selling “Hot Country Songs” and “Top Country Albums,” you discover some interesting things about who combines critical and commercial success and who doesn’t.
Some singles, for example, did well on both lists: The Wreckers’ “Leave the Pieces” (No. 8 BB and No. 3 CP), Josh Turner’s “Would You Go With Me” (No. 6 BB and No. 6 CP), Rodney Atkins’ “If You’re Going Through Hell” (No. 1 BB and No. 16 CP), George Strait’s “Give It Away” (No. 14 BB and No. 11 CP), Brad Paisley’s “The World” (No. 2 BB and No. 28 CP), Gary Allan’s “Life Ain’t Always Beautiful” (No. 23 BB and No. 9 CP), Tim McGraw’s “When Stars Go Blue” (No. 20 BB and No. 20 CP), Brooks & Dunn’s “Believe” (No. 27 BB and No. 17 CP), and Brad Paisley and Dolly Parton’s “When I Get Where I’m Going” (No. 22 BB and No. 10 CP).
Some of the high-ranking singles on the Billboard chart, however, got little support from the critics: Kenny Chesney’s “Summertime” (No. 3 BB and No. 36 CP), Rascal Flatts’ “What Hurts the Most” (No. 4 BB and No. 49 CP), Keith Urban’s “Tonight I Wanna Cry” (No. 7 BB and No. 97 CP), Bon Jovi & Jennifer Nettles’ “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” (No. 9 BB and No. 76 CP), LeAnn Rimes’ “Something’s Gotta Give” (No. 16 BB and No. 67 (tie) CP), and Phil Vassar’s “Last Day of My Life” (No. 17 BB and No. 67 (tie) CP).
At the same time, half of the top 20 singles on the critics’ chart didn’t show up at all on Billboard’s top 50 songs of the year: the Dixie Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice,” Alan Jackson’s “Like Red on a Rose,” Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” Rosanne Cash’s “House on the Lake,” Julie Roberts’ “Men & Mascara,” Radney Foster’s “Half of My Mistakes,” Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Snake Farm,” Jack Ingram’s “Love You,” Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris’ “This Is Us,” and Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Down Home Girl.”
Some of those discrepancies are explained by the narrow gate operated by country radio, which has such a warping effect on the singles charts. The Dixie Chicks, for example, were shut out by radio from Billboard’s singles chart but their album, Taking the Long Way, was No. 5 on Billboard’s year-end country album charts and No. 1 on the Internet album charts. Johnny Cash and Alan Jackson, who were both shut out from the singles chart, each placed two different albums in the top 40 of Billboard’s 2006 album chart.
Billboard’s chart of the year’s top Tastemaker Albums had Bob Dylan’s Modern Times (No. 9 CP) at No. 4 (trailing only Gnarls Barkley, Tool and the Red Hot Chili Peppers), the Dixie Chicks’ Taking the Long Way (No. 1 CP) at No. 13, and Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris’ All the Roadrunning (No. 17 CP) at No. 25.
