Margo Price Preludes SNL Performance With Record Chart Debut

There’s plenty of local enthusiasm and national media buzz around indie trad-country phenom Margo Price. And a historic chart debut for her debut LP Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, released March 25 via Third Man Records, shows she's quickly growing a national following. 

This week, Daughter entered at No. 10 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, making it the first solo female artist's debut album since the chart's inception in 1964 to crack the top 10 — without being preceded by charting singles. (Price's single "(Hurtin') On the Bottle" has not yet appeared on either the Hot Country Songs or Country Airplay charts.) Though relatively robust in this day and age, Daughter's first-week sales tally of 4,000 copies is a relatively modest figure, but considering that it's Third Man's first foray into the country arena, it's nothing to sneeze at.

For a little context, let's take a look at some other up-and-coming female country artists with a strong presence on the charts.

* Kelsea Ballerini's ACM Awards performance (which popster Nick Jonas would probably like to forget) was quite a while in the making. Ballerini's debut album The First Time came out on May 19, 2015 and sold 13,500 copies. Three weeks later, it entered the Top Country Albums chart on June 6, 2015 at No. 4.

That followed the noteworthy chart performance of her debut single “Love Me Like You Mean It,” which dropped on Sept. 22, 2014. The song was a slow burner, eventually taking a 38-week climb to No. 1 on Country Airplay for the week ending July 4, 2015. It was the first time a solo female country artist had her debut single hit No. 1 on that chart since Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take the Wheel” in 2006.

* Maddie & Tae’s debut full-length Start Here sold some 24,000 units in the week following its release on Aug. 28, 2015, and it debuted at No. 2 on Top Country Albums three weeks later. That album contained duo's massive debut single “Girl in a Country Song,” which had been working the charts for an entire year. Following its July 15, 2014 release, the ubiquitous song took a long, steady climb to No. 1 on Country Airplay in December 2014.

* Cam’s debut LP Untamed dropped right in the middle of the holiday season on December 11, 2015, and had a solid debut week with some 37,000 sales. Its debut at No. 2 on Top Country Albums came on the back of the ballad "Burning House," released as a single June 16, 2015, and was chased into Hot Country Songs Top 10 by The Voice contestant Emily Ann Roberts' cover version. The original peaked at No. 2 on that chart on Jan. 2, 2016 (alongside Roberts' version at No. 4).

The success of all of these albums is heartening evidence that the conversation over diversity in male-dominated country music in the wake of #SaladGate is having an impact and tides may be changing. That Price is among them is a testament to both the audience-reaching quality of her work and the benefits of her relationship with Third Man, a high-profile indie label with a sizable fan base. Certainly the label's cache spurned industry interest, helping Price get the pro PR and management representation a great artist deserves, greasing her path to late night bookings on Colbert, Conan and, this weekend, SNL.

Despite having major tastemaker Jack White at the helm, Third Man's resources are still limited compared with Universal Music Group (owner of Big Machine, which owns Republic Nashville, which co-released Start Here) and Sony Music Entertainment (which owns Arista Nashville, which co-released Untamed), as well as Black River Entertainment, a division of a company owned by billionaire natural gas magnate Terry Pegula which released The First Time.) 

Price celebrates Daughter with a belated release show at Third Man’s Blue Room next Wednesday, April 13. The show was a quick sell-out, but ticketless fans can tune in as Price's likely biggest television audience yet when she appears as musical guest on SNL this weekend. Russell Crowe hosts, but so far no word if 30 Odd Foot of Grunts will also make an appearance. It'll be interesting to see what impact that exposure has on Daughter's chart position and sales.