Country Music Country music's popularity has been on an upward trajectory for a decade and spiked in 2024. This article discusses this https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/this-aint-texas-country-music-renaissance-in-uk-as-genre-surges-67-in-2024/ Despite paying almost no attention, I HAD also noticed an upward trend in folk, drinking songs, sea shanties and the like. This is great for fans of country music, right?........... or wrong? I turn here to my friend Simon Ore

HOW DO THE CHARTS WORK? Since I was last properly paying attention in the late 90s, its significantly changed. And rightly so. It was purely physical record sales in my day and had been since the charts, first known as the ‘hit parade’ began. But, that no longer represents pop music consumption. In 2005, downloads were incorporated into the chart. This changed the make up of the chart as tracks other than currently widely available single releases could be downloaded. I reme

THE SINGLES – JAN-SEPT 2024 : Noah Kahan “Stick Season” (#1 for 7 weeks) https://youtu.be/JKrDdsgXuso?si=eVFGPGyYIstXJzNG So this was it! Day 1. Track 1 of my 1 st playlist. I had an expectation in my head of ‘today’s pop music’ – hit play.... and that expectation was immediately shattered. This was #1 in the charts that week. A nice bit of folk-pop complete with banjos and mandolins. Not a bad little number either. Jack Harlow “Lovin On Me” (#1 for 3 weeks in 2023)...