• Luke Bryan Announces 'Farm Tour' Dates; Cole Swindell to Open Again?

    Luke Bryan may have given up on his "Spring Break" tour after this year's joint, but the "Farm Tour" is still going strong, as the country star announced the dates for 2015. The performer has performed the tour for seven years now, playing concerts on farms near agricultural communities while setting aside ticket proceeds to provide college scholarships for local students.
  • Carrie Underwood Wins 3 CMT Music Awards; Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean Place

    A good way to win a CMT Music Award might be to just stick Carrie Underwood in your video and run with it...nearly every nomination including the American Idol winner took home a prize on Wednesday night. Underwood herself won for Video of The Year with "Something In The Water" and Female Video of The Year for the same song, while her appearance helped Miranda Lambert to win the Collaborative Video of The Year with "Somethin' Bad." Underwood was also nominated for Female Video for her clip "Little Toy Guns," and alas, she couldn't win twice.
  • Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean among CMT Awards 2015 Performers

    The Country Music Television Awards has announced the first wave of performers that will appear at the show on June 10, including Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean and Florida Georgia Line. Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban and Lady Antebellum are also slated to appear. The show will continue to announce performers up until the broadcast, and the actual host is expected to be revealed soon.
  • One Direction, Katy Perry Top Billboard's Music 'Money Makers' List [FULL LIST]

    Forbes is usually the go-to for celebrity earnings and net worth but Billboard has assembled its own "money makers" list based exclusively on what performers brought in from musical earnings, such as live revenues and album sales (no sponsorship money or other other jobs outside of the industry...sorry Dr. Dre). When considered for music-based earnings, One Direction topped the chart for the last year, bringing in $46 million. Zayn Malik may want to reconsider some recent career decisions.
  • Country Fans in The UK Chafe at Bro-Country as Well; New Guardian Editorial Lambasts State of Genre

    The emergence of "bro-country" and how much it irritates the previous generations of country music fans is not news. Americans, as the biggest consumers of the genre, haven't done much to eliminate it from the airwaves however, relative to how much we complain about it. Complaints from the sidelines—performers such as the Zac Brown Band and Ray Price—have largely been criticized by the genre's biggest stars or have been ignored by the music listening body as a whole. Perhaps we need a third party, one disconnected from the scene, to settle the matter. That happened when London's The Guardian published a scathing report on the state of country music in the United States.
  • Sleeping With Sirens, Mark Knopfler and Awolnation Crack Albums Chart Top 10 with New Releases

    The good news about the albums chart is that it gives performers who didn't crack the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 to make their stand without worrying about streams and singles, but that will still have to wait until after Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp A Butterfly.' The rapper's third album, and first to top the albums chart, sold 319,000 copies, nearly quadrupling the next highest total on the list.
  • Madonna and 'Rebel Heart' Trump 'Empire' Soundtrack on Albums Chart, Luke Bryan Debuts New 'Spring Break' Chapter

    Yesterday we reported that the Empire Season One Soundtrack had topped Madonna's Rebel Heart on the Billboard 200, thanks to the number of additional downloads and streams that it got, allowing it to take advantage of Billboard's new metrics and top the iconic chart. However pure album sales tell a different story. While Empire edged Rebel Heart by around 9,000 copies on the 200, the opposite was true on the Albums Chart, where Rebel Heart placed no. 1 with 116,500 copies sold and Empire took no. 2 with 107,000 copies moved.
  • 'Empire' Edges Madonna for Billboard 200 Top Spot, but Did New Metrics Steal a Landmark Accomplishment from Pop Star?

    This week's Billboard 200 was topped by the Empire Soundtrack: Season 1, but it touches off an interesting battle between it and Madonna's Rebel Heart, which finished no. 2. The current Billboard metrics place Empire at no. 1 with 130,000 "equivalent" albums sold—a count that includes total single downloads and album streams as well. Madge's album only sold 121,000 "equivalent" albums but unofficial tracking of pure album sales—or what the Billboard 200 used to be based on—suggest that Rebel Heart actually sold more albums than Empire did as a whole.
  • George Strait Debuting New Music at ACM Awards; Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Florida Georgia Line and More Also Performing

    George Strait may have travelled off the touring horizon with his "The Cowboy Rides Away" farewell concert at AT&T Stadium in Dallas last year but that doesn't mean he's done with performing, or even new music. In fact, the Academy of Country Music confirmed that the icon would be playing just that, new music, when he appears at the ACM Awards on April 19. Jason Aldean, Kenny Chesney, Eric Church, Florida Georgia Line, Reba McEntire, Blake Shelton and Keith Urban will also be performing that night.
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