Country Update BILLBOARD.COM/NEWSLETTERS JUNE 7, 2021 | PAGE 1 OF 20 BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE [email protected] INSIDE Despite Potential Pitfalls, Male/Female THIS Duos Carve Out A Space For Themselves ISSUE When independent duo SmithField released a video for new Maddie & Tae, Brothers Osborne, just to name a few — but track “Something Sexy” on May 13, the project took a cou- each of them is a single-gender combo. The last full-time male/ Blake Shelton’s ple of cues from one of contemporary country’s most iconic female pair to log chart-topping singles, Thompson Square, ‘Minimum Wage’ twosomes. hit No. 1 in 2011 with “Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not” and Pays Off The chorus cited in 2012 with “If I Didn’t a bevy of modern Have You.” >page 4 love songs, including The paucity of that “Amazed” and “I Melt,” artistic structure is a but the list started with head-scratcher at first It’s Knight Time an allusion to Tim Mc- glance, though even In Country Graw and Faith Hill’s Keifer and Shawna “Let’s Make Love.” The Thompson understand >page 11 video itself employs a why the configuration is handful of votive can- so rare. dles, another nod to the “You got to coexist Makin’ Tracks: visual piece that accom- with this other partner, panied the McGraw/Hill boy or girl,” says Keifer Kip Moore’s title. It’s fair to consider Thompson, “and you ‘Good Life’ the reference a Smith- got egos: ‘You’re singing >page 17 Field mission statement. more than I do.’ ‘You’re “Everything with singing them better than ‘Something Sexy’ was I do.’ ‘I’m fatter than you SMITHFIELD intentional,” says the THOMPSON SQUARE are.’ ‘I have abs.’ You have Country Coda: duo’s female voice, Jen- all this stuff that goes into Crystal Gayle’s nifer Fielder. “They had separate careers on their own, but for play when you enter into a band or a duo. And so that’s one giant Chart ‘Over’ View a while there, they were signed as a duo as well as solo artists. obstacle right there: just coexisting together as a duo. And then >page 20 And they had their own duo records, their own duet tour. So to you got the male/female version of that.” me, they’re still very iconic for what we do.” The twosomes themselves have heard industry pessimism To be fair, there are few acts that do what SmithField does. about their setups — “That’ll never work,” both Thompson Country has plenty of duos — Florida Georgia Line, Dan + Shay, Square and SmithField were told — but it hasn’t stopped them. SNEDDEN. DOLTYN ALEX: AND KATE JASONMYERS. SMITHFIELD: MERCHANT. GARRETT SQUARE: THOMPSON BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE JUNE 7, 2021 | PAGE 2 OF 20 Marking its 10th anniversary, SmithField will issue its third EP, New Town, on June 16. Thompson Square is close to signing a new re- cording deal, and Latino act Kat & Alex signed to Sony Music Nashville during the pandemic after an ini- tial run on American Idol. And they KAT & ALEX refuse to believe that it can’t work. “I seriously cannot imagine doing this by myself anymore,” says Kat Luna, who encountered Alex Gar- rido when both were solo artists working the local circuit in Miami. “As soon as I met Alex, I knew that I never wanted to perform by myself on that stage ever again.” The first two Kat & Alex videos — “Heartbreak Tour” and “How Many Monument Records and SMACKSongs held the first of their monthly Times,” which employs the hook “How many times can a heart break” — re- Tuesday Night Music Club shows on June 1 at Nashville’s Basement volve around on-screen romance while acknowledging the pain of isolation East. From left: SMACKSongs partner Josh Osborne; artists Walker in the lyrics. They see the fragility of love as a selling point for their mixed- Hayes, Kylie Morgan and Teddy Robb; and SMACKSongs CEO/ gender format. Monument co-president Shane McAnally. “Dan + Shay, for example, they’re best friends — that’s their thing; Florida Georgia Line — same thing, good friends,” notes Garrido. “For us being a guy/girl duo, but also a married couple, that’s something that we definitely want to express. We want the audience to be able to personally connect with us and when they see us go, ‘Hey, I believe in Kat & Alex because I see myself in their shoes.’” The drama that’s inherent in relationships is a built-in hurdle for male/ female duos, most of which are married couples. A breakup isn’t just the end of a romance; it also means the dissolution of a business entity, a scary proposition for anyone who invests in the act. “If you’re a label and you put up a lot of money for something, it could be hard,” concedes Shawna Thompson. That’s especially true in a crowded marketplace. Despite the scarcity of such full-time duos, the genre has been flooded with mixed-gender pairings that partnered artists who are primarily solo acts. The current Country Airplay chart Niko Moon (center) attended Triple 8 Management’s pingpong features Keith Urban with P!nk, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, Ryan tournament at The Standard in Nashville on June 2. He’s flanked by Hurd with Maren Morris, Kelsea Ballerini Make Wake Artists founder Chris Kappy (left) and CAA agent Kylen and Kenny Chesney, Dustin Lynch and Sharpe. Mackenzie Porter, and Lauren Alaina with Jon Pardi. Other recent matches include Carly Pearce and Lee Brice, Gabby Barrett and Charlie Puth, Jason Aldean and Miranda Lambert, Kane Brown and Alaina, Cody Johnson and Reba McEntire, Brantley Gilbert and Lindsay Ell, and, of course, Blake Shelton GILBERT (left) and ELL and Gwen Stefani. LLANES JOSEPH “They’re all posers,” jokes Keifer. But they’re also using those duets to bring a temporary change of pace to concert setlists. That has been particularly noticeable in shows that have fea- Maggie Rose (left) chatted with Jeannie Seely for an edition of Rose’s tured holograms over the last decade, as when Brad Paisley welcomed the Salute the Songbird podcast that will debut on Sept. 21. image of Carrie Underwood for “Remind Me” or when Aldean called up a recorded version of Kelly Clarkson for “Don’t You Wanna Stay.” Duos can throw a changeup, too, though it runs in the opposite direction, removing a voice instead of adding one. “We do like to give each other individual moments in our songs every once in a while,” says SmithField’s Trey Smith. “But we said it from the very get-go of this thing that we wanted this to be not just a duo on paper, but a true duo.” SmithField does shake up that template, though, since Smith and Fielder are an oddity among male/female enterprises: They’re childhood friends who are neither married nor dating. That causes plenty of speculation, which they see as a positive effect. “The mystery of it has been one of the most intriguing things for our au- dience because a lot of times people don’t know that we’re not together,” observes Smith. “In our show, we are good at really playing it up. It’s almost one of the things that draws people into our show, because after the show WPAP Panama City, Fla., personalities served as onstage hosts [when] we do a meet-and-greet, they’re always like, ‘I have to know, are you June 4-6 during the Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam, the first large music festival guys together?’ ” since the pandemic broke open in March 2020. From left on the eve As a business entity, the answer is yes, despite the skepticism that accom- of the festival: WPAP personality Tess Connell, festival executive panies the full-time male/female duo. producer Rendy Lovelady and WPAP personalities Daniel “Cousin D” “Something doesn’t work,” says Smith, “until it does.” Raffield and Shane Collins. BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE JUNE 7, 2021 | PAGE 4 OF 20 ON THE CHARTS JIM ASKER [email protected] ‘Minimum Wage’ Increases As Blake Shelton Adds 36th Top 10; Blackberry Smoke Debuts; B.J. Thomas Keeps On Charting Blake Shelton nabs his 36th top 10 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart as WHERE THERE’S SMOKE… Country-rock band Blackberry Smoke scores “Minimum Wage” (Warner Music Nashville/WMN) lifts 11-10 in its 21st week its fifth Top Country Albums top 10 as You Hear Georgia (3 Legged Records/ on the list dated June 12. In the week ending June 6, the song gained by 9% Thirty Tigers), produced by Dave Cobb, enters at No. 5 with 13,000 equiva- to 16.4 million impressions, according to MRC Data. lent album units (12,000 in album sales). The track is the sophomore single from Shelton’s 12th full-length, Body The set, a nod to the group’s home state, follows Find a Light (No. 3, April Language, which opened at No. 3 on the June 5-dated Top Country Albums 2018), Like an Arrow (No. 1, one week, November 2016), Holding All the Roses chart with 24,000 equivalent album units. (No. 1, one week, February 2015) and The Body Language lead single “Happy Whipoorwill (No. 8, September 2012). Anywhere,” featuring Gwen Stefani, led You Hear Georgia concurrently starts atop Country Airplay in December, becoming Americana/Folk Albums, the group’s second Shelton’s 28th chart-topper (and Stefani’s No. 1, following Like an Arrow . It also debuts second).