January 8, 2021 The MusicRow Weekly Friday, January 8, 2021 Top Songwriter Chart: MusicRow’s Top 100 Songwriters Of 2020 SIGN UP HERE (FREE!) If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here. THIS WEEK’S HEADLINES MusicRow’s Top 100 Songwriters Of 2020 2020 Year-End Sales Carrie Underwood To Release Gospel Album Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley To Release Solo Music Chris Young and Kane Brown’s “Famous Friends” Most-Added At Country Radio The Recording Academy Josh Osborne Postpones Grammy Awards While the past year was difficult for all, 2020 saw these elite songwriters John Ozier Named AIMP garner ample chart success on the weekly MusicRow Top Songwriter Chart. National Chair Using algorithms based on song activity according to airplay, digital Jimmy Wheeler Joins Story downloaded track sales and streams, these songwriters prevailed in 2020. House Collective As General Notably, there are 19 female songwriters in the top 100 this year—which is Manager made up of 112 songwriters because of tied scores. This is a continued increase from last year’s 13 female songwriters within the top 100, and 2018’s Loretta Lynn Announces New 11. Hillary Lindsey is the highest ranking female on this year’s list, at No. 11. Album, Still Woman Enough The songs that propelled Lindsey to No. 11 include Luke Bryan’s “What She DISClaimer Singles Reviews Wants Tonight,” HARDY’s “One Beer,” Kelsea Ballerini’s “Hole In The Bottle,” and Jordan Davis’ “Almost Maybes.” Among her 2020 honors were Songwriter of the Year at the ACM Awards and Female Songwriter of the Year at the And much more… MusicRow Awards. Page 1 of 15 January 8, 2021 The MusicRow Weekly Country Song” (LOCASH), “Remember You Young” (Thomas Rhett), “Hole In The Bottle” (Kelsea Ballerini), “Hard To Forget” (Sam Hunt), “One Of Them Girls” (Lee Brice), and more. Gorley also won his eighth consecutive ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year award in November, and was MusicRow's Male Songwriter of the Year at the 32nd annual MusicRow Awards. He was also named as NSAI’s Songwriter of the Year. The fifth songwriter on the MusicRow Top 100 Songwriters chart is Luke Combs. Combs garnered massive amounts of airplay, sales and streams this year, Hillary Lindsey. Photo: Becky Fluke releasing the deluxe version of What You See Is What You Get. Songs that drove Combs were his own “1, 2 Many,” “Better Together,” “Does To Me,” “Lovin’ On You,” For the second time in the MusicRow Top Songwriter “Six Feet Apart,” and “Forever After All,” as well as Carly Chart’s history, Josh Osborne takes the top position. Pearce and Lee Brice’s hit duet, “I Hope You’re Happy Songs of his that were hits in 2020 include Sam Hunt’s Now.” “Kinfolks,” “Hard To Forget,” and “Breaking Up Was Easy In The 90’s,” Morgan Wallen’s “7 Summers,” Darius Rucker’s In 2020, Combs won Male Artist and Album of the Year at “Beers And Sunshine,” both Blake Shelton and Gwen the ACM Awards; Male Vocalist and Album of the Year at Stefani hit duets “Nobody But You” and “Happy Anywhere,” the CMA Awards; and was named Artist of the Year at the and more. 32nd annual MusicRow Awards. He was also named as NSAI’s Songwriter-Artist of the Year. Osborne ended 2020 in the No. 1 position on the weekly MusicRow Top Songwriter chart for the sixth consecutive View the full list of MusicRow‘s Top Songwriters of 2020 week. Osborne won Song of the Year at the ACM Awards here. MR this year for “One Man Band,” recorded by Old Dominion. HARDY comes in at No. 2 on the MusicRow Top 100 Songwriters chart this year. As an artist, his self-penned songs that had high activity this past year were “Give Heaven Some Hell” and “One Beer,” his first No. 1 song as an artist. Songs HARDY co-wrote for other artists that were hits in 2020 were LOCASH’s “One Big Country Song,” Jameson Rodgers’ “Some Girls,” Morgan Wallen’s “This Bar” and “More Than My Hometown,” and more. HARDY released his debut album, A ROCK, in September, and it peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. He was also named the AIMP Nashville Songwriter of the Year. Ross Copperman takes the No. 3 position. Tops songs for Copperman in 2020 were “Tip Of My Tongue” (Kenny Cheseney), “What She Wants Tonight” (Luke Bryan), “The Other Girl” (Kelsea Ballerini with Halsey), “Lady” (Brett Young), “Beers And Sunshine” (Darius Rucker), as well as “Nobody But You” and “Happy Anywhere” (Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani). Copperman was named Songwriter of the Year for the fourth time at the BMI Country Awards in November. Ashley Gorley, who notched his record-breaking 50th No. 1 song in 2020, is at No. 4 on the MusicRow Top 100 Songwriters chart. The hits that fueled him were “One Big HARDY. Photo: Tanner Gallagher Page 3 of 15 January 8, 2021 The MusicRow Weekly Who Ruled 2020 Year-End Sales? Luke Barrett’s remix of “I Hope” that included Charlie Puth went to Combs, Gabby Barrett, Morgan Wallen, Maren No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 all-genre chart and No. 1 on Morris, Dan + Shay their Adult Top 40. Morris’ remix of “The Bones” with Hozier was a No. 1 Adult Top 40 song. Diplo and Wallen’s “Heartless” has been certified 3x-Platinum. Dan + Shay and Bieber’s “10,000 Hours” made history on Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart by becoming the highest- charting non-holiday country song in the history of the chart. As far as albums, there were 19 country titles in the top 200 overall for 2020. Luke Combs‘ What You See Is What You Get is the highest ranking country album at No. 10 in the top 200. His This One’s For You is the second highest title, at No. 25. Other country albums in the top 200 for 2020 include: Morgan Wallen’s If I Know Me (No. 27) Sam Hunt’s SOUTHSIDE (No. 62) Chris Stapleton’s Traveller (No. 65) Blake Shelton’s Fully Loaded: God’s Country (No. 71) Gabby Barrett’s Goldmine (No. 100) According to Nielsen, Gabby Barrett tops the Top 5 on- Maren Morris’ Girl (No. 106) demand audio Streaming Country Songs for 2020, with Luke Bryan’s Born Here Live Here Die Here (No. 107) her breakout single, “I Hope,” garnering 409 million Kenny Chesney’s Here And Now (No. 112) streams. Dan + Shay’s Dan + Shay (No. 125) Kane Brown’s Experiment (No. 133) Maren Morris follows Barrett, with “The Bones” earning Carrie Underwood’s My Gift (No. 137) 342 million streams. Morgan Wallen‘s collaboration with Jason Aldean’s 9 (No. 138) Diplo and Julia Michaels on “Heartless” comes in at No. Zac Brown Band’s Greatest Hits So Far… (No. 141) 3 with 340 million; and his “Chasin’ You” is at No. 4 with Kane Brown’s Kane Brown (No. 156) 303 million streams. Dan + Shay‘s collaboration with Old Dominion’s Old Dominion (No. 159) Justin Bieber, “10,000 Hours,” rounds out the Top 5 on- Kane Brown’s Mixtape Vol. 1 (No. 168) demand audio Streaming Country Songs for 2020 with Lee Brice’s Hey World (No. 175) 281 million streams. Notably, each song in the top five—apart from Wallen’s “Chasin’ You”—has a pop radio remix or collaboration. Carrie Underwood To Follow Up My Gift With Companion Gospel Album, My Savior Carrie Underwood announced on social media in a Christmas day video message that she plans to release a new gospel companion album, My Savior, which follows her recent Christmas album My Gift. The new project is slated to arrive in time for Easter in early April, and of recording the companion album she told fans that she was inspired to make My Savior from her experience of putting out My Gift. “I basically didn’t want all of that to end when I was making this music. I felt like my soul was in such a great place, I wanted to keep making music like the music off of My Gift. This album is full of gospel hymns that I grew up singing. It’s been such a blessing making music like this that is near and dear to my heart, and I hope you guys enjoy listening to it as much as I loved making it,” she said in her video. MR Page 4 of 15 Friday, January 8, 2021 CHART ACTION NO. 1 SONG New On The Chart —Debuting This Week song/artist/label—Chart Position Famous Friends/Chris Young & Kane Brown/RCA Records — 47 You're Gonna Love Me/Tim Dugger/Curb — 71 Love Like Crazy/TJ Ashley/Music Train Records — 72 Just Friends/Caylee Hammack/Capitol — 74 Invent A T-Shirt/Jenny Tolman/Old Sol Records — 77 What Would Dolly Do?/Tori Martin/Lucky Sky Music — 78 Freedom And Wings/Heather Smith — 79 Chain Breaker/Zach Williams/Provident Label Group — 80 Greatest Spin Increase song/artist/label—Spin Increase What's Your Country Song/Thomas Rhett/Valory — 296 Famous Friends/Chris Young & Kane Brown/RCA Records — 229 Hell Of A View/Eric Church/EMI — 189 Blame It On You/Jason Aldean/Broken Bow — 162 Jordan Davis moves two positions climbing to No. 1 on the MusicRow Next Girl/Carly Pearce/Big Machine — 117 CountryBreakout Radio Chart this week with his single “Almost Gone/Dierks Bentley/Capitol — 116 Maybes.” The single appears on Davis’ self-title EP and was written by Davis, Hillary Lindsey, and Jesse Frasure.