It’s being led by Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’, several TikTok viral hits and more
Country music is fast gaining popularity in the UK, and it’s reached a 67 per cent increase in 2024.
Official Charts reported yesterday (May 26) that 2024 is “the year of the country music renaissance in the UK” according to internal research findings. They note that the year has produced a combined sales and streaming-equivalent sales number of 11.5million so far, as compared to 2023’s 6.9million figure for the same time period of 21 weeks.
Leading examples of this phenomenon they cite are ‘I Had Some Help’, the collaborative single by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen – which they premiered live at country music festival Stagecoach and debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number two – along with Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’, and TikTok viral hits like Shaboozey’s ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ and Dasha’s ‘Austin’.
Official Charts add that country albums have also seen a 29 per cent increase so far this year, with a year-to-date total of 1.1 million in 2024 (from 846,000 in 2023).
With Post Malone and Beyonce having taken huge strides into country music, another pop music star traveling the same route is Lana Del Rey, who will release her 10th album ‘Lasso’ later this year with promises of this direction.
“The music business is going country,” she declared to attendees of a pre-Grammy event in January during her album announcement. “We’re going country. It’s happening.”
Del Rey recalls that fateful moment to NME: “It went silent; 5,000 people, dead silent. Then the next week, we had three major artists announce big country albums.”
She then noted, “So where’s ‘Lasso’ going? I really have no idea now!” She did confirm to NME that its lyrical content will deviate away from “self-revealing things” exhibited in past albums and more into an “American Songbook style” direction.
‘Lasso’ has yet to receive a release date, but, according to Del Rey, it will fall somewhere in September this year.
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Country music surges by 67 per cent in the UK this year, research says – NME
