How Morgan Wallen Brought Country Fans to Streaming
Country finally achieved parity with Pop and Hip Hop on streaming platforms in 2024--but what Country fans stream and what they hear on the radio are still very different.
Sam Hunt’s “Body Like A Back Road” set many records on the Billboard Country charts, but its most significant milestone is entirely ignored: Hunt’s megahit was the first Country song to be huge on streaming. In 2017, music fans in general stopped buying their favorite songs on iTunes and began streaming them on Spotify and similar services instead, as I detailed in this article
However, most Country fans weren’t quite ready to ditch downloads, country radio, or even the CD aisle at Walmart.
“Body Like a Back Road” was the only Country song among Billboard’s chart of the most-streamed songs of 2017. Back then, Hip Hop—fueled by younger music fans early to adopt streaming—dominated streaming. Only one other Country song would be among the year’s most streamed songs for the rest of the decade.
It wasn’t until 2023 that Country titles lagged on streaming compared to the overall biggest songs of the year by less than 10 percentage points.
The following year (2024). Country fans were finally fully on board with streaming.
Unlike other contemporary genres such as Hip Hop or Pop, however, the artists Country fans stream is quite different than the artists Country fans hear on their local Country station.
Country Radio vs. Country Streaming:
This chart shows the County artists who landed on the Billboard year-end radio airplay chart during 2023-2025, showing the percentage of songs each artist had:
Forty-nine (49) different artists had at least one song among the 75 most-played songs on the radio during this three-year period, ranging from newcomers Jelly Roll and Bailey Zimmerman to longtime Country stalwarts such as Cole Swindell, Jason Aldean, and Thomas Rhett. Naturally, Morgan Wallen leads with 11% of all year-end hits from 2023 to 2025.
Things look very different when examining the Country songs fans stream most.
Just like on the radio, Morgan Wallen is the artist with the most titles among the 75 most-streamed songs of the year for the past three years. Unlike radio, where Wallen merely leads, on streaming, Wallen dominates: Almost four out of ten of the most-streamed Country songs are by Morgan Wallen.
In second place with 15% of all Country songs reaching the Billboard year-end streaming songs chart in 2023-2025 is an artist with no songs at all on the year-end radio airplay chart—Zach Bryan.
Combined, Morgan Wallen and Zach Byran account for the majority of the most-streamed Country songs each year.
Add in Luke Combs (11%) and Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” (among the most-streamed Country titles multiple years) and Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan, and Luke Combs account for two-thirds of the Country songs that were among the 75 most-streamed songs of the year.
Given that Country is now on par with other genres on streaming, why have only 17 artists made Billboard’s top streaming songs of the year chart during the last three years, while 49 artists made the year-end radio airplay chart? Why are some artists big on streaming, but not on the radio, and vice versa?
There are three primary reasons.
1) Younger Country listeners are more likely to use streaming
Unlike Hip Hop and even mainstream Pop, Country appeals to the widest age range of any contemporary music genre: Your local Country station’s loyal listeners are just as likely to be 71 years old as 21 years old. Few septuagenarians are listening to today’s Hip Hop unless their grandchildren are picking the tunes.
Since the age of the genre’s fans aligns well with the age of the heaviest streaming users, Hip Hop and Pop songs that are massive on streaming accurately represent the biggest songs among Hip Hop and Pop fans. When a Pop song is huge on streaming, but MIA on your local Top 40 station, it’s because your town’s Kiss-FM is ignoring a hit. (I outlined this issue in The Hits Radio Ignored in 2025 and the Stiffs they Played Instead)
Country works differently.
The artists and songs younger listeners (18- to 34-year-olds) prefer dominate what’s most played on streaming platforms. That’s why Sam Hunt was the first artist with a major Country hit on streaming back in 2017.
Today, this phenomenon hugely benefits Morgan Wlallen.
Meanwhile, established artists such as Cole Swindell, Jason Aldean, Thomas Rhett, Blake Shelton, and Dierks Bentley still have plenty of fans who want to hear their songs on the radio but aren’t setting records on streaming. With their fans now largely adults 35 and older, there’s still plenty of appetite to hear them on the radio, but not as much demand to hear them among heavy streaming users.
2) Streaming provides a place for the misfits
Radio wasn’t sure what to do with Zach Bryan. His breakthrough hit “Something In The Orange” didn’t sound like a typical Country hit. Furthermore, Byran became a star outside of the traditional Nashville Industrial Complex, where Music Row executives work closely with America’s Country radio stations to determine which songs will become hits and which artists will become stars. (In exchange for radio’s cooperation, Country artists go out of their way to be accessible to Country radio listeners.)
Instead, Bryan signed with a non-Nashville label imprint, communicates directly with fans, eschews awards shows, and—most importantly—relies on high volume streaming instead of exposure on Country radio.
Will streaming’s direct to consumer model finally bring down the infamously closed Nashville system? Time will tell. At the very least, streaming provides a platform for Country partisans seeking alternatives to Music Row’s chosen.
3) The biggest fans use streaming like a record player
An artist’s biggest fans don’t simply listen to the one song radio is playing right now. They listen to all the songs on the latest release from their favorite artists when that new album drops. Morgan Wallen was the first major Country artist to use this fact to his advantage when releasing his 2021 album Dangerous: The Double Album with an unprecedented 30 tracks. His fans binged all of them.
Other songs benefit from long lifespans. Zach Bryan Featuring Kacey Musgraves
“I Remember Everything” from Zach Bryan Featuring Kacey Musgraves has been among the most-streamed songs of the year for the past three years. (It was the most-streamed song in the U.S. of any genre in 2024). When you love a song, you’ll play it for years.
That’s especially true for Country.
Unlike Pop or Hip Hop, where fans care about what’s “in” at the moment, Country fans connect with the song’s storyline and how it makes them feel. Country songs can stay relevant for years, not months. Nevertheless, radio is rightly concerned with playing a song too often once it’s old enough that at least some of their listeners are tired of hearing it.
Country is biggest on Amazon Music
I usually cite the Spotify 200 chart for streaming consumption here on Graphs About Songs. It’s the leading music streaming service in the U.S. and its user base is most representative of contemporary music fans across the nation.
If your day job involves picking Country hits, however, Amazon Music should be your reference of choice:
Just like Spotify, you’ll find plenty of Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Zach Bryan, and Ella Langley material among the most streamed songs on Amazon. However, you’ll also find Riley Green, Russell Dickerson, Cody Johnson, Eric Church, and Jelly Roll.
Why are a wider roster of Country stars popular on Amazon Music?
First, Amazon Music attracts an older user base, primarily because it’s the default music service on Alexa and is the path of least resistance for Prime members. Amazon Music has the highest percentage of subscribers aged 55 and older than any major streaming provider.
Secondly, Amazon Music has more aggressively pursued Country fans than other streaming services, including promotional partnerships with core artists. Most notably, Amazon is the only service where you can stream Garth Brooks.
(For the most complete information about any genre, it’s best to analyze aggregated data for all streaming music platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube music, and Amazon Music, as I do at my day job…)
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Data sources for this article:
Billboard’s 2025 year-end charts: Hot 100 Songs: https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2025/hot-100-songs/
Billboard’s 2025 year-end charts: Streaming Songs (Top 75): https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2025/streaming-songs/
Billboard’s 2025 year-end charts: Radio Songs (Top 75): https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2025/radio-songs/
(Data from previous years’ Billboard Year End charts archived)
Amazon Music Top Songs (Retrieved 4-21-2026): https://music.amazon.com/popular/songs