With the news that Luke Combs will be launching a 16-country world tour this year, as well as his fourth career studio album (two in less than a year), it got me thinking about this conversation from back in 2019…
In an interview with HITS Daily Double, Scott Borchetta opened up on the state of country music, particularly the genre’s young stars, arguing that country music doesn’t have any true headliners under the age of 30, except of course for his own Big Machine artist, Thomas Rhett.
“Thomas Rhett is arguably the only headliner in his 20s. Luke Combs will be 28, and he has a fighting chance of being a true headliner. Turning 26 this year will be Kane Brown and Kelsea Ballerini.
We don’t have one artist under 25 making headlining impact. Huge opportunity. No one’s in their early 20s, not since Taylor. Look what she did for the format.
And I think there can be another Dixie Chicks/ShaniaTwain/Taylor moment.”
Excuse me for one second…
And I know Scott was just trying to pump up his boy Thomas Rhett, but at the time, Luke was literally headlining an arena tour, performing at some of the SAME EXACT ARENAS that Thomas Rhett was playing.
Fighting chance? What’s the definition of fighting chance? “A small possibility to succeed or overcome a situation.” Small possibility? LOL…
Throw in the streaming numbers, album sales, and all the chart records that Luke was crushing at the time and you have Luke wiping the floor with Thomas Rhett… and just about everybody else in the business.
Now fast forward to today…
Luke Combs won an Entertainer of the Year award 2021 AND 2022, not to mention he’s been packing some NFL stadiums along the way… him and Morgan Wallen are the two biggest things in country music at the moment, and Morgan won’t be turning 30 until May.
Needless to say, Scott’s assessment of country music and it’s young headliners did NOT age well…
Luke Combs Announces New 18-Song Album Coming In March
Luke Combs is wasting no time getting back in the studio.
In fact, it’s been less than 7 months since the release of his 3rd career studio album, Growin’ Up, and number 4 is already on the horizon.
Announced today, Luke revealed that his next project is set to drop in March.
Luke’s been one of the busiest guys in the business in the past few years, but it’s VERY rare that an artist puts out two albums in less than a year. Hell, in the mainstream, within two years is a pretty quick turnaround.
Nevertheless, Luke has promised fans an 18-song album coming March 24th.
And I have a feeling it’ll be called Getting Old, a play off of his song “Growin’ Up & Getting Old.”
Remember, his last album was titled Growin’ Up.
Luke has been teasing a number of new songs lately, ones that he’s written since the release of his last album, as well as some hidden gems that didn’t make the cut.
We know he has a number of good songs waiting to find their home on an album, although many will probably never see the light of day, save for the occasional live show or acoustic video.
That said, Luke Combs has always been a man of the people, taking care of his fans as well as anybody in country music. It remains to be seen what kind of songs will make this record, or if there will be some kind of special angle to it, but either way, when you have the kind of momentum Luke Combs has right now (and has had for the past few years), the hell with the so-called release reschedule… crank that stuff out.
I just hope we get “Joe” on there:
