Add another accolade to the long list Morgan Wallen racked up this year.
Just yesterday we found out he had by far the highest grossing country tour, and today we get news that he had the biggest hit on the second largest streaming platform on the planet.
Apple Music just released a list of their 100 most streamed songs globally for 2023 and at the top of that list was none other than “Last Night” from Wallen’s One Thing At A Time double album.
He beat out Miley Cyrus, SZA, and Drake/21 Savage for top honors, marking the first time a country song has topped this list (unless you count “Old Town Road” and also it’s debatable that “Last Night” is even a country song, but we’ll take it for the time being).
While historically it’s surprising that a country song would be the most listened to track on the planet, those who’ve been paying attention won’t be too shocked.
“Last Night” topped the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 for 16 non-consecutive weeks, which was tied for second longest run of all-time and the longest run of a non-collaborative song. It also topped the Hot Country Songs chart for 25 weeks and became the first song to ever rack up 1 billion total streams within a calendar year.
More recently it won Billboard’s Top Song of 2023 after getting “snubbed” at the CMA Awards, so yeah, it was more than a smash hit. It was a record breaker.
The only other country artists to appear on the list were Luke Combs and Zach Bryan, proving once and for all those three are hands down the biggest acts in the genre.
A lot can be said about just how country Morgan Wallen is and if he deserves all of the shine he’s gotten. While I won’t toss away those concerns, let’s look at the bigger picture here.
Mainstream country is in a better place than it’s been in a long, long time. Country music is now the cool kid on the block and seemingly everyone has at least that one country artist that they really like.
Cody Johnson is performing at the CMAs, Zach Bryan is an actual mainstream artist, Morgan Wallen (for all his flaws) is the biggest act of any genre.
Let’s celebrate this moment for what it is and continue to build from here.
