Headed to pop radio.
Zach Bryan released the first taste of his forthcoming album The Great American Bar Scene this past Friday, with a beautiful, heartfelt new song called “Pink Skies.”
It touches on the feelings of grief and loss that comes with missing a person you love, and many on social media have quickly taken to the song and expressed that Zach was able to perfectly capture what they might not have been able to put into words themselves.
The grieving process is something I think almost every single person can relate to in some form or fashion, unfortunately, and I think this song is going to be mean a lot to a lot of different people. It already shot to the top of the iTunes all-genre songs chart, and now, it’s headed to U.S. pop radio as an official single. It’s unclear if it will be serviced to country radio as well, however, I imagine the stations that generally play more non-mainstream country music will pick it up too.
UPDATE: The tweet from Radio Updater detailing the chart data has since been deleted.
.@zachlanebryan’s “Pink Skies” has officially been serviced to US Pop Radio as the lead single from his upcoming new album, ‘The Great American Bar Scene’ (via @warnerrecords). pic.twitter.com/jxhpdIOAPs
— U.S. Radio Updater (@USRadioUpdater) May 28, 2024
I’ve seen some comments already from fans who are upset that it’s not being categorized as “country” in this particular instance, although it is being billed as “country” on streaming platforms.
Zach is generally categorized as a country artist, although he probably more accurately falls into a folk rock type of genre similar to the Lumineers or Noah Kahan. He’s even said himself, a number of times, that he’s not “country” musician. But whatever you call it, he’s taking the music world by storm.
He’s bigger than any one genre…
I’ve said it before n I’ll say it again, I’m not a country musician, I’m a singer and a songwriter, that is all, everyone have a great Wednesday
— Zach Bryan (@zachlanebryan) May 4, 2022
And most pop radio stations play songs from a span of different genres, and aren’t relegated to playing one specific kind of music. Considering Zach’s minimal success at country radio with “Something in the Orange,” which peaked at #20 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart, this is probably the smarter way to go about it given the circumstances.
With the popularity of the country genre right now, and Zach as an artist himself, it’s not that surprising for his label to do this, because they clearly think he can have success with a broader audience… playing this song on pop radio will, in fact, expose him to a much larger audience. And especially when you consider that Warner Records, Zach’s label, is not a Nashville label (they do have a Nashville division, which Zach is not signed to), it actually makes sense from a business perspective, which is what labels ultimately care about and why this actually doesn’t really matter at all.
I’d also be willing to bet that Zach personally had little to do with this decision, but I digress…
His single with Kacey Musgraves “I Remember Everything” also already charted within the Top 40 on pop radio too, and became a #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and I don’t see any reason this time around will be any different because fans have already taken to it.
Only time will tell, but if you haven’t heard it yet, you can listen to “Pink Skies” below, but you might wanna grab a tissue first:
“Pink Skies”
