STATE OF THE STATE: SONY NASHVILLE

The House of Randy Goodman has dedicated itself over the last year to breaking with tradition, expanding its footprint and thinking globally.

Exhibit A: The stunning career leaps made by Luke Combs, whose “Fast Car” is a crossover streaming monster—Top 5 at Spotify U.S. and Top 10 at Apple Music as of this writing—and gathering real velocity at Pop radio. Combs’ Growin’ Up bowed Top 5 and earned him his 14th and 15th consecutive #1s in “This Kind of Love We Make” and “Going Going Gone.” The everyman troubadour took home 2022 CMA trophies for Album and Entertainer of the Year (the latter for the second consecutive year) and earned three Grammy noms and four ACM noms. His sold-out world tour has set a new benchmark for country acts and smashed all manner of records at the box office, including in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. Combs further cemented his mainstream appeal with a Grammy performance and an ACMs duet with Ed Sheeran.

Kane Brown, whose headlining set at Stagecoach had the weight of a stadium show, delivered three #1s from hit set Different Man, led by the unstoppable “Thank God” f/Katelyn Brown, which amassed 10m+ streams in its first week, a personal best for the charismatic artist. Kane has played to sold-out crowds around the world on his Drunk and Dreaming Tour and expanded his reach as co-host of the CMT Awards (where he took Video of the Year for “Thank God”) and as a performer on the ACMs and the MTV VMAs. By the by, he is the first Black country artist to be nominated in the ACM Entertainer of the Year category since Charley Pride in 1972.

Other artists making impressive gains include Nate Smith, whose “Whiskey on You” was #1 for two consecutive weeks and who is on tour with Thomas Rhett this summer in the wake of a buzzy Stagecoach debut; Megan Moroney, whose “Tennessee Orange” is already platinum and flying to the apex of Country radio, and who is currently on the road with Brooks & Dunn and headlining in the fall; Corey Kent, who hit #1 at radio with “Wild as Her” (now platinum), played Stagecoach and CMA Fest, toured with Parker McCollum and goes out with Jason Aldean this summer; and Morgan Wade, who toured with Combs and Stapleton and has sold out 30+ dates on her headlining tour (including Europe and the U.K.). Her eagerly awaited Psychopath is due on 8/28.

SMN’s 11 Grammy nominations—for Miranda Lambert, Combs, Maren Morris and Ryan Hurd—were the most racked up by any Nashville label; add to that 21 ACM noms (for Brown, Combs, Brooks & Dunn, Moroney, Smith, Wade, Mitchell Tenpenny and Old Dominion). And in addition to Brown’s big CMT win, Moroney took home New Female Video.

Goodman’s core team—EVP/COO Ken Robold, EVP, Promotion & Artist Development Steve Hodges, SVP, Marketing Jennifer Way and SVP, A&R Taylor Lindsey—continues to deliver bigtime. A key recent move was the upping of Nicole Marinake to VP partner marketing & new ventures.