STATE OF THE STATE: BIG LOUD
Seth England and company have the biggest overall album of 2023 with Morgan Wallen’s monster One Thing at a Time. Add a big breakout by HARDY, action for Chris Lane and Jake Owen and serious growth for ERNEST, Hailey Whitters and more, and you’ve got a label in full flower. The company’s expansion encompasses not only country but also rock and Americana.
Wallen’s giant Thing sat at #1 on the album chart for 12 consecutive weeks and has amassed nearly 3m in U.S. ATD. That hasn’t stopped his blockbuster 2021 set, Dangerous: The Double Album, from continuing to stream and sell up a storm. Indeed, Wallen is the only country artist in Country Aircheck history to have two solo releases in the Top 5 simultaneously. Wallen, who won Male Artist of the Year at the 2023 ACMs, has racked up 14.5m in U.S. activity overall.
Big Loud Rock and President Greg Thompson are on fire with HARDY, who has regularly collaborated and toured with Wallen, and seized the spotlight with the powerful single “wait in the truck” f/Lainey Wilson, which put him squarely on the mainstream radar and has helped power his inventive (and often hard-rocking) album the mockingbird & THE CROW to nearly 400k in ATD. HARDY won in the Artist-Songwriter ACMs category and took home trophies for Music Event of the Year and Visual Media of the Year. “wait in the truck” also took Collaborative Video at the CMTs.
Whitters scored a New Female Artist trophy at the 2023 ACMs and has racked up 215k+ in RTD activity. Her single “Everything She Ain’t” is Top 20 at Country radio as of this writing.
Overall, Big Loud has amassed 25 billion+ global streams (6.1b YTD), 17 #1 U.S. airplay hits, 20 #1 Canadian airplay hits and 70 RIAA-certified titles.
Expect new music in the near-ish future from Charles Wesley Godwin, Whitters, MacKenzie Porter, Larry Fleet, Stephen Wilson Jr., Lauren Alaina, Ashley Cooke, ERNEST, Lauren Watkins and Lily Rose.
CEO-Partner England’s core executive team remains Partner-producer-President of A&R Joey Moi, Partner-writer Craig Wiseman, SVP/GM Patch Culbertson, SVP Promotions Stacy Blythe and SVP Marketing Candice Watkins, with the addition of new hire Sara Knabe as SVP A&R.
Other additions to the Big Loud staff include Nate Yetton as VP A&R, Lucy Bartozzi as VP marketing, Stefani Carter as VP finance, Serena Lloyd as VP HR, Eric England as VP insights & analytics, Amy Beard as marketing director and Brittani Koster as senior manager, streaming.
There were also promotions galore: Read Davis was upped to VP digital, Tori Johnson to VP creative, Jeff Tanner to SVP business and legal affairs, Paul Logan to SVP sync/partnerships, Brianne Deslippe to SVP international, Hillary Lambert to director marketing and Morgan Sweat to video commissioner.
