‘Forever Country’ Makes History
"Forever Country" has made history. The compilation song — which includes 30 country artists and is a medley of three classic songs — made its debut at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.
The song blends John Denver's “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” Willie Nelson's “On the Road Again” and Dolly Parton's “I Will Always Love You" and is only the third song to debut at No. 1 since the chart was founded in October of 1958. It follows the success of Garth Brooks, who made history when "More Than a Memory" hit No. 1 in 2007 with 36.3 million audience impressions, Billboard reports. Craig Wayne Boyd also reached No. 1 during his debut week for his coronation single, "My Baby's Got a Smile on Her Face."
"Forever Country" also is at No. 1 on the Country Digital Song Sales chart with 93,000 downloads sold in its first week. It lands at No. 1 on Country Streaming Songs, too, with 5.7 million first-week U.S. streams.
Additionally, a press release reveals that the song is the No. 1 selling single of all music genres at iTunes, and the music video is ranked No. 1 among videos for all music genres.
The song was released to honor the 50th Annual CMA Awards, which will air on ABC on Nov. 2. At a first look of the music video for "Forever Country" earlier this month, director Joseph Kahn praised the country genre.
“This would have never been able to be done in any other genre of music. It blew my mind. We didn’t have one temper tantrum, we didn’t have one person late. Everybody came, did their job,” he said. “The reason why country resonates is because it’s truthful. Songs are stories, they’re forms of communication. We think songs are just for dancing but actually, dance is a form of communication. Songs convey a story into something. Music videos are just a visual expression of that."
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