Country music is having a big moment in Australia with charts and box office takeover
There have been country music booms in Australia before but never as big as the new superstar-led charge. Here’s why.
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The CMC Rocks crew keep coming back to the idea of putting a wedding chapel on their festival site.
The cultural spin-off they couldn’t predict as the Australian country music market blew up over the past few years was the evolution of a community of singles looking to mingle.
After this year’s annual CMC Rocks festival in March, online fan sites were flooded with “misconnection” posts seeking to find the “girl in the red dress” or “guy in the blue shirt” they had danced with but had failed to get a phone number from before they disappeared into the crowd.
“The festival has become a pilgrimage for fans who live all over Australia and they travel, sometimes four days or a week, to make this their holiday. This is where they come together, and over the years we have seen spin off communities like the CMC singles page,” Frontier Touring Chief Operating Officer Susan Heymann said.
CMC Rocks is just one cog in the machine – alongside other popular annual festivals including Tamworth, Gympie and the Deni Ute Muster – behind the country music takeover of the Australian charts and airwaves.
One of this year’s CMC headliners Morgan Wallen became a chart-topping crossover act with his No. 1 single Last Night and No. 1 album One Thing At A Time, both of which have now spent more than four months in the top 10.
Also commanding a huge Australian audience is American country superstar Luke Combs who has three records in the ARIA chart, from his most recent opus Gettin’ Old to his 2017 debut This One’s For You, which has spent more than five years in the top 50 albums.
His upcoming arena tour of Australia next month sold out instantly when tickets went on sale in September last year.
Legendary promoter Michael Chugg, who been a partner in CMC Rocks for many years since it was launched by the late country music entrepreneur Rob Potts 17 years ago, said the Combs tour was one of the fastest-selling box office smashes he has experienced since gigs returned after the pandemic.
“Luke Combs had a waiting list of 200,000 people 24 hours later. These are people buying tickets who have never been to a concert in the cities, it’s an untapped market,” he said.
“Morgan Wallen could have done a week of shows in Sydney and Melbourne when he was here in March.”
Australia is the third biggest country music market in the world.
A spokesperson for Wallen’s label Universal Music described the country music tribe as being a “passionate, loyal, excitable, and willing crowd of younger-than-you’d-think metro and regional fans who travel significant distances to see their favourite artists perform.”
“Morgan’s star has been rising in Australia for a while now, and this album, single and tour was the fuel that took the fire to a new level. His commitment to come to Australia just weeks after the album’s release showed fans down under how important international audiences are to him,” the spokesperson said.
And it’s not just the American country kings who are enjoying a cultural moment in Australia.
In the wake of the enduring success of much-loved locals including Keith Urban and Kasey Chambers – who had their own big crossovers into the mainstream pop world 20 years ago – is a long list of recently minted Australian country stars.
Nashville-based duo Seaforth are currently blowing up with their latest single Get The Girl.
Morgan Evans, Casey Barnes, Brad Cox and Travis Collins are current chart stars but there has been an exponential explosion in new country artists lining up to have their shot.
Respected manager Dan Biddle, alongside Chugg and Select Music recently launched the Wheelhouse Agency to help grow the live market for country and Americana artists.
Biddle said the explosion of new artists needed support to develop and nurture their talents and fanbases.
“Last year there were 650 Australian country singles released, which is 13 a week,” he said.
“It’s so much easier to launch into the market but so much harder to cut through in the streaming era and you need business infrastructure built around that; a lot of these younger artists book their own shows or if they have a manager, they do it, and yet in the rock, pop, hip hop and EDM space, there is no artist in the top tier that doesn’t have an agent.”
Biddle believes there is a simple reason behind country music’s resurgence here right now – escapism.
Chartoppers Brooke McClymont and Adam Eckersley who just claimed No. 1 on the Australian Artists album chart with their Up, Down and Sideways album, also point to social media shattering any residual stigma around owning you are a fan of the genre.
“Social media has a part to play in boosting awareness of songs and artists. The more people are talking about it (online), they feel more confident, from behind their keyboards, to say ‘I do love country music,’” McClymont said.
Eckersley agrees, pointing at the success of their Hang at the Wang weekends where fans come to stay on their mid north NSW property as proof that “word of mouth” recommendations are at the heart of the revival. Their weekends sell out with zero advertising beyond posting on their own social media channels to fans.
“Country music needs a host. You need somebody to say, ‘Here, listen to this. And then they go, ‘Oh, I didn’t realise that was country.’ All of a sudden that opens a world to them that they accept and allow themselves to like,” he said.
“Or maybe Australia finally got good taste.”
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