Florida Georgia Line made country music history for at least the second time thanks to its single "Cruise." The track's sales for the last charting week pushes it to the bestselling digital single in the genre's history. "Cruise" moved 84,000 downloads last week, bringing it to 6.33 million total in sales, which moves it ahead of no. 2 "Need You Now" by Lady Antebellum, which has 6.27 million downloads over its history.
Most of the song's success can be attributed to its crossover value: "Cruise" peaked at no. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, and even no. 7 on the pop charts. The song was the fourth most-downloaded from the 2013 calendar year, moving 4.69 million units, which placed it in between Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive" and Lorde's Royals...two huge hits. It would be easy to point to the song's remix (which features rapper Nelly), but that version was only responsible 39.5 percent of the song's total sales. The other 60. 5 percent genuinely enjoyed the "pure" country version.
Granted, some of you are hollering about how the digital sales charts isn't representative of country music's history, as Nielsen Soundscan has only tracked them since 2003. This is true, but the period following 2003 puts Florida Georgia Line up against one of the bestselling country performers ever: Taylor Swift. "Cruise" managed to outsell Swift's huge hits such as "Love Story" and "You Belong to Me." Plus, the song has one record that the good ol' performers couldn't touch: "Cruise" holds the longest run as the no. 1 song on the Hot Country Songs chart (24 weeks), a list that's been tracked for 70 years.
It'd be asking a lot for the duo's current single, "Stay," to make a similar run, but it's already spent five weeks at no. 1. Only 19 to go.