Dustin Lynch clinched a historic record on one of Billboard's coveted charts for Country music.
Dustin Lynch' Thinking 'Bout You' Billboard Record
According to a recent Billboard article, Dustin Lynch and Mackenzie Porter established a new record on Billboard's Country Airplay Chart for their collaborative work "Thinking 'Bout You."
The track logged its 27th week on the Top 10 of Billboard Country Airplay Chart on the list dated Apr. 23, 2022.
Youtube
Ranking No. 8 with 17.9 million impressions this week, the song peaked at No. 1 on the Country Airplay Charts on December 2021, seven months since its debut.
Per Luminate, "Thinking 'Bout You" ranked at No. 8 with 17.9 million impressions on the chart on its tracking week ending Apr. 17, 2022. The track. This is Dustin's eighth Country Airplay No. 1 song and Porter's first.
Since the Country Airplay chart debuted in January 1990, "Thinking 'Bout You" is now the current holder of the record for staying the longest in the Top 10 on the charts.
Youtube
It surpassed Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood's collaboration "If I Don't Love You," which held the record for 26 weeks, peaking for three weeks last October 2021. The song is Aldean's 24th No. 1 song on the chart and Carrie Underwood's 16th.
However, some music experts think they should be doing more despite these massive successes in the airplay charts.
READ ALSO: ASAP Rocky Update: Sources Say LAX Arrest Has Been Planned For Weeks?
Country Radio Chart Becoming Irrelevant?
With the success of Dustin Lynch and MacKenzie Porter's latest song, music experts and radio programmers weighed in on the song's impact on the future of the genre in radio airplay.
For Cumulus Media VP for Country Programming Charlie Cook, he believes that playing the "best testing songs," in this case "Thinking," is the best way to go.
Given that recording companies need to move titles in the radio system, they believe that using these kinds of songs also help artists build their brand and appeal to radio listeners at the same time for more airplay.
Audacy Programming and Operations Director Clay Walker agrees with Cook's valuable input.
For him, songs like Lynch-MacKenzie and Aldean-Underwood, "simply cut through" to their fans as their listeners "care less about the title's path to the top and more about hearing songs they're most passionate about.
"My job as a programmer is to support our audience by giving them the songs they care about the most, and that means keeping super hits in power until they say otherwise. In both cases, everyone wins."
On the other hand, for SummiMedia Executive VP Randy Chase, the downside of continuously playing hit songs like these "lull radio into a false sense of security" as it keeps the next big hit from gaining airplay.
"We must utilize the right music architecture and our gut to be master playlist cultivators and keep the music pipeline flowing. We don't have to play everything, but we must still take chances to build the next record-setting song, or we will become irrelevant," Chase argued.
READ ALSO: Drake Stalker Update: Champagne Papi Shields Himself With Three-Year Restraining Order
