KEEPING OUR "EYES" ON THE PRIZE

First of all, I want to apologize for my absence last week. I didn't have nearly as much available internet time while I was in Hawaii, which I suppose is the sign of a great vacation. But now that I'm back on the mainland and COLD reality, I will give you all the latest Billboard chart info that will publish on Thursday!

Dierks Bentley's "I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes" moves up to #2 this week, inching to be within just one position of that wonderful #1 spot! It's a mere 1.34 million audience impressions behind Reba's "Consider me Gone," and still gaining ever-so-surely, but Tim McGraw's "Southern Voice" is packing a slightly mightier punch which could blind-side Dierks's endeavor for 3 straight #1s. Basically, it is likely to catch "Consider me Gone" this week (the chart week ends Sunday), but there is a very real possibility that "Southern Voice" could leapfrog it to take the top spot. But, if it can hang on for 6 more days, and edge out Tim, it will snag #1 next week! (For what it's worth, IWMYCYE was the most-played song last week -- 1 spin higher than Reba!)

Congress, if there were ever a time to get on the phone, email, tweet, text, heck -- DRIVE to your local stations, this is the week to do it! Request it on your morning drive. Request it on your evening commute. The higher the audience, the better we'll be. We've got 6 days to get this song to #1. Hopefully I will be back in one week with excellent news!

As an aside, I tweeted while I was in Hawaii that after being on Kauai for just 24 hours, we'd heard Dierks 5 times. This is particularly interesting because just 1.5 years ago when we were last on Kauai, they didn't even have a Country radio station! The Dierks love wasn't confined to Kauai, though, because as our vacation went on and took us to 2 more of the Islands, Dierks continued to be the artist we heard the most (yes, I kept track). We heard all but 3 of his singles, and many of his songs were heard more than once (everything off FTF, for instance). The two artists played just as much as Dierks? Kenny Chesney and Garth Brooks. Unfortunately for us Dierks fans, the Hawaii stations don't report to Billboard or Mediabase -- if they did, I'm fairly certain we'd have the audience boost we need to get to #1!

~ Carrie S. (DBC Rep/Chart Reporter ~ NC)