Monday, December 5, 2011

Finding a "Home" in Top 20

Photo Courtesy Carrie Srebro (ACC Fanfest 12/3/2011)

In its 10th week on the charts, the title track and second single from Dierks Bentley's upcoming album "Home" jumped 4 spots on Billboard to come in at #16! On Mediabase, "Home" is up to #18. Although audience isn't the deciding factor for Mediabase, it's the only place you can track audience gains and "Home" had some huge days this past week: on two different days it was the #1 audience gainer, one day with a pickup of 585,000 and one day with a pickup of 757,000. Those are pretty stealthy numbers!

"Home" hit the charts the same week as the new singles from Kenny Chesney ("Reality") and Brad Paisley ("Camouflage"). Kenny easily pulled away from Brad and Dierks in the weeks following (as many expected, I'm sure), but in recent weeks, Brad and Dierks have been engaged in a healthy battle, which Dierks is winning quite handily on Billboard ("Camouflage" is at #19) and poised to win on Mediabase (Brad is at #17, with Dierks less than 100 points behind). Not only that, but with "Home" sitting at #16 on Billboard, it's just two spots behind Kenny's "Reality." It's great to see our Prez hanging with the titans of the charts! 

In the upcoming weeks, holiday music will start to become more prevalent, and many assume the charts "freeze" during this time. It's not exactly the case. The charts will still publish and Mediabase's daily information will still update, however the majority of the songs will see a significant loss in spins and audience, primarily in the week before Christmas. Some years, the charts remain fairly active, as was the case last year (for the top of the charts - it didn't help "Draw Me a Map" any. Hmph!). The chart that publishes on 1/2/2012 (the 1/14 chart) will likely see many songs with significant gains. On December 19th and December 26th, I won't have access to the Billboard information on those nights. Instead, I'll see the updates on Wednesday. All that being said, "Home" is in a great position heading into the holidays, and I still think it will fare well against the holiday music, or at least better than some of the other songs around it on the charts. Regardless, don't be alarmed if it loses a spot or two during the next few weeks; it will rebound and looks to be close to peaking right around album release the first week in February! 

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

1 comment:

  1. For comparison's sake: Am I the Only One was at #14 in week 10. Home is definitely keeping pace with his previous single. :)

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