For those who are not aware, Zach Bryan is a moderately popular alternative country act whose career has been built with a deliberate thumb in the nose at the sensibilities of mainstream country promotion, particularly the expectations of Nashville row when it comes to professionally produced music that is promoted to program directors in charge of country radio programming. While this strategy has given him a substantial fanbase on streaming among those who support his music and view it as authentic, it has also alienated him from many people who could have smoothed the way to success for his songs on mainstream country radio. I must admit that I find conflicts over authenticity in art deeply fascinating, given that my own point of view is that Zach Bryan’s music is often poorly produced, poorly performed, and not very appealing to listen to. I do not consider authentic and genuine artistic sentiments to preclude professional instrumentation and performing, and would rather listen to a competently written and produced song to one which is deliberately as unappealing and rough as possible. My own tastes are, however, my own.

Yesterday, as I write this, however, there was an amusing brouhaha that took place over the promotion of Zach Bryan’s latest single, entitled “Pink Skies.” I have had the opportunity to listen to this song myself and find it to be among the singer’s more amateurish productions, with robotic and monotonous singing, banal and uninspiring lyrics, and some truly awful production choices, including the lead vocal and background vocals being out of harmony. I would have been embarrassed to perform a number so poorly at a karaoke night, much less release such a record to the general public in expectation of popular success. Be that as it may, the song is expected to debut in the top ten next week because of hype and because the song is expected to be popular in streaming among people who find the track to be heartfelt and authentic. At least the song’s material is meant, I think, to be a touching tribute to someone who has died and is being mourned by people who were from the area but have since moved away and cleaned up their act who the deceased would presumably have viewed as yuppies, for whatever reason.

What is it that has caused such drama? Yesterday morning, a twitter account that is devoted to announcing new radio singles commented rather innocuously that Warner Music (Zach Bryan’s label) had sent “Pink Skies” to pop radio as a single. This was viewed as mildly surprising, not least because Zach Bryan is not a pop musician and the song is not an obvious pop crossover. Indeed, the song is the sort of production that would likely not receive a great deal of support on radio in general, and releasing the song to pop was viewed as being a move by the singer’s label to receive radio play that was unlikely to happen from mainstream country radio stations. And that was that, at least through most of the day, until in the evening there was a flurry of messages that indicated that the news that “Pink Skies” had been released as a single was not being greeted with the applause that one would expect.

Indeed, the artist himself seemed to be particularly upset that the song was released as a single, not having given his permission for the single to be released, and stating that for a song to be a single it has to be deliberately pushed to a particular group of radio stations, and he had not signed off on such an effort. For their part, the twitter feed that had originally posted that the song was released as a single commented that Warner had clarified with them that the song was not being pushed as a single, but that it was released as a song to be showcased by pop radio stations. In one sense, at least, a song that a label wants radio stations to showcase is obviously a single, since playing a song on the radio is nothing more than showcasing that such a song is worthy of special attention beyond a normal album track. As a student of the music industry, there are often obvious advertising in trade magazines (and nowadays, on twitter) that seeks to encourage radio stations to add songs at particular times in order to show a groundswell of support for a song, and coordinates efforts at pushing radio singles can lead to a rapid rise up the radio charts and some substantial support for songs with regards to their position on the Billboard Hot 100.

While the twitter storm over “Pink Skies” and the extent to which it should be considered a single is itself entertaining, there is a question as to why an artist like Zach Bryan would not want the song to be pushed on pop radio. There are at least two reasons why this would be the case. The first reason is less substantial and more about image, and that is because Zach Bryan has cultivated an identity that is oppositional to the polished sound of both Nashville and pop radio. The relationship between Zach Bryan’s fanbase and the radio audience and its interest in well-polished music that is enjoyable to listen to would not appear to be an easy fit, at least for “Pink Skies.” There is, however, another reason beyond this. It would appear–though to be exactly certain would require looking at Zach Bryan’s recording contract–that any effort to promote “Pink Skies” or any other song is going to require label money to be spent trying to convince DJs and programming directors to play Zach Bryan songs on rotation, or even heavy rotation, and that money would count as recoupable debt that Zach Bryan would have to pay for through the revenue generated by his music. Given the low-frills and low-cost aesthetic that Bryan cultivates, it seems likely that his music does not cost a lot to produce (I would hope not, as that would be waste of money if it was expensive cheap). This would indicate that he would rather save that money and make what he makes in streaming without having to pay out money trying to chase mainstream radio success. I’m not a big fan, in general at least, of Zach Bryan’s music, but if you have to ask me, that sounds like the right move to take.