Maren Morris Warns Streamers About Bro-Heavy Playlists

Marren Morris has found country music stardom with big does of help from Spotify, Apple Music and other music streamers. Her album ‘Girl’ notched 24 million streams in the US on the week of its release.  But her biggest fear is the music streaming become too much like country radio.

“My biggest fear is that streaming platforms become like country radio and only playlist men,” Morris told Billboard. “They’re falling into that same corporate bullshit trap that country radio is so desperately trying to get out of. On some of the most popular country playlists, the first 15 songs — which is all people are ultimately in the car long enough to listen to — are all dudes.

10-1 Male To Female Disparity

Mediabase radio play data from 2000-2018 shows that the ratio of total airplay spins during that time period favored male artists 5.5 to 1, and things seem to be getting worse. In 2018, there was a 9.7 to 1 disparity between men and women at country radio.

On 30 second skip rates: 

“I’ve never heard of that, and I never want to know. If I’m in the studio, of course I’ve got this barometer for what feels catchy, but my job is just to be creative and put on great shows. When there’s good news, like “The Bones” streaming well, I welcome it, and I think streaming is moving our industry forward. There’s so much that needs to be rectified as far as royalty-fee legislation for songwriters goes, but that’s always going to happen when you’re catching up with new technology. We’re in the pioneer days. Ultimately, these platforms have brought a lot of good into our lives.