Kacey Musgraves’ new single might be your jam, but don’t expect to “Keep it To Yourself.”
Yet to truly explode at country radio, “Keep it to Yourself,” which is the fourth single from Musgraves’ Grammy-winning “Same Trailer Different Park,” is slowly gaining momentum at the format.
Despite weeks of market availability at country, the song this week launched at an impressive 18 stations to rank as the format’s sixth-most-added. Several of those stations are high-profile Cumulus Media operations.
While its weekly airplay gain was modest, it reached a significantly larger audience this week. According to Mediabase’s rolling airplay chart, the song received 807 spins and reached an audience of 4.99 million in the seven days ending May 23. The format’s 41st-most-played song over that period, it reached country radio’s 38th-largest audience.
In the previous seven day period, which ended May 16, it garnered 729 spins and an audience of just 3.36 million.
The song, meanwhile, holds at a peak of #40 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. At present, it follows “Merry Go Round” (#10 peak) and “Blowin’ Smoke” (#23 peak) as Musgraves’ third most successful song on the chart.
Despite its significant buzz, “Follow Your Arrow” only reached a high of #43 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. Thanks to its strong sales weeks, however, “Arrow” led Musgraves to a career high position of #10 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. “Merry Go Round” and “Blowin’ Smoke” peaked at #14 and #31, respectively. “Keep it To Yourself” has yet to land on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
A media and awards show darling, Musgraves has yet to become a bona fide country radio star. “Keep it To Yourself” is unlikely to change that perception, but if its momentum holds, it could make a respectable dent for a fourth single. That it plays like a rebuttal to Lady Antebellum’s smash “Need You Now” and will be the active single when the Katy Perry-Kacey Musgraves edition of “Crossroads” airs on CMT could help matters.
