Cole Swindell has had one of the biggest country hits of the past year with 'She Had Me at Heads Carolina'. It was holding the number 1 position of the radio (Billboard Country Airplay) chart for 4 weeks in the fall of 2022, which made it the sixth most successful song on the year-end chart and even had it reach number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100. And to top it off, it currently holds at 115 mio. streams on Spotify.
Quite an achievement, which may not be outperformed too easily.
Except - Bailey Zimmerman is just now doing exactly that. Because the 22-year old singer and songwriter from Illinois, who counts as the biggest discovery of last year, can already boast some incredible 149 mio. Spotify streams of his only second single 'Rock And A Hard Place. Despite the fact, that the single has only just reached the top-10 on the radio (Billboard Country Airplay) chart! Hard on the heels of his debut single 'Fall In Love, which has already gone all the way to the top of the charts.
'Rock And A Heart Place' is only the second song so far, for which Bailey Zimmermann was not a contributing songwriter. "When I listen to outside cuts, I’m listening for the very first line. If it doesn’t grab me, I’m like, ‘No.’ But as soon as I heard that on Heath’s Instagram, and I heard the line, ‘Like swinging and missing,’ I knew that I wanted to cut it", he explains.
The mid-tempo track, written by Heath Warren, Jacob Hackworth and Jet Harvey, deals with a relationsship on the brink of breaking. It's about the moment, when only two options seem viable, both of them unpleasant: either stay in the unhappy relationship or bring oneself to a painful breakup.
What the hell's this all for?
Is this where it mends or it breaks?
How much more of this can we take?
A dilemma. Or in the words of the song title: a rock and a hard place. A phrase, the origin of which is mainly traced back to the early 1900s when copper miners in Arizona demanded better working conditions from the mining company.
However when the company was not willing to make any concessions, it left them with the only choice between the status quo in the mines (the rock) or unemployment and poverty (a hard place). The phrase became especially popular during the great depression of the 1930s, when most people had to face a similar dilemma.
No such issues currently concern Bailey Zimmerman. It rather seems he can do no wrong, so that one can only hope the success does not go to the young artists' head. In the Apple Music Interview with Kelleigh Bannen, he by all means still appears as the wide-eyed young boy, unable to fathom his successes: "Every day I wake up and there's more records we broke, there's more streams and we're doing really big things but it doesn't feel like that. I still feel really normal and I still feel like, 'Holy freakin crap, what is even going on?"
On 'Rock And A Hard Place' he refrains from edgier, more rock-driven sounds, which would most naturally accomodate his raspy voice, while still sticking to his somber relationship themes.
At the same time he seems to indicate in the conversation with Kalleigh Bannen, that the studio sound may not be, what the audience will get at a live show: "The way we did the live-sessions with Apple was the exact way we do it live. So it's really different live. It's more built up, it's more like edgy and rocky and really cool. This is not the normal records we put out."
Since the quick release of his first 9-song project "Leave The Light On" last year, he has released 2 more mid-tempo ballads, both of which he was involved in writing. While there is yet no public discussion about what the next single might be, the most immediate topic on his mind is most likely going to be the opening act on Morgan Wallen's One Night At A Time Tour, which will take him to New Zealand and Australia in mid March. Clearly no dilemma there ...
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