Hello country lovers. Honky Tonk Hansson speaking. So glad you are here with me.

Outside the the BIG NAMES on the original BUZZ LIST (see below), there are always the names that’s creating buzz on THEIR WAY UP to the list. Three of this week’s top ten-climbers I really believe will be names that will make it to top in the near future:

Her raw rawk ‘n’ rollish style, paired with true country grit resonates with both the younger audience and the old timers. Great voice-ID too.

The young country-folkie-indie favourite keeps on touring around the globe and becomes better and better for every chord he strikes on that big acoustic guitar. Charmin’ fella’ too.

The voice of a new generation backwoods country loving tailgate friendly friday night country music. I think you know what I mean here. He also got THAT VOICE.

Go check ‘em all out! They are worth it, for different reasons. Take my word for it. To make it easy for you I have collected the three best songs from Kassi, Bayker and Zach John in the playlist below. 

Honky Tonk Hansson Note: Keep an eye out for Braxton Keith as well—he’s dropping a new album today called “Real Damn Deal” and is set to be the next big name joining these three on the rise!

It truly means the world to me. If you’re enjoying the newsletter, please spread the word! Remember: we’re all in this country music journey together.

Your friend,

P.S. The next couple of weeks I will be busy marrying the love of my life and travel to Nashville for the honeymoon, etc, etc. Newsletter will be back!

📈 Musgraves Posts Her Career-Best Sales Week as Country Takes Three of the Billboard 200's Top 4: The May 16 album chart belongs to Nashville and its neighbors. Kacey Musgraves' Middle of Nowhere debuted at #3 with 100,000 equivalent album units, her career-best opening week (eclipsing 2024's Deeper Well at 97,000), including more than 37,000 in pure vinyl sales, her best vinyl week ever. The album debuts in the top 10 across seven Billboard charts including #1 on Top Album Sales (third consecutive #1 there), #1 Vinyl Albums, and #1 Indie Store Album Sales. Behind only Noah Kahan's The Great Divide, country fills the next three slots: Ella Langley's Dandelion holds at #2 in its sixth week, Musgraves at #3, and Morgan Wallen's I'm the Problem at #4, with Wallen's One Thing at a Time also still in the top 10 at #9.

🔥 Three Mid-Career Women Drop Personal-Reset Albums in a 14-Day Window: The first half of May has produced three of country's most introspective full-lengths from established women in under two weeks. Kacey Musgraves' Middle of Nowhere is the most country-leaning record of her catalog according to Saving Country Music. Ashley McBryde's Wild digs into sobriety, family trauma, and rockier production. Miranda Lambert's "Crisco" drops May 15 as her first MCA single, a country-and-disco hybrid co-written with Aaron Raitiere, Jesse Frasure, and Chill Fellacheck. Three women, three labels, three reset moves in 14 days.

📻 Country Radio Cements a Catalog Era as Luke Combs Matches Keith Urban's Solo Record: Luke Combs' "Sleepless in a Hotel Room" spent its fifth consecutive week at #1 on Billboard Country Airplay (chart dated May 16, 34.5 million impressions up 4%), tying his third-longest run with "Fast Car," "Better Together," and "Even Though I'm Leaving." It is his 20th career Country Airplay #1 dating to 2017's "Hurricane," and the milestone pushes him to 42 weeks at #1 as a soloist, matching Keith Urban's all-time mark.

The very best of Kassi Ashton, Bayker Blankenship and Zach John King, this far. There will be more from where this came. Enjoy!

Enjoy! Listen here!

Week of May 7 – May 13 2026 (generated: May 13)

Buzz Score: 100/100
Why She's Hot: The biggest single-week story in country this cycle, by every chart-tracking metric available.

Buzz Score: 95/100
Why She's Hot: The Dandelion Tour launched May 7 at Toledo's Huntington Center, her first arena-and-amphitheater headline run, with 16 dates through August 15 at Fort Worth's Dickies Arena plus 10 direct-support nights on Morgan Wallen's Still the Problem stadium tour and three festival anchors. She paired the launch with a signature scent drop named after "Be Her."

Buzz Score: 91/100
Why He's Hot: A career-record week that finally pushed him back into the cycle.

Buzz Score: 87/100
Why He's Hot: A natural week-over-week cooldown after the Langley duet release week, but the underlying volume remains genre-leading. "I Can't Love You Anymore" with Ella Langley held its top-10 standing into a second Hot 100 week after debuting at #7, the highest-charting debut by a country collaboration in Hot 100 history.

Buzz Score: 84/100
Why She's Hot: Wild dropped May 8 via Warner Records Nashville, her fifth studio album and her most personal to date, with feature-length pieces in the NYT, AP, and Billboard built around her sobriety, the John Osborne-produced rockier sound she was once told would not work for mainstream radio, and her Nashville non-alcoholic Redemption Bar inside Eric Church's Chief's. The 11-track project was recorded with her road band Deadhorse and reunites her with Osborne after 2022's Lindeville. Lead single "What If We Don't" continues at country radio while "Rattlesnake Preacher," "Arkansas Mud," and "Bottle Tells Me So" rolled out as promotional singles ahead of release. She had been one of the only artists ever to earn Country Album of the Year nominations from the ACM, CMA, and Grammys all in the same season (2020's Never Will).

Buzz Score: 80/100
Why He's Hot: A business cycle and a tour cycle in the same week. Warner Chappell Music Nashville renewed his global publishing deal on May 6, citing his 2026 run of consecutive solo-written #1 hits ("Don't Mind If I Do" with Ella Langley, then "Worst Way"), which made him the first country artist to achieve consecutive solo-written #1s on Country Airplay since Taylor Swift. 

Buzz Score: 77/100
Why He's Hot: Steady ACM build with a continuing single rollout. "Hello Lonesome," released May 1 as the second single from Banks of the Trinity (out June 26 via COJO/Warner Records Nashville), drew positive coverage from Country Standard Time, American Songwriter, and Musictalkers across the week as a return to classic-country fiddle-and-pedal-steel form, written by Jimmy Yeary, Seth Mosley, and Matt Rogers. "The Fall" remains in the Top 5 at country radio.

Buzz Score: 73/100
Why She's Hot: A pre-release week pointing entirely today. "Crisco," her first MCA single (co-written with Aaron Raitiere, Jesse Frasure, and Chill Fellacheck), drops today with explicit lyrical nods to Glen Campbell's "Southern Nights" and Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's "Islands in the Stream." The country-and-disco hybrid carries the rollout direction of the MCA partnership announced April 20, and the countryanddisco.com countdown clock continues to tick.

Buzz Score: 70/100
Why He's Hot: Final ACM-Week build with media saturation. After the April 30 surprise New Male Artist of the Year presentation in London (his mother Sia walked onstage with the trophy after a video message from Thomas Rhett).

Buzz Score: 68/100
Why She's Hot: The structural ACM moment is Sunday and the build into it is the story. She debuts new single "Can't Sit Still" on the broadcast, with seven ACM nominations including her fourth consecutive Entertainer of the Year nod, Female Artist, Song, Single, Music Event, and Visual Media for "Somewhere Over Laredo" (lost to Stephen Wilson Jr. this week). The Netflix doc Keepin' Country Cool continues to accumulate streaming weeks. Vince Gill's new monthly EP series included a Wilson feature on "Down at the Borderline" released May 8. She opens Chris Stapleton's All-American Road Show kickoff in Nashville on May 23. 

The real heat starts at #11, and this week it's on the house…

Buzz Score: 64/100
Why He's Hot: A first-ever ACM win in his first nomination, beating out four of the genre's biggest names.

Buzz Score: 60/100
Why He's Hot: His first BMI #1 party landed May 6 at BMI's Nashville headquarters, with Warner Records Nashville surprising him onstage with the RIAA double-platinum plaque for "House Again" (his debut single, written with Dan Alley and Neil Medley, off his debut album Texas Forever). The song peaked at #1 on Mediabase and #6 on Billboard Country Airplay, with the Hot 100 entry at #47 making him the youngest male country artist ever to score a solo #1 on the Mediabase country chart. New single "Backwards" was named Disc of the Day by MusicRow earlier in the week and went out to radio. 

Buzz Score: 57/100
Why He's Hot: A genre-bending release week. "BOOTS" featuring 2x Grammy-nominated, Double Diamond-selling Fetty Wap dropped May 8 (Triple Tigers), written by Dickerson, Fetty Wap, Matt Dragstrem, and Dylan Marlowe, framed by Holler as a "country-trap anthem."

Buzz Score: 54/100
Why He's Hot: Late-night TV plus the most-stacked ACM ballot of any male artist this cycle. He returned to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on May 7 to perform Willie Nelson's "Living in the Promiseland" with longtime Nelson bandmate, harmonica player Mickey Raphael. He enters Sunday's ACM ceremony as the most-nominated male artist with six nods, including Entertainer of the Year, Male Artist, Song of the Year, Album, Single, Music Event, and Visual Media (his "A Song to Sing" with Lambert lost the Visual Media trophy to Stephen Wilson Jr. earlier this week).

Buzz Score: 51/100
Why They're Hot: The countdown to the Southern Hospitality Tour kickoff is four days from start. The Black Crowes co-headline run, with Southall opening, launches Sunday May 17 at Austin's Moody Center (the same venue that hosted the iHeartCountry Festival two weeks earlier). Whomp Whack Thunder, their seventh studio album, continues to ride pre-tour stream lift, though week-over-week numbers cooled this week as the tour-launch news cycle traded headlines with the album-release artists.

Buzz Score: 48/100
Why He's Hot: The Clemson Memorial Stadium news cycle continues to spool out post-event coverage, including the official Clemson Athletics writeup of the new venue attendance record (90,000-plus, the first concert at Death Valley since Strait's 1999 show, surpassing the 1999 Clemson-Florida State football mark).

Buzz Score: 45/100
Why She's Hot: The ACM week is hers to lose, and the structural positioning remains the strongest of any female artist on the ballot. Nine nominations make her the most-nominated artist of the 2026 ceremony, including Entertainer of the Year (one of the few first-time contenders in the category), Female Artist, Album for Cloud 9, Single for "6 Months Later," and Visual Media (lost to Stephen Wilson Jr. this week). Cloud 9 holds its place in the Billboard 200's top 20 in its 12th-plus week.

Buzz Score: 42/100
Why She's Hot: The first artist to land an ACM Album of the Year nomination with her debut studio LP since Chris Stapleton's Traveller a decade ago, for Cherry Valley (Gatsby Records/MCA). Her ACM Awards anthem cover of Faith Hill's "Vegas" went up on Amazon Music this week, framing her as the broadcast's signature debut performance for Sunday. She is also confirmed to support Post Malone's Big Ass Stadium Tour Pt 2 across all dates (now starting June 9 in Charlotte after the first six dates were canceled), to open for Kacey Musgraves on the Middle of Nowhere Tour from Aug 21, and to anchor select dates of Shaboozey's Outlaws Never Die Tour later this year.

Buzz Score: 39/100
Why He's Hot: The post-Songs About Us release cycle settles into the second full chart-tracking week with no major news beat in the past seven days outside continued radio promotion for "Don't Tell On Me," a song drawn from his own family's dementia experience.

Buzz Score: 36/100
Why She's Hot: The week-long ACM build keeps her cycle live four days from broadcast. After the April 25 surprise New Female Artist of the Year presentation by Sam Barber at the Lone Star Smokeout, she is confirmed for the May 17 ceremony performance.

DROPPED OUT: Post Malone (#11), Shaboozey (#10), Eric Church (#16), Jelly Roll (#19), Kane Brown (#20)

NEW ENTRIES: Luke Combs (#3), Ashley McBryde (#5), Stephen Wilson Jr. (#11), Hudson Westbrook (#12), Chris Stapleton (#14), Carter Faith (#18)

RISING ATISTS WATCH (outside top 20): Brantley Gilbert (May 8 announcement of Sins of the Father for July 24 release, his BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville debut, plus +19K Shazam w/o/w); Kid Rock (+244K monthly listeners 1w/+153K w/o/w acceleration, the cleanest catalog-driven listener acceleration in the dataset this week); Rascal Flatts (+281K monthly listeners 1w/+130K w/o/w, sustained reunion-era catalog lift); Cammy Barnes (+214K monthly listeners 1w/+141K w/o/w); Koe Wetzel (+94K monthly listeners 1w with "Rocky Mountain Low" w/ Corey Kent rising to #10 Country Airplay); Parker McCollum (extended press cycle around his Zach Sang Show interview on near-quitting music, plus his May 1 Healthcare Heroes initiative launch); Tigirlily Gold (new song "I Do Or Die" released May 8 via release week). Jessie Jo Dillon's historic third consecutive ACM Songwriter of the Year win, announced May 8, is the cycle's signature songwriter story even though she is not an artist on this chart.

Methodology: Rankings based on aggregated signals from primary country news sources (MusicRow, Saving Country Music, Taste of Country, Holler, Maverick Country, Country Standard Time, Country Beat Magazine, Lone Star Music Magazine, Texas Country Music Magazine, Roots Music Magazine, Feedspot) plus secondary editorial sources (Billboard, Rolling Stone, Variety, Consequence, American Songwriter, Pitchfork, Wikipedia 2026 country events, Entertainment Focus, NME). Gmail COUNTRY-labeled newsletters read, including MusicRow Weekly. Supplementary streaming and social signals from a Viberate 7-day data (Spotify streams, monthly listener growth, YouTube views, TikTok likes, TikTok followers, Instagram likes, Instagram followers, radio spins/stations, SoundCloud, Shazam).
Buzz score formula: news volume 40%, streaming/chart position 20%, news quality/prominence 15%, social media engagement 15%, recency 10%.