As Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album dominates Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, dated July 10, for a 22nd week, with 47,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending July 1, according to MRC Data, he appears on the Country Airplay chart for the first time since the chart dated Feb. 6, when “7 Summers” ascended to its No. 15 peak.
Wallen was essentially banned from country radio in early February after TMZ posted a video of him using the N-word. His run on Country Airplay halted, after he had notched his first four No. 1s on the chart, all consecutively, beginning in June 2018.
Now, “Sand in My Boots,” the opening cut on Dangerous, debuts on Country Airplay at No. 56 with 699,000 audience impressions, up 105%, in the week ending July 4; 10 of the chart’s 149 reporters played it at least once in the tracking week.
The bow follows an uptick in Wallen’s catalog at the format in recent weeks.
Billboard reached out to program directors playing “Sand,” which is not being actively promoted as a single. While none would comment on the record, when asked what the future of a newly released Wallen single would be, a major-market programmer asking to remain anonymous said, “I think it would be a No. 1, and that he’d be welcomed back. He made a mistake and he’s apologized a number of times. He belongs back on the chart.”
