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Inside the Ambitious Radio Strategy That Tipped Shaboozey’s ‘A Bar Song’ Into the Record Books


Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" made history by going top 10 at four different formats, propelled by an EMPIRE campaign that isn't slowing down.

He first learned about "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" from a DJ who told him it was filling the floor at Coyote Joes, a country nightclub outside of Detroit, where Roberts also serves as a brand manager for WYCD. To quell other programmers' anxieties, EMPIRE played them the rest of Shaboozey's album, which has plenty of country signifiers, from pedal steel guitars to a sample of a horse neighing. "Sometimes programmers follow the rulebook too much where it's like, 'This song doesn't fit the normal criteria of what a rhythmic record should sound like,'" acknowledges Jonathan Steele, brand manager for KKFR in Phoenix.

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