Brandy Clark’s Radio Airplay Takes Massive Post-Grammys Jump
Brandy Clark was denied Grammy gold in the Best New Artist category and lost Best Country Album to Miranda Lambert, but the singer-songwriter came away from Sunday’s ceremony as the big winner after all. Clark, who sang “Hold My Hand” on the show with country icon Dwight Yoakam, saw a huge post-performance spike in her music thanks to streaming music services Pandora and Spotify.
How huge? According to USA Today, Clark had a 3,763 percent increase in “station adds” from Sunday night to early Monday on Pandora, as users of the streaming service created a custom station based on interest in her songs. In the hours following the CBS telecast, Clark’s Spotify streams increased 34 percent overall, with “Hold My Hand” accounting for a 494 percent jump from previous streams of that same tune before the show aired.
Other performers who got some love from Grammy viewers included Annie Lennox, who teamed on the show with Hozier for “I Put a Spell on You” (and saw that tune’s streams increase by 211 percent), and classical rockers ELO, whose collaboration with Ed Sheeran on a version of the group’s 1978 hit, “Mr. Blue Sky” became the most searched-for track on Shazam, an app which listens to and identifies songs.
“Hold My Hand” is a track from Clark’s critically acclaimed album, 12 Stories, released in 2013. “It’s very vulnerable,” she says of the ballad, which she and Yoakam performed with only their acoustic guitars and no backing band. “I think everyone has felt that way, where you’re with somebody who is not quite over somebody that they used to be with and you run into their ex. It’s a moment of truth. They have to make a statement to their ex that they love you the way you used to love them, but deep down inside, you both know that they still have feelings for that person.”
The Washington native is currently on the road with Alan Jackson for his 25th Anniversary Tour and heads to Glasgow, Scotland, on March 5th for a show with Lady Antebellum. She’ll then appear at the C2C Festival in London on March 7th and Dublin the following day before resuming on the Jackson tour through May.