Kacey Musgraves Encourages ‘Big Download Energy’ for Her Duet With Zach Bryan

Zach Bryan’s collaborative duet “I Remember Everything” with Kacey Musgraves from his new self-titled album is poised to become a chart-topping hit on the Billboard Hot 100. While the streams are no doubt boosting the song to the top, Musgraves took to social media on Tuesday to make the case for downloads.

“So grateful for the streams but also ‘I Remember Everything’ is currently only .69 cents for a limited time on iTunes and Amazon Music for anyone with BDE,” the singer-songwriter posted to X (formerly known as Twitter), adding, “big download energy” above a link to download the track.

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Digital sales move closer toward extinction as streaming continues to dominate the music industry: Downloads made up just 3 percent of the U.S. industry’s revenue in 2022. However, most artists who haven’t reached Beyoncé or Taylor Swift-level fame tend to say that millions of clicks on their songs translate into pennies, the New York Times previously reported.

Following Musgraves’ post on Tuesday, the singer followed with a repost on Instagram stories of a 2018 tweet from Peter Frampton. “For 55 million streams of, ‘Baby I Love Your Way’, I got $1,700,” claimed the Grammy winner. “I went to Washington with ASCAP last year to talk to law makers about this. Their jaws dropped and they asked me to repeat that for them.”

Last year, Frampton sold his publishing catalog to BMG, joining artists like Bob Dylan, Justin Timberlake, and Stevie Nicks in selling music rights for a major payout.

Rolling Stone recently reported that Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” and songs by Jason Aldean and BTS’s Jung Kook and Jimin hit Number One in large part to digital downloads, if only temporarily. While an 11 dollar monthly Spotify subscription gives users access to most of the music they could ever want, a song sale on an individual piece of music holds more weight for chart placings than an individual stream — and is more financially beneficial to the artists behind the music.

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