If Johnny Cash is the Man in Black, Alan Jackson is The Man in Stache. You can probably count on one hand the number of times you’ve ever seen Alan clean shaven, and even Googling it, you’d be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of pictures without his signature lip sweater. In fact, throughout his legendary career, there are only two music videos where he didn’t feature the stache… “So You Don’t Have to Love Me Anymore,” which was released in 2012, and still featured a little bit of stubble. And then “Tonight I Climbed the Wall,” which was released in 1993. But you know what else was released in 1993… arguably Jackson’s strongest sans stache showing, and it had nothing to do with his music. It was a PSA for Miller Lite against drunk driving. Alan has always been a man who stands up for what he believes in, and if you don’t think so, remember what happened at the 1994 ACM Awards? What about the 1999 CMA Awards? Or even his “Murder On Music Row” performance alongside George Strait, which was also at the 1999 CMA Awards. Big Al was never afraid to make a statement and here he is in this 1993 advertisement, simply warning others to please “think when you drink.” Now, you probably might be wondering, why should I listen to someone who made a living by writing drinking songs for almost 40 years. Well, because for most of them almost 40 years, he spent ’em out on the road, having to be even more cautious than the normal American about the horrors of drunk driving, as road safety was necessary for him and his band’s great occupation. He says: “When you see as much of the road as I do, man, it’s as simple as black and white… so c’mon folks, please think when you drink.” He wrote and sang in his song, “Job Description,” off of the 1994 album, Who I Am, and I quote respectfully: “I sleep eighty miles an hour. To the whining of a diesel down the interstate. Dreamin’ ’bout my little girls. The easy chair that sits beside the fireplace. Then we shut her down in another town. Shower up and do just what we came to do. Sing for the people. Count the money and the miles back home to you.” Now somebody who had to live out on the road his whole career is definitely somebody whose advice we should take to heart, and as Alan Jackson wanted us to all to learn “a lot about livin’, and a little bout love,” safe driving is required. But how about that jawline on Big Al? I almost thought this was AI for a second… Check it out: The year before, Alan teamed up with fellow ’90s star Clint Black for a killer Miller Lite commercial. Seems like the PSA was a bit of a follow-up to an epic commercial that probably helped more than a few country music fans fuel the desire to pop a top… or ten. Another ’90s country act, Brooks and Dunn, would go on to join the “Think When You Drink” campaign the following year in 1994. The post WATCH: Alan Jackson Goes Stunningly Sans Mustache For 1993 Miller Lite PSA first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

I’m not surprised, just disappointed. Apple Music just revealed their top 500 streamed songs of all time as part of the game-changing streaming service celebrating its 10th anniversary. I’ll be honest, I had Apple Music for a long time but switched to Spotify a few years ago and couldn’t be happier. The playlists are better, the user interface is better…I’m a Spotify guy through and through now. But Apple Music still has over 93 million subscribers, second only to Spotify (which has 268 million premium subscribers), so it’s still a pretty good sample size to figure out what people are listening to. The top streamed song of all time is “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran, while Canadian rapper Drake had the most songs on the chart, followed by Taylor Swift. But which country song topped the list? Well it shouldn’t come as any surprise, but the most-streamed country song in Apple Music history is…”Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus. Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. And I know, there’s plenty of discussion to be had about whether it’s actually a country song at all, but the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) categorizes the song as country for purposes of its classification, so technically it’s classified as country whether it’s actually country or not. The remix of the song featuring Billy Ray Cyrus was released back in 2019, and quickly shot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It also became the fastest song in history to be certified Diamond by the RIAA (meaning it sold over 10 million units), and in June 2019 it was responsible for the three highest weekly streaming totals in history. Of course the song’s popularity was bolstered by the controversy surrounding its genre, as well as the numerous remixes that were released at the time (my personal favorite was the one with “Yodel Kid” Mason Ramsey – his verse went hard, regardless of what you think of the song). Despite being the highest streamed “country” song, “Old Town Road” didn’t manage to crack the top 50 most streamed songs, coming in at #60 on the list. As far as the rest of the chart, Luke Combs was the highest-ranked of the mainstream country artists, with “Beautiful Crazy” coming in at #61, just a few spots ahead of Morgan Wallen, who had the #67 and #68 spots with “Last Night” and “Chasin’ You.” Chris Stapleton’s cover of the David Allen Coe hit “Tennessee Whiskey” came in at #71, his only entry on the list. But Wallen managed to score 12 songs total on the chart, including “Wasted On You” coming in at #141, “Whiskey Glasses” at 152, “You Proof” at 226 and “More Than My Hometown” at 229. Luke Combs ended with seven total entries on the list, with “When It Rains It Pours” at #169, “Hurricane” coming in at #189, “She Got The Best Of Me” at 195 and “Forever After All” rounding out his entries at 269. Florida Georgia Line also had one song on the list, though it was their collab with pop star Bebe Rexha, “Meant To Be,” coming in at 148. And there was also an entry from Maren Morris with her pop collab with Zedd, “The Middle,” coming in at 296. Other “country” artists who made the list were Shaboozey with his viral hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Jason Aldean with “You Make It Easy,” Kane Brown’s “Heaven” and Sam Hunt with “Body Like A Back Road.” (Apple only ranked the top 300 of their 500 songs, so all of these were outside of the top 300). Post Malone had quite a few entries with his pop/rap songs, but he also managed to get one of his country hits on the list too with his Morgan Wallen collab “I Had Some Help,” and Zach Bryan snuck into the top 500 as well with “Something In The Orange.” Surprisingly, Dan + Shay had three entries on the list with both “Tequila,” “Speechless,” and “10,000 Hours,” which featured Justin Bieber, all appearing inside the top 500. But there were a ton of notable names missing from the list: Obviously legends like George Jones, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and George Strait weren’t on the list, but most of their hits came before streaming so it’s not really a surprise that they’re not as heavily streamed as the newer artists. Modern superstars like Eric Church, Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley were also missing from the list, but their careers also straddle the line between pre and post-streaming. Still, it’s a little disappointing to see so many great names left off the list. Even guys like Tyler Childers and Sturgill Simpson, who have had incredible careers in the streaming era, didn’t manage to land a single song inside the top 500. And of course the list leans towards pop and rap, so it’s not entirely surprising. It just shows how far country music still has to go to catch up to other genres when it comes to streaming numbers…although guys like Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs are clearly leading the way.The post Apple Music Reveals Their 500 Most Streamed Songs And The Top Streamed Country Songs Are…Disappointing first appeared on Whiskey Riff.