ONE TRIUMPH AT A TIME: MORGAN WALLEN

Big Loud/Mercury/Republic’s Morgan Wallen has the biggest album of the year by far, and he has spent most of 2023 at #1 with One Thing at a Time, the rock-fueled country runaway featuring streaming monster “Last Night.”

Wallen is the poster child for country’s streaming ascendancy—and for its cultivation of a giant, young-skewing audience as it ventures well outside the familiar Music Row blueprint. Of course, one Thing the young star wasn’t seeking was this HITS contents shout-out.