It’s hard to believe that we are already looking at the close of 2017. It seemed to fly along rapidly and now we find ourselves looking back at a year that had quite a mixed bag of elements. Regardless of the hurricanes that ravaged the USA and all of the intense bickering in the world of politics, music once again provided a much needed break from all of the problems we faced. Through it all, songwriters continued to write greats songs and recording artists and bands continued to produce and release some rather excellent music. We can easily state that as we had the privilege of tracking and monitoring much of the music from the both the major and independent arena.

Radio from Top40 to Hot AC had its leaders and favorites and we kept a pretty good watch in all of the varied music formats. It was a pretty impressive year for the likes of Charlie Puth, Selena Gomez, One Direction solo artists Harry Styles & Nial Horan and of course Taylor Swift who released a number of singles off her new album one after another. Making bold moves also was Portigal The Man, a band that has been at it a long time finally getting a #1 single for “Feel It Still”. Independent artists and bands also ruled the charts and many still have active records on our current charts from Top40 to AC.

The world of Country music kicked off with our visit to the CRS in the early part of the year. Many artists that we saw, photographed and interviewed turned out to be real winners in a very competitive arena. Some of the leaders and solid winners included Thomas Rhett, Maren Morris & fabulous newcomers Midland who’s “Drinkin’ Problem” hit #1.  Many Country independent artists hit the top of our charts and many can be seen on our Country Top50 right now in this issue. Independent labels provided some rather strong support to New Music Weekly in 2017 and for that we are extremely grateful.

In this issue we are also providing a solid look at artists and bands for our up-coming New Music Award nominations. In the coming weeks we will be polling a good many of our reporting stations and subscribers to have an input in the nomination process. Also in the coming weeks we will make an open ballot available where by the general public, NMW subscribers and music fans will have the opportunity to put their favorites of the year in play. In addition to artists we once again will be honoring radio stations, programmers, record labels and music industry professionals. All will have a hand in the nominations.

For this issue we also put the spotlight on up and coming Christmas and holiday music. Every year at this time we get serviced with some great new releases and ones that have been building in the many Christmas libraries at radio stations all over the country.   Singer/songwriter, author, and speaker Charles Billingsley just released his “It’s Christmas Time Again” CD that is getting raves, praise and some rather impressive national chart activity. Several artists are re-releasing their Christmas favorites from Michael Rapp’s “Christmas Is For Kids” (Stage Too) to the Chris Rudd and Marcus Colbert pairing in “Another Christmas Song” (Christomedia).

Once again New Music Weekly puts the wrap on another banner year. Radio stations continue to join our on-going New Music Revolution by leaps and bounds. Artists from both the major and Independent arena continued to reach out to us for support and we were there for all of them by providing the very best chart and music news information. Through our new and powerful digital delivery system we have been able to add thousands to our distribution outlet and that has helped to build our name even stronger.

This will also be our final issue for 2017. We will continue to deliver to you the very best “tools of the trade” from tracking, advertising and music chart delivery. Once again in our world all stations are created equal regardless of market size and all independent artists are treated just like a major artist. All of us a New Music Weekly wish you the very best , a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and we look forward to an amazing 2018.