Things like this happen, but like a superstar pitcher in baseball or a superstar quarterback, they're extremely rare. New artists that are able to connect with country music fans the way Florida Georgia Line has connected with fans (inside and outside of Country Music) is just rare. And while sales have often been a metric for such success, it's a little different time now than that vaunted era of the early 1990s. Then it was all about the album sale and now charts are all about singles (though album sales are still a barometer for success, just less so).
Florida Georgia Line has sold over 5,000,000 copies of debut single "Cruise" and it was just last July when they signed their record deal with Republic Nashville after selling over 100k of the singles through their Management/Publishing company Big Loud Mountain's label. Working with Joey Moi, the duo took a song they thought would be a hit and make it THE song of the summer 2012 and it's still a popular hit in 2013's summer thanks to a smart remix with Country music fan and rapper Nelly. When asked how the collaboration with Nelly came about, FGL's Tyler Hubbard said "he's a fan of what we're doing and we've been fans of his for so long so when he reached out to us about doing the remix, we were all about it."
From unknown to a record-breaking 22 weeks at #1 With "Cruise," the success hasn't been limited to just that one massive single. Florida Georgia Line followed up the single with "Get Your Shine On" and proceeded to sell well over one million copies of that single in addition to scoring a second Country radio #1 hit on both of the charts -- Billboard/BDS and Mediabase/Country Aircheck -- that monitor radio airplay. The success has continued with third single "Round Here," which is fast approaching Gold while the album which houses all three hits and many more potential hits, Here's To The Good Times, was officially certified Platinum in late July/early August.
While some artists may be nonchalant about all of this success, it's not something Brian Kelley or Tyler Hubbard take for granted with Tyler saying, "It's something that doesn't happen -- if ever -- so we're motivated to work even harder.
"Our fans inspire us," Hubbard continues. "Their support and spreading the word means everything to us and we'll never take that for granted."
The success has been so quick that the duo has jumped multiple steps and recently announced their first headlining tour -- The "Here's To The Good Times Tour" -- that will start this fall after they're off of Luke Bryan's "Dirt Road Diaries Tour." In addition to Luke's tour, Florida Georgia Line has been on the road with Jake Owen, Taylor Swift and Colt Ford, the latter of which will now be opening the upcoming tour with Tyler Farr joining in on the fun.
While nobody can truly know what the future holds and whether all of the success can continue, Florida Georgia Line seems like a band poised to continue to have quite a bit of success. They may never get another hit quite like "Cruise" -- that's tough to do for even the biggest of stars -- but with the once in a generation instant superstar success with records breaking all over the place, the duo knows who has given them their success, thanking radio and fans alike for "Spreading the word like wildfire" and "changing our lives."
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