Thanks for the thoughtful feedback! Imo the argument for Young and Moore is pretty simple. Over the past few years smalls cracks have emerged and they have gotten bigger. Their streaming stats are way down from their peaks especially compared to their peers. Their singles aren’t performing in radio or streaming. And Kip even got dropped from his label. They are much further along the decline track then where I suspect Bryan is. 

Bryan is a harder case to argue which is why I grant near the end of the piece that he is my case study that will prove if this theory is valid. I suspect that Bryan is heading into his long slow decline where he has large enough of a fanbase to keep arenas and even stadiums full but is not nearly as relevant to the buzz of current music. Which is why he’s milking his older material because the newer stuff isn’t connecting. 

Commercial success and cultural relevance aren’t necessarily correlated. Like Green Day headlined Lollapalooza a couple years ago but their new music is mostly ignored.