Kane Brown Drums Up New Country Airplay No. 1 With Phil Collins-Inspired ‘I Can Feel It’
Kane Brown earns his 11th No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart as “I Can Feel It” rises from No. 4 on the list dated March 16. During the March 1-7 tracking week, the song increased by 23% to TK million impressions, according to Luminate.
Brown co-authored “Feel” with Gabe Foust and Jaxson Free, and Dann Huff produced it.
The track interpolates Phil Collins’ 1981 classic “In the Air Tonight,” via its trademark drum solo and Brown’s reprisal of its chorus. Collins, who solely penned “Air,” is credited as a writer on “Feel.”
“I just got the news here in London after playing C2C that ‘I Can Feel It’ went No. 1 – this means so much to me,” Brown tells Billboard. “And it’s amazing to have a No. 1 with a huge legend like Phil Collins.”
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Notably, Collins logs his first No. 1 on a Billboard chart as a songwriter since “Air” topped Rock Digital Song Sales for a week in August 2020. (It hit No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1981.) Prior to “Feel,” he last led any chart as a writer of a new song when he ruled Adult Contemporary for a frame in November 2002 with his own single “Can’t Stop Loving You” (which Keith Urban covered on his 2006 album Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing, as did Taylor Swift for a BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge performance in 2019).
With the first single from Brown’s upcoming LP, he earns his sixth consecutive Country Airplay No. 1, the longest active run among all artists. (The overall record streak belongs to Luke Combs, who rattled off a record 14 successive career-opening No. 1s in 2017-22.)
Prior to “Feel,” Brown topped Country Airplay, for one week each, with “Bury Me in Georgia” (September 2023); “Thank God,” with his wife, Katelyn Brown (February 2023); “Like I Love Country Music” (August 2022); “One Mississippi” (March 2022); and “Famous Friends,” with Chris Young (July 2021). Brown first led with “What Ifs,” featuring Lauren Alaina, for a week in October 2017.
Brown kicks off his In the Air Tonight Tour March 28 at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Va., with featured acts Tyler Hubbard and Parmalee.
Additional reporting by Gary Trust.
