Nashville exec John Ozier on the increased commercial power of pop crossover hits

Nashville's space at the forefront of a singles-driven music industry is growing exponentially.

Of the Top 25 songs on Billboard's all-genre, end-of-year Hot 100 for 2023, 40% had Nashville-based roots. This is a jump from 2020 through 2022, when 33% of spaces between Nos. 26-50, 51-75 and 76-100, respectively, were Music City-related.

Compare this to the list of the greatest-selling singles of all time, when 13% had Nashville origins.

Country music's increasingly strong grip on music's future highlights that the next 100 years of greatest-selling music of all time will reflect the influence of "three chords and the truth."

There are few better people in Nashville's music industry with whom to speak about the power of the moment overall than John Ozier, Reservoir Media's executive vice president.

Reservoir's two decades of growing influence

Ozier appears relaxed and focused while talking with The Tennessean in early May. He's sitting in the West Nashville offices of the Music City outpost of Reservoir, a full-service song rights management company. They do it all, whether it's publishing rights, label catalogs, or assisting in managing songwriters.

Since 2007, the global powerhouse company has included Nashville in its roots, having worked with artists such as Big & Rich, plus working with the rights to modern-era country singles, including Carrie Underwood's "Jesus, Take the Wheel" and Lonestar's "Amazed."

Ozier says that roughly 75% of the now almost two-decade-old, female-founded company's business is in catalog acquisition work.

That catalog includes historic pieces written and performed by a diverse cross-section of legends, including Hoagy Carmichael, Sheryl Crow, John Denver and Joni Mitchell, plus rights to film scores created by composer-producer Hans Zimmer, as heard in the motion pictures "The Lion King," the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, "Gladiator," "The Dark Knight" trilogy and more.

As well, there's work from the likes of classic rappers De La Soul and alt-pop darlings like Sinead O'Connor (via Chrysalis Records), 1990s rap favorites Coolio and Queen Latifah (via Tommy Boy Records), and '60s- and '70s-era favorites Solomon Burke, the Delfonics and Jackie DeShannon (via Philly Groove Records).

Modern-era work is a very vibrant 25% of Reservoir's catalog.

For instance, no fewer than 16 times since 2020 have Reservoir-signed writers (including even K-Pop favorite BTS's "Butter") had songs placed in Broadcast Music's list of the Most Performed Songs of the Year. They also have had 2 Chainz, Migos and Young Thug, plus Ali Tamposi signed as songwriters during this era.

In 2023, that list finally skewed country, including Jelly Roll's "Need a Favor," co-written by Reservoir-signed Rob Ragosta. Notably, songs sung by pop stars such as Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa and Demi Lovato are also included in that number.

Ozier's unique preparation for Nashville's pop moment

Ozier, a lifelong Nashvillian, is uniquely prepared to ensure that Music City's growing pop profile continues to expand.

For a decade, he was employed by Mike Curb at Curb Records. He also worked for Canadian-based Anthem Entertainment's Nashville office for a half-decade more.

Consider that in acquisition or talent management, he has had a hand in nearly 200 No. 1 singles, including Lee Brice's 2013 hit "How To Love" (as a co-writer himself), Miranda Lambert's "Mama's Broken Heart" (as a songwriter manager) and as a vice president of A&R at Curb, working with artists like Rodney Atkins, Brice, Wynonna Judd, Tim McGraw and LeAnn Rimes.

"The space between hits in country music that you'll forget in three weeks and songs that it'll take three lifetimes to forget is small," says Ozier.

His background in catalog rights acquisition and studying how songs remain trendy for decades benefits him. For generations, because of how country's fanbase and marketing have siloed themselves, a vast preponderance of its hits have spiked and plummeted in popularity, never to truly achieve a broad-appealing baseline of popularity.

That's changing.

"Because Nashville's a town that will forever be built on the songwriting community, we'd started, but now are attracting in greater number, the songs and songwriters who are building music's future," says Ozier, name-dropping singular countrified eras for artists like Nelly and Ed Sheeran who had Nashville-based success in previous years, but also highlighting performers like Jelly Roll and Post Malone who are in a larger group of country-to-pop crossover success stories he feels are likely to continue.

Ozier on the root causes of Nashville's pop-crossover acclaim

Nashville's songwriting-driven country tradition meets the world's pop-production standards and influences radio and streaming portals simultaneously.

What started a half-decade ago as streamers feeling comfortable with the sonic similarities of artists like Dan + Shay and Maren Morris to work by Adele and Sam Smith bled into rap fans loving as many beat and tempo-driven songs by Drake as they do those by Morgan Wallen.

Look at Billboard's Hot 100 for 2023 and the success that Kane Brown, Zach Bryan, Luke Combs, Wallen and Bailey Zimmerman are having in radio and streaming highlights that a new era for how Nashville is reshaping pop tastes is emerging. In 2024, one in three artists that have topped Billboard's Hot 100 is making a country song or is a Nashville-related artist.

"People are discovering that country's (strongest suit) is that it can adapt to rap-song phrasing for modern hits, has a fanbase that's attracted to its timeless hits — and the genre's culture is appealing enough to (lure in) new fans with the timeless music, too," says Ozier.

He's also quick to mention that the company's collection of existing songs can allow things to happen, like K-pop bands flipping Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do" or rappers taking a chance on Starship's "We Built This City" (Reservoir works with its co-writer Dennis Lambert).

When asked about singer-songwriters of the moment with whom Reservoir is affiliated, Ozier mentions BRELAND as key to a group of songwriters whose "curious, yet intentional" nature in how they create the pathways for songs that play well in country's format but also cross over, setting a template for the future.

He cites BRELAND having a half-dozen top-selling solo cuts, a No. 1 with Dierks Bentley and HARDY for "Beers on Me," plus songwriting work with Sam Hunt, Gary LeVox and Keith Urban as key in his rapid development in Nashville's songwriting community.

'Nothing else matters'

"Evoking passionate emotions that grab you in three minutes — the hit song can't bore you," says Ozier about what remains timeless about songs, be they written by a Country Music Hall of Famer like Dean Dillon or a rising creator like BRELAND.

He then lists a quartet of Reservoir's No. 1 country hits from 2023: Parmalee's "Take My Name," Kane and Katelyn Brown's duet "Thank God," Megan Moroney's "Tennessee Orange" and Jelly Roll's "Need a Favor."

It's a diverse group of songs that sets an incredible precedent moving forward, given how Nashville's best are becoming world-beloved hits.

"Music remaining excitingly cool requires a miraculous series of occurrences, including songwriting, recording, label and management approval, radio and streaming success," says Ozier.

In that series of miracles blending with the phenomenal increase in the potential of Nashville's best material, Ozier's thoughts about how Music City impacts the music industry's future become incredibly profound.

"Without hit songs, nothing else matters."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Reservoir Media's John Ozier talks power of Nashville's hitmakers