Hard 8 // Working Group Celebrates Tate McRae’s Top 40 Chart-Topper

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Nashville-based management firm Hard 8//Working Group is celebrating its 2nd anniversary of signing Tate McRae with a No. 1 single at Top 40 radio.

A year after the rising star released the hit single “You Broke Me First,” the song has reached the No. 1 spot. This breaks the record for the longest climb to No. 1 by a female solo artist at 28 weeks. The track has also surpassed over 1 billion streams worldwide, and has been on the Hot 100 (peaking at No. 17; currently No. 21) longer than any other song released by a female in 2020 with 33 weeks.

Dirk Hemsath, Co-Founder and CEO recalls, “By the middle of April we were on board managing Tate with the team including myself, David Conway (a partner) and Matt Feldman. By that point she had only released one song via RCA called “Kids are Alright” and we laid out a plan for new recordings, videos and photo shoots. We decided to release songs along with videos on a steady schedule, one every 6-8 weeks and debuted with “Tear Myself Apart,” then “All My Friends are Fake” and then “Stupid.” “Stupid” became the first song to go to the next level. This was all in the first six months of us working together and her turning 16.”

When the video shoot for “You Broke Me First” was cancelled, Tate shot the video for the song with a phone taped to a car that drove while she followed it, and the subsequent video has garnered 100 million views. The track has continued to grow, racking up a billion streams, becoming a Top 5 hit in UK, Australia, Germany and many more, and achieving Platinum and multi-Platinum status in over a dozen countries.

Hard 8//Working Group was formed by Hemsath and Rich Egan as a full service music management company based in Nashville, and represent artists, producers, and songwriters including Tate, All Time Low, Daughtry, Hobo Johnson, and Jawbreaker, among others.

Lorie Hollabaugh
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