Country singer-songwriter Drew Baldridge is officially a Billboard Hot 100-charting artist as his breakthrough single, “She’s Somebody’s Daughter (Reimagined),” debuts on the latest chart (dated Aug. 24) at No. 93.
The song enters led by 26.5 million all-format radio audience impressions (up 2%), as well as 565,000 official U.S. streams in the Aug. 9-15 tracking week, according to Luminate.
“She’s Somebody’s Daughter (Reimagined)” has had a long journey leading up to its Hot 100 arrival. Baldridge originally self-released the song in 2019, followed by a second mix in 2021 (the “Wedding Version”) and a third in 2023 (“Reimagined”).
The track recently made history on Country Airplay by becoming the first self-released song in the chart’s 34-year history to reach the top five. The only other such song to reach the top 10 is Aaron Watson’s No. 10-peaking “Outta Style” in 2017. “Daughter” holds at its No. 5 high on the latest list.
The Patoka, Ill., native first appeared on Billboard’s charts in January 2016 with his single “Dance With Ya” (No. 48 peak on Country Airplay). Since then, he’s charted four additional songs at the format: “Rebound” (No. 50, 2017), “Guns & Roses” (No. 51, 2018), “Senior Year” (No. 50, 2020) and “She’s Somebody’s Daughter (Reimagined).” Plus, his debut studio album, Dirt on Us, released on his former label, Cold River, reached No. 11 on Top Country Albums and No. 111 on the Billboard 200 in July 2016.
In a recent interview with Billboard, Baldridge explained that after recording the original “She’s Somebody’s Daughter,” Cold River didn’t release it as a single because fellow country artist Tenille Townes was already working a similarly titled song, “Somebody’s Daughter,” and the label wanted to avoid confusion. Two years later, after Cold River closed, he recorded a new version for his wedding titled “She’s Somebody’s Daughter (Wedding Version)” that quickly went viral on TikTok. That version’s official audio has soundtracked more than 900,000 clips on the platform to date.
Baldridge later recorded a third version, “She’s Somebody’s Daughter (Reimagined),” at the end of 2022 with the intention of garnering radio play, and formed a promo team for his own Lyric Ridge Records to make it happen. He had some insider radio knowledge from his three years as a weekend jock on KKGO, Los Angeles’ country station. Though he doesn’t program his shifts, “I got to intro my own song and intro out my own song, which is the coolest thing on the planet,” he said. “And with these DJs and [programmers], I have a way to connect with them that I didn’t have four years ago.”