"Coal" is a song by American
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...
artist
Dylan Gossett
Dylan Gossett (born March 11, 1999) is an American country singer-songwriter from Austin, Texas. He has released two studio EPs and one album. He is signed to Big Loud Texas/Mercury Records and has a global publishing deal with Universal Music ...
. It was released on July 27, 2023, as the second single from his debut
extended play
An extended play (EP) is a Sound recording and reproduction, musical recording that contains more tracks than a Single (music), single but fewer than an album. Contemporary EPs generally contain up to eight tracks and have a playing time of 1 ...
''
No Better Time''. The song was written and produced by Gossett and became his commercial breakthrough after it went viral on
TikTok
TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
, reaching the top twenty on the
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States.
This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data along with digital sales and streaming. ...
chart, placing on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100, and charting in several international markets.
Background
Gossett had not recorded the full version of "Coal" when he first teased it on social media, so after its success on TikTok, he recorded it on a small microphone and a laptop in his bedroom. It was
released independently on July 27, 2023, and later reissued when Gossett signed to
Big Loud Texas and
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. Mercury Records released ...
.
In an interview with ''Holler'', Gossett explained that he wrote the song in 2021 to help him overcome personal struggles, stating "Coal's a very personal song. It's funny because sometimes I'll see comments saying I look like a happy guy - and I am, I'm a goofy, happy dude. But at that point in my life, about two and a half years ago, I just felt like I was stuck in a rut, where nothing was really working. I was just throwing stuff at the wall, and nothing would stick. I started it with the main line, 'If pressure makes diamonds / How the hell am I still coal?' And then the rest of the song came in 20-25 minutes." During the interview, Gossett also declared the song one of his favorites to perform live because of the audience reaction.
Content
"Coal" is an acoustic guitar-driven
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...
about a narrator lamenting a failed relationship brought to a end as a result of his alcoholism. In the chorus, he likens himself to coal, and questions how, despite all of the pressure he's been under in his life, he has yet to turn into a diamond.
Critical reception
In an end-of-the-year article covering
2023 in country music, Jon Caramanica of the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' dubbed the single "one of the year’s best country songs," while praising Gossett's "ruggedly plaintive voice" and "emotionally detailed" writing.
Charts
Certifications
References
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2023 songs
2023 singles
Big Loud singles
Mercury Records singles