Zac Brown Band and Kenny Chesney have returned to the Billboard Hot 100 following a July 4th boost. Both have benefited from a social media revival of their country classics.

Zac Brown Band's ‘Chicken Fried’ re-enters the all-genre chart at No. 32, marking its first appearance since 2009, while Chesney’s ‘American Kids’ soars to No. 46 for the first time since its original run in 2014. Both are due to Independence Day celebrations, but their return feels particularly satisfying in a year where country is booming.

Zac Brown Band and Chesney were both hugely influential during an era when country music was not considered “cool” outside of its own world. They made songs that were widely known in the US, even while plenty of people insisted they did not listen to country. In some ways, ‘Chicken Fried’ and ‘American Kids’ feel like lost relics from that period. Popular enough to cement themselves in the country music canon, but too country to be fully embraced by pop at the time.

‘Chicken Fried’ is probably the clearest example. Put it on in a room full of people who claim they do not like country and somehow half of them will still know every word. The numbers support that crossover appeal too, with the track approaching one billion Spotify streams and remaining comfortably the band’s biggest song on the platform.

Earlier this year, Chesney enjoyed another unexpected boost when his 2009 hit ‘Out Last Night’ became the soundtrack to a viral TikTok series viewed around 25 million times this year, after a woman attempted to track down a man she had met dancing in Alabama, only for someone claiming to be his wife to appear in the comments.

Neither song needed rescuing or propelling into the mainstream - they were always loved by the OGs. But wider audiences may finally have caught up with just how brilliant they always were.