May 24, 2024 7:22 am GMT
Link copied
Spotify
Apple Music
Amazon Music
YouTube Music
We’ve got a long weekend ahead, so we’ve added a few extra songs to this week’s Best New Country playlist to keep you going all the way through to Memorial Day on Monday.
This week’s cover star is Zach Bryan, who releases his fittingly poignant new single, the fan-favourite ‘Pink Skies (Eulogy).’ Similarly to fan-favourites ‘Sweet DeAnn’, ‘Dawns’ and ‘November Air’, ‘Pink Skies’ appeared at first to have been written about Zach's late mother, Annette DeAnn, who died in 2016.
He later clarified via X (formerly Twitter) that ‘Pink Skies’ is not about DeAnn.
“Pink Skies wasn’t inspired by my story," he wrote. "Everytime I sing about someone dying people assume it’s about my mom, this definitely was not. I just think all the dynamics in families are beautiful and interesting and generationally it’s a really cool thing”.
Revealing the release during the first of his two homecoming shows in Oklahoma City, Bryan also confirmed his new album, The Great American Bar Scene, will be out later this year.
After popping up on Orville Peck’s Stampede: Vol 1 earlier in the month, Midland are back in Best New Country again this week as they give us their first taste of their collaboration with GRAMMY-winning producer Dave Cobb. ‘Old Fashioned Feeling’ is a melancholic reflection of an intoxicating relationship, steeped in smoke and served with a dash of bitters.
“Sometimes it feels good to go for a swim in the Blues, have a sip of that fiery nostalgia and live in the memory of something that was once so sweet that’s now turned bitter. Lose yourself in this Classic Country cup of 80 proof soul with a back beat,” explains Midland. “It's the sound of every dingy neon hazed bar room where you go to hide in plain sight.”
Watch the official video for ‘Old Fashioned Feeling’ directed by Harper Smith below.
Also produced by Dave Cobb, Red Clay Strays release the first single from their forthcoming album, Made by These Moments, as they look to replicate the success of their breakthrough single ‘Wondering Why’ with their first project since signing to RCA Records earlier this year.
Lauren Watkins teases more of her forthcoming debut full length, The Heartbroken Record, ahead of its June 21st release with ‘Settling Things’ and 49 Winchester drop ‘Fast Asleep’ and give us another sneak peek at their hotly anticipated new album.
“This tune is an emotional sledgehammer,” Isaac Gibson says. “I wrote it when I was 19 years old, as one of the very first 49 Winchester songs. We used to play it live, back in those earliest days, but it somehow worked its way out of the setlist. We knew it was still a great song and wanted to breathe new life into it, and I think we achieved that. It features the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and the sounds they were able to capture really add a lot to this track. The pedal steel on the chorus is some of my favorite work on the record from Noah.”
Ex-marine and outlaw country legend Jamey Johnson releases the poignant ’21 Guns,’ a tribute to those men and women who have lost their lives in military service.
“I wrote it because I have gone to too many funerals of Marines I served with that were just too young,” Johnson wrote in a post on his socials. “When they die young, you always remember them that way, which is unfair. Guys that heroic that die that young deserve the right to grow old and they didn’t get to. But it is also being at those funerals and seeing their parents who seem much too young to have a child die in that way and wondering what must be going through their minds. This song is the answer to that question.”
’21 Guns’ is also included on our Holler playlist of The Best Country Songs for Memorial Day.
Chase Bryant shares the lead single from his upcoming EP, Cayo del Grullo, coming out in August. He taps up his longtime friend and country hitmaker Jake Owen to join him on ‘Where The Good Ones Go’ as they ponder life’s ultimate question.
“Jake Owen has always been one of my best buds in this industry,” says Chase Bryant. “Jake was one of the first people on the planet to reach out to me when I was struggling with my mental health journey and has always been there for me to just listen and be a friend! This song is special to me in so many ways. I couldn’t imagine there being a more perfect person to sing it with than Jake.”
‘Where The Good Ones Go’ is Bryant’s first preview of his upcoming EP named after his favourite place in the world. Cayo del Grullo is a part of Baffin Bay not far from his grandparents’ family farm. Bryant grew up visiting his grandparents in that South Texas house, and had the opportunity to move there during the pandemic where he created his first professional studio in their old pool house. With the help of his fellow Texan and friend Jon Randall and his longtime engineer Casey Wood, the EP was born in that very studio, capturing all the lifelong memories that the home brings.
Sheyna Gee throws back to a time when Patsy Cline ruled the airwaves as she paints a vivid picture of love and loss on her dreamy new single ‘Blue.’
“Hannah Huntley and I actually wrote this song ‘Cowgirl Blues’ and the day we wrote it I woke up in the middle of the night and completely changed the chorus to what you hear on the record,” Sheyna Gee told us. “It’s one of those songs that just comes to you in a dream and the producer and I really tried to capture the dreaminess in the production. Blue is more than just a song - it's an experience.”
Hailing from Kenansville, NC, cowboy troubadour Wesko marks his signing with Warner Records/Underscore Works Recordings with the release of his debut EP. A country maverick with a knack for “real cowboy tunes,” as he calls them, Wesko is inspired by everyone from Neil Young and Eric Church to My Chemical Romance and Green Day, and we’ve got the title track of the Lost Boys EP included in today’s playlist.
Bailey Zimmerman gives us ‘Hell or High Water’ another song from what’s fast looking like being the soundtrack of the summer, TWISTERS: THE ALBUM, which also features contributions from Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, Bailey Zimmerman, Kane Brown, Thomas Rhett, Megan Moroney, Shania Twain, Red Clay Strays Tyler Childers andmany more.
"Whatever is going on in y’all’s life, I just hope this song gives you a sense of peace and hope because it does get better,” says Zimmerman, “God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers. And to those of y'all that are on the greener side of the battle, I hope this song makes you realize it was only high water."
Also set to appear on the TWISTERS soundtrack, breakout Country sensation Tucker Wetmore follows up his back-to-back Billboard Hot 100 charting hits ‘Wine Into Whiskey’ and ‘Wind Up Missin’ You’ with his no doubt soon to be viral new single, ‘What Would You Do?’
Perhaps inspired by the scene in Love Actually when Karen confronts Harry about the necklace at the school play, ‘What Would You Do?’ is a twangy, modern take on a no-good two-timer, blending traditional country elements with a dynamic 808 beat, co-written by Tucker with Jacob Hackworth, Jaxson Free and Gabe Foust, as they delve into themes of suspicion and doubt in a relationship, where the narrator questions the sincerity of their partner's actions.
Eli Winders’ girlfriend has every reason to be worried when it comes to his fidelity it seems. It turns out all those songs she thought he was writing about her were actually love songs about a completely different person altogether. He finally comes clean on his new single ‘Another Love.’
The big question is, “Would you wait around to find out if it's just a necklace, or if it's sex and a necklace, or if, worst of all, it's a necklace and love? Would you stay… knowing life would always be a little bit worse? Or would you cut and run?”
Elsewhere in this week’s Best New Country we've got new ones from Travis Denning, Owen Riegling, Jesse Daniel, Lathan Bryant, Zach John King, Remy Garrison and Bruce Springsteen even pops up on the new Joe Ely single.
Enjoy the long weekend if you get to have one.
Check out this week's new country song releases and listen to the full playlist below:
-
1.
Pink Skies
Zach Bryan
-
2.
Old Fashioned Feeling
Midland
-
3.
Settling Things
Lauren Watkins
-
4.
Fast Asleep
49 Winchester
-
5.
What Would You Do?
Tucker Wetmore
-
6.
Wanna Be Loved
The Red Clay Strays
-
7.
Hell or High Water
Bailey Zimmerman
-
8.
Blue
Sheyna Gee
-
9.
Lost Boys
Wesko
-
10.
21 Guns
Jamey Johnson
-
11.
Southern Rock
Travis Denning and HARDY
-
12.
Let Me Let You
Shaylen
-
13.
Think I'm In Love With You (with Dua Lipa)
Chris Stapleton
-
14.
Moonshines
Owen Riegling
-
15.
Where The Good Ones Go (feat. Jake Owen)
Chase Bryant
-
16.
That's My Kind of Country
Jesse Daniel
-
17.
Another Love
Eli Winders
-
18.
Mountains and Miller
Lanie Gardner
-
19.
Really Don't Love Me
Vincent Mason
-
20.
Getaway
Harper Grace
-
21.
The Winner
Lathan Bryant
-
22.
You Go I Go
Adam Doleac
-
23.
Get It Girl
Remy Garrison
-
24.
Tore Up
Eddie And The Getaway
-
25.
The Way I See You
Zach John King
-
26.
Come Back
Jade Jackson
-
27.
Summer Down South (feat. The Cadillac Three)
Kyle Daniel
-
28.
Beach Chair
Uncle Kracker
-
29.
Odds of the Blues (feat. Bruce Springsteen)
Joe Ely
-
30.
Father's Son
Brent Morgan
-
31.
This Mess
Britnee Kellogg
-
32.
Drunk On You
Marley Hale
-
33.
Rollin'
Cody Hibbard
-
34.
What I Got
Smithfield
-
35.
A Real Man
Dax
-
36.
Cold
GASHI
-
37.
Whiskey For The Wine
Lil Man J
-
38.
You'll Know Where To Find Me
El Ray and Skrizzly Adams
-
39.
Desperado
Louie TheSinger
-
40.
Sober
Colin Stough
-
41.
8th Day
Haley Mae Campbell
-
42.
Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Truck
Tim & The Glory Boys
-
43.
Rebel Runs Deep
Ryan Jesse
-
44.
Leave Your Leaving Behind
Walker Montgomery
-
45.
Band On Her T-Shirt
The Washboard Union
-
46.
i wish u could hate me (feat. Dylan Wheeler)
Holly Beth
-
47.
Belle of the Bar
Brinley Addington
-
48.
Nothin' But Neon
Tayler Holder
-
49.
Live Fast Die Pretty
Kayley Green
-
50.
Rifle Left Behind
The Swon Brothers
-
51.
End of the Road
Taylor Jensen
-
52.
Come Back To Me
Kim Richey
-
53.
Picnic Table
Everette
-
54.
Boat Digger
Taylor Goyette
-
55.
Broke Down
Jayce Turley
-
56.
Never Have I Ever
Kerri Watt
-
57.
Heartbreaking Business
Becca Bowen
-
58.
Wake Up Happy
Amy Jack
-
59.
What's Mine
Stella Prince
-
60.
I'm A Lucky Loser
Jim Lauderdale
Items featured on Holler are first selected by our editorial team and then made available to buy. When you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Be sure to subscribe to Best New Country, listen above and follow Holler on your favourite digital streaming platform.
For more of the finest country playlists from Holler, see below:
Written by Jof Owen
