Rolling Stone's 30 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2024

“Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?” Linda Martell cackles at the beginning of “SPAGHETTII.” Perhaps the name Linda Martell isn’t a household one, which only proves her point. She was the first Black woman to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, but her attempt to move from soul and R&B into the realm of country in the 1960s was met with racist resistance—everything from heckling to outright blackballing. Beyoncé knows the feeling, as she explained in an uncharacteristically vulnerable Instagram post revealing that her eighth studio album was inspired by a deep dive into the history of Black country music following an experience where she felt similarly unwelcome. *COWBOY CARTER* is a sprawling 80-minute tribute not only to those pioneering artists and their outlaw spirit, but to the very futility of reducing music to a single identifying word. Another key quote from that post: “This ain’t a country album. This is a Beyoncé album.” It’s more than a catchy slogan; anyone looking for mere honky-tonk cosplay is missing a much richer and more complex point. Listening in full to Act II of the presumed trilogy Bey began with 2022’s *RENAISSANCE*, it’s clear that the perennial overachiever hasn’t merely “gone country,” she’s interrogating what the word even means—and who merits the designation. On “AMERIICAN REQUIEM,” in a voice deep and earthy as Texas red dirt, the Houston native sings, “Used to say I spoke too country/And then the rejection came, said I wasn’t country enough.” She nods again, as she’s done before on songs like “Formation,” to her family ties to Alabama moonshiners and Louisiana Creoles. “If that ain’t country,” she wonders, “tell me what is.” With subtlety and swagger, she contextualizes country as an offshoot of the Black American musical canon, a storytelling mode springing from and evolving alongside gospel and blues. Over the wistful pedal steel and gospel organ of “16 CARRIAGES,” she tells you what it’s like to be a teenage workhorse who grows into an adult perfectionist obsessed with ideas of legacy, with a bit of family trauma buried among the riffs. On “YA YA,” Beyoncé expands the scope to rock ’n’ roll at its most red-blooded and fundamental, playing the parts of both Ike and Tina as she interpolates The Beach Boys and slips in a slick Playboi Carti reference, yowling: “My family lived and died in America/Good ol’ USA/Whole lotta red in that white and blue/History can’t be erased.” A Patsy Cline standard goes Jersey club mode on “SWEET ★ HONEY ★ BUCKIIN’,” with a verse from the similarly genre-flouting Shaboozey and a quick note regarding *RENAISSANCE*‘s Grammy fortunes: “AOTY I ain’t win/I ain’t stuntin’ ’bout them/Take that shit on the chin/Come back and fuck up the pen.” Who but Beyoncé could make a crash course in American music history feel like the party of the year? There’s the one-two punch of sorely needed summer slow-dance numbers: the Miley Cyrus duet “II MOST WANTED,” with its whispers of Fleetwood Mac, followed by “LEVII’S JEANS” with Post Malone, the “in those jeans” anthem filling the radio’s Ginuwine-shaped hole. *RENAISSANCE*’s euphorically nasty house bounce returns, albeit with more banjo, on “RIIVERDANCE,” where “II HANDS II HEAVEN” floats on clouds of ’90s electronica for an ode to alternately riding wild horses and 24-inch spinners on candy paint. (Houston, Texas, baby!) There are do-si-do ditties, murder ballads, daddy issues, whiskey kisses, hungover happy hours, cornbread and grits, Beatles covers, smoke breaks, and, on “DAUGHTER,” what may or may not be a wink in the direction of the artist who won AOTY instead. There’s also a Dolly-approved Beyoncification of “Jolene,” to whom the protagonist is neither saying please nor begging on the matter of taking her man. (“Your peace depends on how you move, Jolene,” Bey purrs, ice in her veins.) Is this a genre-bucking hoedown? A chess move? A reckoning? A requiem? If anyone can pull it off, it’s *COWBOY CARTER*, as country as it gets.

An “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality works well for some artists, but Koe Wetzel likes to take things apart. On his follow-up to 2022’s *Hell Paso*, the cult-favorite singer-songwriter finds fresh sounds with a new collaborator, tapping Gabe Simon (Noah Kahan, Zach Bryan) to produce a genre-bending album that’s also his most fun and freewheeling. “There’s different layers to who I am as a musician, as an artist, and I wanted people to see that from this record,” Wetzel says. “So, if they can come away from listening to the entire record, not just picking a couple songs apart and having their idea of it, \[but\] listening to the whole record and be like, ‘OK, now we get it a little bit more. Maybe he is a decent artist, a decent musician.’” “Decent” is an understatement, as Wetzel’s deep, rich voice and refreshingly cliché-averse songwriting make for some of the more interesting tunes coming out of the country genre. Highlights on *9 Lives* include the title track, with its stomping beat and an irresistible chorus hook, as well as “Leigh,” a clever, humorous tip of the hat to a popular variation on women’s names. Up-and-comer Jessie Murph lends her swagger to “High Road.” Wetzel includes two covers on the album, both from late artists: the hip-hop wunderkind XXXTENTACION’s “Depression & Obsession,” and beloved country singer-songwriter Keith Gattis’ “Reconsider.” Below, Wetzel breaks down several key tracks. **“Leigh”** “We had a list of names, probably 30 names, and it was like, ‘This would be really cool to write this song.’ And I think we started off as a joke, and then, once we got kind of into it, we were like, ‘This kind of slaps.’ I was like, ‘People are going to take this the wrong way. These girls are going to take all this stuff the wrong way.’ It was a fun song for us to make. And yeah, it’s kind of a diverse song. It kind of has its ups and downs, but it’s a fun song.” **“High Road” (feat. Jessie Murph)** “We went back on a past relationship that I had had a while back. And we just deep-dove into every detail of what would happen whenever we’d fight. And I would go back on past experiences of a certain fight or how I would react to it. Sometimes, I would be there. I’d be like, ‘Hey, if we’re going to do it, we’re going to lay it out there. Let’s do it.’ And then other times, I’d be like, ‘You know what? I’m going to let you chill out, and then I’m out of here.’ So, I don’t know. We just went around and around and nailed out all the details. And then this was another song that pretty much wrote itself pretty quick.” **“Reconsider”** I hope that I did the song justice, but rest in peace to Keith \[Gattis\] and to Charlie \[Robison\]. I’m a little upset that I never got to see \[Gattis\] while he was around. The influence that he had on so many artists in Texas and in Nashville and just country music in general, it’s crazy and it’s beautiful. I sent the song to Wade Bowen, and \[Gattis\] and Wade were really good friends. He left me a voicemail, and he was like, ‘Dude, I’m happy and I’m sad and I’m crying.’ He was like, ‘Dude, the song, it’s phenomenal. You killed it.’ Hopefully I did the song justice, but I just wanted to throw a little ode to Keith Gattis and Charlie for the record.” **“Last Outlaw Alive”** “\[An\] outlaw, for me, is people who blaze their own trail and \[are\] not going by the norm, not confined into what people think they should be or what music thinks artists should be, just doing your own thing and not giving a shit what anybody thinks about it. So, if we’re going to use it like that, then there’s a shit ton of outlaws in this genre, and just music in general. But yeah, there’s a lot of them around. I think it’s only, with the way social media and everything’s going right now, I think we’re in for a lot more of them to pop up.”

Woodland Studios is the cultural anchor of East Nashville’s Five Points, a bustling district of restaurants, bars, and vintage shops that some consider the heart of the greater artistic enclave found east of downtown Music City. Woodland is the home studio of musical and life partners David Rawlings and Gillian Welch, as well as the headquarters for the duo’s Acony Records. Nearly destroyed by the deadly March 2020 tornadoes that devastated much of Nashville (the pair actually rushed out mid-storm to rescue master recordings), Woodland is still standing, though only after substantial repairs. That close call inspired Welch and Rawlings to celebrate their musical home with this album, which also notably bears both artists’ names. (The pair has a tendency to alternate album billing for their always-collaborative projects, like Rawlings’ credit for 2017’s *Poor David’s Almanack* and Welch’s for 2011’s celebrated *The Harrow & The Harvest*.) Accordingly, *Woodland* is as crackling and alive an album as the pair has made, leaning into the warmth of its homey origins and the ease of the duo’s fruitful and supportive creative partnership. Production is lusher and more complex, though never distractingly so—as always, the pair’s ultimate reverence is for songcraft, as heard on the evocatively titled opening track “Empty Trainload of Sky,” which could hint at the awestruck horror wrought by a tornado, or “The Day the Mississippi Died,” a clever bit of social commentary that also breaks the fourth wall (“I’m thinking that this melody has lasted long enough/The subject’s entertaining but the rhymes are pretty rough”). Other highlights include “Hashtag,” which avoids hollow social media commentary in favor of acknowledging the plight of artists whose names only become media fodder in death, and closer “Howdy Howdy,” a sweet encapsulation of the pair’s unbreakable connection.

Lainey Wilson couldn’t have chosen a more fitting title for her fifth studio album. The wildly beloved country singer-songwriter’s rise to fame has surely been a whirlwind, catapulting the small-town Louisiana native from relative obscurity to stardom in just a few short years. That success was not earned overnight, though, as Wilson had put in nearly a decade of work before breaking out with *Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’* in 2021. “I felt like my life was changing at 190 miles an hour and I was just trying to keep one foot on the ground,” Wilson tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “But I think those 10 years of nothing happening for me prepared me for my life changing super fast.” *Whirlwind* is Wilson at the height of her powers, mixing pop, rock, and soul into her already inimitable brand of traditionally informed country. Highlights include the title track, a light and groovy celebration of reckless love, and “Devil Don’t Go There,” a heartbreak ballad that lets Wilson lean into the emotive side of her versatile voice. The Miranda Lambert duet “Good Horses” connects two generations of country spitfires, with dusky production to emphasize the singers’ undeniable vocal chemistry. Wilson’s band sounds better than ever, too, which she attributes to years spent touring relentlessly and working toward a shared dream. “They are ride or die,” she says. “I mean, these guys are the ones that ate dirt with me. And I think it’s really important to keep the people close that you ate dirt with. They know you, they know how bad you want it. They want it just as bad. They love you for you. They sacrifice so much to be out there on the road with you.” Below, Wilson gives insight into a few key tracks. **“Whirlwind”** “I finally found a guy that gives me a run for my money. And he’s my biggest cheerleader. He’s just a good person. And he knows how important chasing down a dream is, because even when he was a little boy, football was his life. He did it and he tried out for the Steelers and made the team. And so he achieved what he set out to do. And so he knows. We met at a time where he was still playing with them, but then it all changed. So it was weird. It was like his life was changing as my life was changing and we were going different directions. So, yeah, life for us is a whirlwind.” **“Middle of It”** “We had actually just got nominated for Entertainer of the Year for the CMAs. And I had not been at my house in Nashville, and I didn’t have furniture in my house for months. We don’t need a couch, we’re not here. So my friends The Heart Wranglers came over and they just said, ‘Let’s do a heart check.’ And they’re like, ‘What’s going on? Where are you at? How you feel? Where’s your head?’ I sat on the floor and I just said, ‘I feel like I’m just smack-dab in the middle of it. It’s a blur to me where it started, where it’s going to end up. I just can’t hardly tell.’ And then we just started talking about how that’s really what all this is about anyway. That’s the beauty of it.” **“Whiskey Colored Crayon”** “That song actually came from a word exercise that my co-writer \[Josh Kear\] did. I’ll probably get this wrong, but every morning before he writes songs, he writes a list of things. And say the first list that he wrote was ‘things that I hate’ and maybe it’s lettuce or greens or whiskey or whatever. And then he writes a list of random things, things that you can use to create. He mix-mashed these words and he was like, ‘Well, I’ve got this whiskey-colored crayon,’ and we got to thinking about the storyline of this. And we came up with, ‘Okay, let’s think about a young student, the colored crayon part. Okay, and how could we tell a story about a little boy who goes through some things at home that most people don’t know about?’ We created the story. And for me, again, putting myself into the shoes of somebody else takes me out of my mess for a minute and gives me a fresh and new perspective. And I left that songwriting session, after we told this story, just feeling grateful.”

Adeem the Artist digs deeper into their roots on *Anniversary*, the follow-up to the singer-songwriter’s critically acclaimed 2022 record *White Trash Revelry*. A native of the lower Piedmont region in the American southeast, Adeem builds upon the country-inflected folk of past releases to include the blues music that makes up their heritage, finding musical and thematic connections along the way. “Socialite Blues” pairs the Piedmont blues sound with a modern narrative, with an especially charismatic vocal from Adeem. “Rotations” is a clever and heartfelt spin on parenthood, with a gentle arrangement that suits the song’s tender message. And “One Night Stand” makes the case that Adeem could just as easily be a pop country hitmaker, using a big, hooky chorus to center a queer narrative. Adeem recorded the LP with producer Butch Walker in Nashville, setting up for a few days at renowned local studio The Butcher Shoppe. Players on *Anniversary* include Ellen Angelico, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Megan Coleman, and the record boasts Adeem’s most expansive sound yet, complete with a horn section.

Megan Moroney chose the songs for her second full-length album because they resonated with her deeply, not because of outside opinions or perceived hit potential. “This is my life, and no one wants me to make a better second album than me, and I’m going to put out whatever songs I like,” she tells Apple Music. “I’m the one that has to perform these songs. I’m proud of them. And if it’s not your cup of tea, then good thing there’s a million artists out there.” That said, *Am I Okay?* shows no signs of a sophomore slump. Like its predecessor, the 2023 breakout *Lucky*, the collection pulls together feisty kiss-offs and aching ballads—the latter a product of Moroney’s winking, self-professed “emo cowgirl” persona. Highlights on the album include the sweet and optimistic title track, on which Moroney falls for “a 6\'2\" dream,” and the swaggering rock anthem “Indifferent.” More serious moments show a weightier side to Moroney’s songwriting, like the heartbreaking, grief-stricken “Heaven by Noon” and the vulnerable closer “Hell of a Show.” Below, Moroney shares insight into several key tracks. **“Am I Okay?”** “People are probably going to think it’s going to be a heart-wrenching song, but it’s just not. It’s like you’re actually happy for once and you’re asking yourself, ‘Oh my God. Am I OK?’ That’s how I felt at one time. I think that when I had hope in a relationship with this guy, it lasted for a month or two until he showed his true colors. But we live and we learn. We got a good song out of it, and then we moved on.” **“No Caller ID”** “I was playing it at the *Lucky* shows. I was kind of giving them that treat, like an unreleased song \[where\] the only place you could hear it was at the live shows. But then, of course, it got posted on TikTok, and several TikToks of that song blew up. So, I thought that people cared about the song, but I didn’t know it was going to take off the way it did, obviously.” **“Indifferent”** “A song like ‘Indifferent,’ it was just kind of what I was going through at the time. But I think in the studio…I’m like, ‘OK, because this song turned into what it is, we need to make this rock. We need to make it punch really hard, because this is going to be crazy at live shows.’ So, it’s kind of like after the song was written, just making sure in the studio it was executed the way that we wanted it to be.” **“Miss Universe”** “‘Miss Universe’ is basically just a story about when you want your ex to downgrade and then they don’t, and you’re like, ‘Oh.’ So, that’s kind of just that feeling. I’m like, ‘How did you pull her?’ So, yeah, that is just kind of a story about how you want them to downgrade and then they don’t. They very much upgrade.” **“Heaven by Noon”** I had a title, ‘Heaven by Noon,’ and I brought it to Jessie Jo Dillon and Matt Jenkins. We wrote ‘Girl in the Mirror’ together, which is also a heart-wrenching song. So, I knew if we were going to write a heart-wrencher that I needed to have those two help me out with it. And we kind of used our own experiences in our own lives to write this song, but it was just the idea of when you lose someone, you don’t know it’s going to be the last time. A lot of people don’t know this, but my uncle died on 9/11, so I thought about my aunt when I was writing that song because the last thing they talked about was an oil change. And that’s probably not what she would’ve wanted to say to him if she knew it was going to be the last time.” **“Hell of a Show”** “It was a situation that I was in for a while, and it was—I knew it was toxic. I kept hoping that it would get better, but it got to a point where I wrote it as a poem in the back of my bus right after a show, and then I picked up my guitar because my guitar was still onstage or whatever, so I didn’t have it. But then I picked up a guitar and put a melody to it after. It was just one of those situations where I’m like, ‘I have a sold-out tour. It’s my debut album, sold out. People are showing up at 10 am. They’ve got shirts on. It’s like everything I’ve ever wanted, and I am crying before I go onstage because of an asshole.’ And it’s like, ‘You are ruining good moments for me.’”

Brittney Spencer first came to prominence in 2020, releasing an EP, *Compassion*, that caught the ears and hearts of country fans and fellow artists, supergroup The Highwomen among them. It was both her powerful and versatile voice and nuanced, warmhearted songwriting that drew listeners to Spencer, who grew up performing and honing her craft in Baltimore before moving to Nashville in 2013. Given the acclaim she’s netted since releasing *Compassion*, Spencer could have rattled off a debut album in short order. Instead, she took her time crafting her first full-length project, an endeavor that clearly pays off on first listen. Opening track “New to This Town” is gentle and melodic, with fingerpicked acoustic guitar and understated but emotive vocals from Spencer. “I Got Time” gets feisty and playful, recalling the sass and swagger of early Miranda Lambert. Other highlights include “Bigger Than the Song,” a soulful tribute to the country genre, and the LP’s title track, a vulnerable account of Spencer’s commitment to her dreams. Guests on the album, produced by Grammy winner Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves, Tenille Townes), include Maren Morris, Grace Potter, Abbey Cone, and Sarah Buxton on backing vocals, as well as Jason Isbell on guitar.

With 2023’s *Rolling Up the Welcome Mat*, Kelsea Ballerini signaled the start of a new era. Then four studio albums into her career, the country singer-songwriter had long since proven herself, and took a chance on rawer, more personal material in the wake of her 2022 divorce. As this follow-up attests, that heightened vulnerability unlocked new creative depths for Ballerini. Her most sonically diverse release yet, *PATTERNS* is also the fullest embodiment of Ballerini’s capabilities. Ballerini co-produced the album alongside previous collaborator Alysa Vanderheym, a songwriter and producer who has worked with a bevy of Nashville artists, including Jelly Roll, Little Big Town, and The Cadillac Three. The record opens with its title track, a gauzy, pleading midtempo ballad that makes use of more traditional country instruments like mandolin and dobro alongside prominent synthesizers, for production that’s reminiscent of Kacey Musgraves’ *Golden Hour*. “Sorry Mom” is especially potent, with Ballerini confronting a laundry list of filial indiscretions—a “lack of stickin’ to the Bible,” an abandoned college degree—before acknowledging, “I turned out all right.” “Beg for Your Love” is gentle but confident, as Ballerini takes stock of what she deserves in a relationship, like “a kiss” or “a morning call.” Other highlights include the Noah Kahan collaboration “Cowboys Cry Too” and the moody and melodic “Deep.”

In the 313 days after Zach Bryan released his self-titled fourth album, he scored his first No. 1 single alongside Kacey Musgraves and headlined no fewer than 58 arenas, stadiums, and festivals, further cementing his legend as a self-made megastar whose ascendance looks, at least from the outside, like it’s skipped all the hard parts. And then, on the 314th day, he released *The Great American Bar Scene*, a 19-track follow-up that dispenses with any questions about his ability to remain almost laughably prolific as he’s learning how to adjust to it all in real time. Like its immediate predecessor, *The Great American Bar Scene* opens with a spoken-word soliloquy about good fortune and good morals that burnishes the Oklahoman’s earnest, everybro cred, serving as a mission statement of sorts for the 18 songs that follow—and, really, for Bryan’s whole deal. At only 28, he is a master of nostalgia, bathing the libertine spirit of past generations and 2021 in the same sepia light. Bryan’s grappling with his recent past isn’t just subtext; it’s in the songs. In “Northern Thunder,” a wistful slow-burn ballad characteristic of the album’s overall vibe, he’s still processing a mix of homesickness and shock: “And please don’t ask me how these last years went/Mama, I made a million dollars on accident/I was supposed to die a military man/Chest out too far with a drink in my hand/But I’ve got folks who like hearing me rhyme/I think of thunder under metal roofs all the time.” “Like Ida” reaffirms his aversion to the Music City machine, even if the feeling isn’t mutual: “When you make it to Nashville you can tell from one hat tilt/That shit just ain’t my scene/I like out-of-tune guitars and taking jokes too far/And my bartenders extra damn mean.” *This* is Bryan’s great American bar scene: less shout-along rave-ups exhorting you to go out and get drunk than evocative meditations on your inalienable right, and frequent need, to go out and get drunk. The title track is a barroom serenade that name-checks Springsteen’s spare, pitch-black *Nebraska* track “State Trooper”; “Sandpaper” pays off the reference with an appearance by Springsteen himself that plays like a heartland-rock *Looper*—a weathered elder meeting a younger version of himself who already has seen so much. (It also sounds more than a little like “I’m On Fire.”) And for all of Bryan’s humility, he’s self-aware enough to lean into the romance of his origin story and underdog status, numbers be damned—he is nothing if not an elite storyteller.

The Red Clay Strays are carrying the torch for Southern rock. The Mobile, Alabama, band find the sweet spot between swampy throwback rock and of-the-moment Americana with *Made by These Moments*, produced by the beloved Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson). Buoyed by the viral hit “Wondering Why” from the band’s 2022 release *Moment of Truth*, this follow-up comes as The Red Clay Strays find wider prominence, including an Emerging Artist of the Year nomination at the 2024 Americana Music Honors & Awards. *Made by These Moments* opens with “Disaster,” a slow-building apocalypse anthem with echoes of Nathaniel Rateliff and early Kings of Leon. “No One Else Like Me” is a melodic showcase for vocalist Brandon Coleman, who knows when to wail and when to hold back and can wring emotion out of even the quietest note. Other highlights include the crackling, downtrodden “Drowning,” which guitarist Drew Nix wrote while struggling to make ends meet earlier in the band’s career, and “On My Knees,” a bona fide foot-stomper with major Allman Brothers vibes, slide guitar and all.

Hangovers aren’t just for booze. On her debut full-length album, Alabama artist Ella Langley explores the kinds of emotional aftermaths that leave behind heartache, not headaches. The record opens with its title track, a soulful and somber account of learning lessons in love the hard way. Fan favorite “nicotine” likens a lover she “want\[s\] but just don’t need” to the irresistible allure of a cigarette fix. Riley Green joins Langley on the hit duet “you look like you love me,” an old-school honky-tonk jam. Another standout is “paint the town blue,” a clever subversion of a country trope: Finding no solace in painting the town red in the wake of a breakup, Langley opts to “fall to pieces” (one of several classic country references on the record) and indulge her broken heart. Langley wraps the project with acoustic versions of two other new songs, “cowgirl don’t cry” and “broken in.”

Morgan Wade’s life changed drastically in just a few years. The famously tattooed, rebellious country singer-songwriter broke out with 2021’s *Reckless*, attracting a rabid fanbase in the process. Wade seems to take stock of that dizzying experience on *Obsessed*, which follows 2023’s *Psychopath* and finds her digging deeper into solo songwriting—there are no co-writers on the album. Produced by her touring guitarist Clint Wells (a departure from her previous two outings, which Sadler Vaden of Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit produced), the record is Wade’s most vulnerable, with a quieter sound to match its introspective mood. Highlights include the title track, which explores the nuances of an all-consuming love, and “2AM in London,” a frank, folky homesickness song steeped in late nights and loneliness. Pop firebrand Kesha joins Wade on “Walked on Water,” a slow-building ballad about regret and accountability that makes great use of the two singers’ surprisingly complementary voices.

Miranda Lambert may have hit it big in Nashville, but Texas will always be the country icon’s greatest muse. Like she did on the collaborative 2021 project *The Marfa Tapes* (joined by fellow Texans Jon Randall and Jack Ingram), Lambert shares sketches and vignettes of the Lone Star State, filtered through her equally introspective and humorous perspective. *Postcards From Texas* is Lambert’s ninth studio album, and the first solo LP she recorded in her home state of Texas since she was a teenager. Accordingly, the record feels homey and lived-in, like on the reflective and playful “Looking Back on Luckenbach” and the laidback love song “January Heart.” “Bitch on the Sauce (Just Drunk)” is more than just a cheeky title, teasing out the complications of a situationship. And opening track “Armadillo” is a barn-burning knee-slapper, with the unforgettable image of an armadillo with a “doobie.” Lambert tells Apple Music that *Postcards From Texas* is a product of recent life changes as well as her career as a whole. “With turning 40 and \[signing to\] a new record label, I felt new freedom,” she says. “And with that freedom, all I wanted to do was go home to reset so I could get strong to take on a whole new journey. And so I think this record is a snapshot of more like two decades versus the last two years. There\'s emotions that I\'ve felt for the last two decades as a woman \[and\] as an artist in this album. The only thing I haven\'t done is pick up a high armadillo in my car yet, but I want to.”Below, Lambert shares insight into several key tracks. **“Armadillo”** “Aaron Raitiere sent me that, the first song he sent me, and I was in Austria, actually, going down the road, because I played a show in Switzerland and \[my husband\] Brendan and I went to Austria. And we were driving through the mountains in Austria and I\'m putting on my earbuds, and I just turned on Aaron\'s like, ‘Here\'s one.’ And it said, ‘I met an armadillo out in Amarillo and he asked me for a ride.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, yes, 100 percent yes, I\'m cutting this.’ And I didn\'t even hear anymore. I handed Brendan an earbud and he was like, ‘Yes, 100 percent.’ I was like, ‘This should be the first song on the record.’ Just because it\'s fun and funny… If you\'re going to have an album full of songs and there\'s going to be so much emotion, you\'ve got to make sure you have the fun.” **“Dammit Randy”** “I\'ve definitely dragged it out too long in certain situations in my life. And I don\'t know if that\'s also, as you go through things in your life and as you get a little bit older, you\'re like, ‘Oh, well, now I\'ve seen what happens if you let it fester.’ So you just learn to cut it off.” **“Run”** “I think the reason that I love horses and I love Airstreams and I love the \[tour\] bus is because it is a way to run to something, not necessarily away from something. I think that\'s why I\'ve always been obsessed with trailers. I don\'t know if it\'s growing up on a tour bus or whatever, but I just feel like I can chase my dream but also have a piece of home.” **“Alimony”** “Shane \[McAnally\] walked into the barn, because we did one last push for writing for the record, and I\'m like, ‘I\'m making a record in Texas. I need to shuffle. Dang it, I need a shuffle. I have to.’ He was like, ‘Well, I got a title.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ And he was like, ‘If you\'re going to leave me in San Antonio, remember the alimony.’ And I was like, ‘I could literally punch you in the face right now.’ Dang it, why didn\'t I think of that? We got to use all of our little Texas puns, and it was fun.” **“I Hate Love Songs”** “It gives me chills, that song. It does. I wrote that in Marfa with \[Jon Randall\] and Jack \[Ingram\], and it\'s older. It\'s about six or seven years old, I think. That is sitting in the pain.” **“No Man’s Land”** “I don\'t think I could have written a song like this till now, because this is one of the newest on the album. Luke Dick had the idea, and I just love him because he gets girls. He\'s just such a man, but he\'s such a sensitive guy. He understands the wiring. He\'s a girl dad, too, so I think that probably helped. We never talked about that, and I want to talk to him about it and celebrate because I love this song so much, but it had to be done and it didn\'t need to be a ‘I\'m in no man\'s land with your finger in the air.’ That\'s not what this is. I want to be in your space. I want you to be in my space... I want you to know that I want you here, but I need to be me. And that\'s the song. I think we really made sure to get that point across that it\'s not a warning.”

Shaboozey has long been inspired by the romantic notion of the outlaw: “The guy who’s standing against a whole bunch of folks and it’s like, ‘We’re going to take them down.’ Yeah, you can try!” the musician tells Apple Music’s Kelleigh Bannen. The obsession is less quaint than it sounds. Having pored through old western films, dime-store pulp novels, and gunslinger ballads à la Marty Robbins, the Virginia native noticed that old-school cowboy culture and hip-hop share a preoccupation with all things American renegade. The conversation around country music’s Black roots will sound familiar to anyone who tuned in to Beyoncé’s *COWBOY CARTER*, which featured Shaboozey on two tracks. (“Beyoncé’s been such a big part of being Black in America,” he said, still in awe of the opportunity. “At every point in our lives, she has had some sort of cultural impact.”) But the 29-year-old singer/rapper has been staking his territory in the space between hip-hop and country for a decade, redefining what it means to be a modern country star. His third album, *Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going*, plays out like a classic American road movie, opening with steel guitar, the gallop of horse hooves, and Shaboozey with his foot on the gas, fresh out of smokes and headed nowhere in particular. On tracks like “Let It Burn,” his rich baritone is equal parts Willie, Waylon, and woozy blues rap à la Future. Elsewhere, he channels Imagine Dragons’ arena-ready roots rock, where breakup banger “Annabelle” hits the sweet spot between Fleetwood Mac and Post Malone. But the star-making moment is “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” the breakaway hit of 2024’s Stagecoach Festival: a Southern-fried riff on a 20-year-old J-Kwon club classic with TGIF vibes.

The title *Barely Blue* captures Midland’s essence: down and out, to be sure, but too much of a good time to be really, truly blue. The Texas-bred band serves up its signature blend of heartache and hangovers on this follow-up to 2022’s *The Last Resort: Greetings From*, but does so with a sense of expansiveness likely brought by the trio’s decision to record the album outside of the Lone Star State. Midland tapped superproducer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson) to helm *Barely Blue*, decamping to Georgia Mae Studios in Savannah, Georgia, to record its eight new tracks. *Barely Blue* is a gentler album than previous releases, with rootsy, often acoustic production taking the place of the band’s more muscular earlier efforts. Opening track “Lucky Sometimes” is airy and open, with playful and memorable lyrical images like “a string of green lights on the way to work” and a “Cracker Barrel waitress ... giving me eyes.” The title track uses wisps of pedal steel to underscore a story of moving past heartbreak. And even though the record wasn’t recorded in Texas, the state still leaves its imprint, as the record closes with “Lone Star State of Mind,” a spare and melodic ballad that offers plenty of room for the trio’s bigger-than-Texas harmonies.

Charley Crockett is a rare talent. His voice is one of country music’s finest, a rich baritone with a natural ache and emotion-wringing agility. That he pairs such a voice with an equally powerful flair for storytelling lands him among the ranks of the genre’s new saviors, like Tyler Childers or Sturgill Simpson, but with a style and sound all his own. That sound owes a lot to Crockett’s home state of Texas, which often serves as a character in his narrative-driven songs. On *$10 Cowboy*, Crockett found inspiration on the road, writing much of the album while touring in support of its predecessor, 2022’s concept record *The Man From Waco*. That journeyman’s perspective brings us stories of hitting rock bottom (“Gettin’ Tired Again”), chasing Lady Luck (“Ain’t Done Losing Yet”), and hanging on to love while “empire…rule\[s\] the world” (“Diamond in the Rough”). A can’t-miss tune on the record is “America,” a plainspoken, heart-wrenching lament of a fearsome, unforgiving country. Crockett cut *$10 Cowboy* live to tape at Austin’s Arlyn Studios with his longtime band and a string of ringers, with Billy Horton co-producing.

United by a theme of living in the moment, the songs on Keith Urban’s 11th studio album—and first in four years—certainly make a convincing case for spontaneity. The romantic anthem “STRAIGHT LINE” sees Urban announce his intention to drive “straight into forever with you” before the first in a series of skyward guitar solos on this record. “That song’s about breaking out of monotony that sometimes is our own making,” the Australian country icon tells Apple Music. “And somewhere along the line, life loses a bit of its color and you feel like you’ve lost a bit of your spirit.” Recurring domestic cycles also inform “LOVE IS HARD,” a song about sticking with someone even when times are tough. “It’s like you can throw all this stuff at me and scream and yell and all the rest of it,” says Urban, “but I’m just, ‘I’m going to stay the course with you.’” Guest vocalist Lainey Wilson channels Dolly Parton for “GO HOME W U,” an impressively assured duet about leaving the bar together at closing time. Elsewhere, Urban finds ripe symbolism for love and perseverance in everything from sneakers hanging on a power line (“CHUCK TAYLORS”) to beach views in Florida (“DAYTONA”). Especially cheeky are “MESSED UP AS ME”—on which Urban brags that no one else leaves his lover’s bed as disheveled as he does—and “LAUGHIN’ ALL THE WAY TO THE DRANK,” a rollicking ode to catapulting straight from the work week into the weekend that packs banjo, fiddle, and even record scratching into its surprise breakdown. These songs share a bright, poppy pep for the most part, although “DODGE IN A SILVERADO” leans more closely toward traditional country and a few ballads strip things right back. That includes the closing “BREAK THE CHAIN,” which delivers an affecting reminder that it’s never too late to enact change. As someone who grew up with an alcoholic father, Urban knows full well the value of halting a damaging streak that could potentially stretch across generations of a family. “I really wanted to try hard to take a different road,” he says. “That was definitely the biggest chain to try and break.”

Wyatt Flores has a complicated relationship with his home state of Oklahoma. On his debut full-length album, the Stillwater-born singer-songwriter contends with the complex and often violent legacy of his birthplace—detailing his feelings with clear-eyed vulnerability on the opening title track: “Tumbleweeds were free like the Choctaw and Cherokee/Before they had to call this land their home.” It’s a simple but evocative lyric, and the song’s production underscores the darkness at the heart of the track with big, thick electric guitar riffs and whining fiddle. Flores tells Apple Music that one of his main goals on this record was to write with a sense of simplicity, to stop overthinking things so much and commit his ideas to tape. “It’s really just taking a step back from trying to be a perfectionist and just be like, ‘No, this is just art and this is where it is. Say what you want to say and then get out,’” he says. “‘Get out of your own way.’” The rest of the record—produced by The Texas Gentlemen’s Beau Bedford and recorded in short bursts in Asheville, Nashville, and Los Angeles—similarly pulls no punches, whether Flores tackles heartache (the crunchy heartland rocker “The Truth”) or youthful abandon (“Stillwater,” which gives Flores a chance to indulge his grungier side through sneering vocals and moody production). Like he did on the album’s predecessor, 2024’s *Half Life*, Flores also confronts his own mental health on *Welcome to the Plains*, like admitting to an ex-love on the loose and jangly “Oh Susannah” that he “was a problem only tryna be the cure.” Flores balances out some of that heaviness with moments of levity, though, like the winking “When I Die” line “When I’m in the ground/If I hear you talking shit/I hope I get the chance to be a ghost and scare your kids.” That juxtaposition between darkness and light epitomizes the tension that makes Flores’ songs so compelling. “Most of these songs still have double meanings to them,” Flores adds. “Which is the fun part for me, just because they’re so simple but there’s so much meaning behind them.”