Rolling Stone's 40 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2019

Tanya Tucker was already singing in a voice that conveyed grit and experience when she scored her first hit at age 13. In the half-century since, the veteran country star has released roughly two dozen albums. But *While I’m Livin’*, arriving on the heels of an extended quiet spell, is the first full-length she’s recorded that reflects—or, more accurately, magnifies—her life experiences and brassy persona. Shooter Jennings and Brandi Carlile, who both grew up with Tucker’s music, made it their crusade to produce an album that would present Tucker as an artist whose undiminished edge and seasoned wit qualify her as a legend. They selected songs, several of them written by Carlile and her frequent collaborators Tim and Phil Hanseroth, that dramatize Tucker\'s headstrong, hard-living ways and the pride she took in weathering hardship. She makes loping outlaw epics like \"High Ridin\' Heroes,\" \"Hard Luck,\" and \"Mustang Ridge\" her own, and sounds more unvarnished than ever delivering soft, sentimental tunes like \"The House That Built Me,\" \"The Day My Heart Goes Still,\" and \"Bring My Flowers Now.\"

In the middle of writing her seventh album *Wildcard*, Miranda Lambert hit pause. “I took the first long stretch I’ve ever had off in my entire career since I was 17,” she tells Apple Music. “Finally you realize how much you need a breath.” During that break, the country superstar made some big life changes, surprising the world by announcing that she’d secretly gotten married and was moving part-time to New York City—a switch-up that she says revitalized her creative energy and breathed new life into her sound. “Oddly enough, on my seventh solo album, I feel like I approached it more like my first album than any other record I’ve made,” she says. In many ways, *Wildcard* feels like a new beginning. It’s full of frenetic, uptempo rock (“Locomotive”), propulsive power pop (“Mess With My Head\"), and clear-eyed confidence (“It All Comes Out in the Wash”). The newfound edge is partly a reflection of producer Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Zac Brown Band), with whom she works for the first time here after years with Frank Liddell. Lambert says it was time to mix it up: “Country is what I do, it’s who I am…but I love rock ’n’ roll.” Her country devotees will delight in “Way Too Pretty for Prison,” a deliciously clever breakup song in which Lambert and Maren Morris fantasize about killing an ex before ultimately deciding prison sounds unappealing (not enough boys, beauty parlors, or Chardonnay). And on “Pretty Bitchin’,” a similarly rowdy send-up, she rolls out a series of flexes—fine wine, a new guitar, a kitted-out Airstream—and makes no apologies about relishing her success in a world that is often unkind to women entertainers. “I use what I got/I don’t let it go to waste,” she sings with the remorseless air of someone who has endured their fair share of tabloid headlines. This song is about winning in spite of all that: \"I’m pretty from the back/Kinda pretty in the face/I hate to admit it/But it didn’t stop me, did it?”

Yola’s sound conjures a moment in the late \'60s when country, R&B, gospel, pop, rock, and the lighter side of psychedelia mixed together so freely—and so seamlessly—one remembered they all came from the same distinctly American well. Produced by The Black Keys\' Dan Auerbach, *Walk Through Fire* is expectedly long on style: “Faraway Look” is Dusty Springfield refracted through Phil Spector; “Walk Through Fire” is a slow folk thump so studiously offhand that Auerbach keeps the count-off in the mix; “Lonely the Night” captures the pop-lite poise of Petula Clark, and “Love All Night (Work All Day)” the catharsis of Rod Stewart. Really, though, it’s a testament to Yola’s writing and voice—smoky and deep but never smothering—that the album manages to cohere as the sound of a single artist.

In the 1980s, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson came together to record as The Highwaymen, one of the most successful supergroups in country music history. Now, like the Pistol Annies before them, four of the genre’s most powerful women—Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Natalie Hemby, and Amanda Shires—grab the torch. Their name is more than a play on words: “\[The men\] were able to stand shoulder to shoulder with each other as equals,” Brandi Carlile tells Apple Music’s Brooke Reese. “This is a difficult time for women to do that because there are so few spaces for us on country radio, and in the industry in general, so we thought, ‘Why can’t we form a straight line? A shoulder-to-shoulder women’s country group?’” Their eponymous debut album puts female stories front and center—mothers, daughters, witches, lesbians, cowgirls, and more—in a celebration of American women who refuse to choose between success and family, power and love. “Making bank/Shaking hands/Driving 80/Trying to get home just to feed the baby,” they sing on lead single “Redesigning Women,” a toast to ambitious ladies “breaking every Jell-O mold.” But underneath those winking lyrics and warm, absorbing harmonies is a serious message aimed directly at Nashville’s old guard: *Hear us*. “I want to get in the door, and I want our band to get played on country radio,” Shires says. “And once we get in the door, I want to hold it open.” The songs here are daringly vulnerable (“Old Soul”), tough (“Don’t Call Me,\" “Loose Change”), and, at their core, unifying. The album standout “Crowded Table” calls for a more inclusive world: “If we want a garden/We’re gonna have to sow the seeds,” they sing in unison. “Plant a little happiness/Let the roots run deep.”

Randy Houser had a pretty traditional Nashville career, rising from songwriter to solo artist with three No. 1 hits in the span of a decade—until he threw on the brakes. His fifth album, *Magnolia*, is the result of a two-year-long intensive focus on his songwriting, stripping back his sound in order to discover one that is authentically his own, something that displays his age and experience. “This was just about discovering the pieces of me that make me who I am now,” he says. “It wasn’t made to be like, ‘Here’s a big old commercial hit-record album.’” Here are the personal stories that inspired *Magnolia*, an album born of Houser’s Mississippi youth. **“No Stone Unturned”** “One of my favorite songs on the record, one of my favorites to play live. It’s pretty simple—a song about a traveling man trying to find himself.” **“Our Hearts”** “This was one of the first songs that I wrote for this record. It fueled the flame for me to start writing something different, outside of the ‘girl in the truck’ songs. That was definitely inspired by meeting my wife.” **“What Whiskey Does”** “A big part of the way I am is I always have to jump over the fence and see what’s over there, or go in the unexpected places. And sometimes a little liquid bravery comes into play.” **“Whole Lotta Quit”** “This is about all jobs I had when growing up. I hated every job that wasn’t making music. I put in equipment on chicken farms, I made, like, $30 a day. Any time any kind of clock or buzzer went off for me to get out of there, I went busting out with a vengeance. Work just sort of feels like a jail to me, and I think there’s a lot of people that feel like that.” **“No Good Place to Cry”** “I wrote it with my friend Gary Nicholson almost 10 years ago. We’d been writing together for a couple years, and I’d gotten where I could confide in him about things that were going on in my life. I’d just gone through a breakup and was down in the dumps. I never felt like I was making the record that that song deserved to be on until now.” **“New Buzz”** “This was a song idea I had, and \[producer\] Keith Gattis and \[songwriter\] Jeff Trott and I worked on it for a day and couldn’t quite get it. Gattis ended up going home and writing most of the song himself. He is an amazing producer and somebody I lean on whenever I’ve gotta get away from the commercial side of things. He’s always like, ‘Well, let’s go make some music, whatever it is, and just see what it is.’” **“Nothin’ on You”** “It’s just a lot of fun. At the end, you find out it’s about more fun than you expected.” **“What Leaving Looks Like”** “When you feel the end of a relationship coming and nobody wants to admit it to themselves—you know what’s coming, so just go ahead and get it over with.” **“High Time”** “‘High Time,’ for me, is what downtime is. It’s just that time to kick back, take a puff, and kinda let the world go up in smoke. That’s a feeling I love—when you don’t have a place to be or a phone call to make or anybody expecting you to do anything.” **“Mamma Don’t Know”** “I had been playing the riff at sound checks and started writing it on the road. My wife, who is considerably younger than me, was the inspiration—she doesn’t drink, she doesn’t smoke, all those things—just set against sort of a bad-girl vibe, which she’s not. Her mom gets a total kick out of that song.” **“Running Man”** “This is the other side of ‘High Time’—I found myself in a place where I wasn’t making music exactly the way I wanted to, my show wasn’t exactly what I wanted it to be. I had to pull the plug on a lot of things and just reset. If you have people expecting you to create music and say things you don’t really feel, you end up feeling like a product rather than an artist.” **“Evangeline”** “Growing up in Central Mississippi as young bucks, we would take off down to New Orleans. And that’s what the song was inspired by—those trips with a carload of girls and crazy dudes, and just having fun. And there were some romantic times and some wild times.”

Kelsey Waldon works in the country, folk, and bluegrass songwriting tradition of depicting rural life—but has zero interest in romanticizing or simplifying her subject matter. On her third full-length—and first for John Prine’s Oh Boy Records—the Nashville singer conjures the rustic places and resourceful people of her upbringing in all their complexity. “Kentucky, 1988” and “Black Patch” are tales of stubborn self-reliance—one autobiographical, the other historical. In the title track, “Anyhow,” and “Lived and Let Go,” she locates enlightenment in plainspoken country wisdom, and in “Sunday’s Children,” she draws a connection between many kinds of people dwelling at the social margins. The album’s sinewy, down-home, occasionally rocking folk-country arrangements revolve around the vinegary stoicism of Waldon’s singing and the plaintive potency of Brett Resnick’s steel guitar playing.

The late 2010s have been a boom time for women forming supergroups in the name of mutual admiration, solidarity, or common mission. Some enjoy greater visibility than others, but none has greater historic significance than Our Native Daughters, made up of four women of color—Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, Allison Russell, and Amythyst Kiah—who all perform roots music on banjo and found each other in the folk scene. Invited by Giddens to the remote bayou studio of her co-producer Dirk Powell to write and record together, the four members reclaimed and reimagined old tunes, styles, and stories, many dating back to the enslavement of African people, recentering them on the perspectives and multifaceted survival strategies of black women. Each of the contributors brings a different sound, spirit, and texture into the circle—from dignified satire (“Barbados”) to sinewy defiance (“Black Myself”), spryly syncopated revelry (“Music and Joy”) to supple reverence (“Quasheba, Quesheba”)—for a collective work as loose, lively, and welcoming as it is tenacious.

'Songs of Our Native Daughters' gathers together kindred musicians Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell in song and sisterhood to communicate with their forebears. Drawing on and reclaiming early minstrelsy and banjo music, these musicians reclaim, recast, and spotlight the often unheard and untold history of their ancestors, whose stories remain vital and alive today. The material on 'Songs of Our Native Daughters' -- written and sung in various combinations -- is inspired by New World slave narratives, discrimination and how it has shaped our American experience, as well as musicians such as Haitian troubadour Althiery Dorval and Mississippi Hill Country string player Sid Hemphill, and more.

Twentysomething East Kentuckian Tyler Childers is the latest standout in a lineage of serious-minded singer-songwriters who’ve chafed at portrayals of their native Appalachia as a boorish, backward place. The nine vignettes on *Country Squire* continue the plainspoken but keenly perceptive storytelling from his 2017 breakthrough *Purgatory*, offering humanizing sketches of struggle, disappointment, and resilience. Some of his loosely autobiographical numbers wryly measure the distance between the modest aspirations he harbored back when his following was merely regional and the more encumbered reality he’s living now. In the title track, he recalls splitting his time between poor-paying road gigs and renovating an old camper trailer: “And when I ain\'t out playing on my six-string/With the nickels I acquire/I’m trying to fix her up a castle/It\'s called the Country Squire.” Childers’ wiry mountain wail and sparing use of keyed-up country vocal curlicues lend songs like “House Fire,” “Creeker,” and “Peace of Mind” a focused emotional intensity. Though this album marks his first partnership with a major label, he kept the producers who steered *Purgatory*—kindred spirit Sturgill Simpson and storied Nashville engineer David Ferguson—and they’ve once again framed Childers with lean, loping performances from bluegrass and country session vets. It suits a searching mind like Childers’ that some of the most down-home grooves melt into mildly psychedelic transitions between tracks.

Full of lush, sweeping arrangements and deeply vulnerable self-examination, ‘Desert Dove’ is Michaela’s most expansive work yet. The album, produced by Sam Outlaw and Delta Spirit’s Kelly Winrich, is still very much rooted in the classic country she’s come to be known for - but the record represents something of a sonic shift for Michaela, incorporating more modern production elements than ever before in pursuit of a sound that owes as much influence to indie rock as honky tonk. Despite the bolder, more adventurous arrangements, Michaela’s crystalline voice remains front and center, as do her subjects: complex, three-dimensional characters who, through Michaela’s empathetic portraits, revel in exploring the gray areas between good and bad, joy and pain, love and regret. In the end, that vivid grounding in real experience coupled with outstanding songwriting and musicianship is what makes ‘Desert Dove’ such an incredibly powerful record.

Over the past two decades, Kendell Marvel has become one of the great storied songwriters in Nashville. For years, he’s quietly written massive hits for Country royalty – from George Strait to Jake Owen, Gary Allan to Chris Stapleton – but now has stepped from behind the pen and paper into the studio and spotlight. The result is Solid Gold Sounds – a stellar album that weaves a rich tapestry of deep southern songwriting with the unique gravity and talent Marvel brings as a one-of-a-kind performer.

After your debut album gets nominated for two Grammys, it’s easy to overthink the approach to and implications of your follow-up. Unless you’re throwback/laidback Texas country trio Midland. “It\'s got to be better than the first,” guitarist Jess Carson tells Apple Music\'s Brooke Reese. “Otherwise, why are we doing it? What we\'ve been doing for the last two years is playing live. So we tried to translate that into a recording studio. We attempt to write songs that are going to be around for a long time and could fit into a time period from the past as well as they could in the future—just kind of ageless. And I think we accomplished that.” Don\'t just take his word for it: The 14 freewheeling songs on *Let It Roll* channel \'70s country and SoCal soft rock like the Eagles, but never feel dated or contrived. “There\'s definitely a fine line between being influenced by somebody and being derivative,” says bassist Cameron Duddy. “So it\'s only natural to imitate the things that you love. But the objective is to find your own voice. Your audience is keen, whether they know it or not, to authenticity.” Some of that authenticity owes to bucking longstanding Nashville tradition such as using session pros instead of their touring band in the studio; having a debut as successful as 2017\'s *On the Rocks* gave them the clout they needed. And that looseness and confidence are evident on moments like “Every Song\'s a Drinkin\' Song” (“...when you\'re drinking,” goes the back half of the hook). “If there\'s one song that you\'re going to have a pretty good idea going into it what it is, it\'s that one,” says Carson. “It\'s not a curveball. That\'s a loud, raucous barroom singalong. It\'s like the mugs clanking together and the beer overflowing and stuff.”

After Maren Morris released her blockbuster debut album *Hero* in 2016, she embarked on a series of unorthodox cross-genre collaborations that, at a different time in country music, could have easily ended her career. Instead, she scored near-simultaneous hits in dance, country, and pop, and established a new breed of Nashville superstar. “It’s a testament to how much the city has changed,” she tells Apple Music. “It’s become an exciting melting pot.” She is being modest: Much of that change is thanks to Morris. Her free-spirited sophomore effort continues to push the limits of contemporary country-pop, infusing it with energy and texture from hip-hop, R&B, and psychedelic rock. \"I wanted to be braver with production and get really weird with it,” she says. \"The lyrics were becoming really assertive and independent and sensual, all these empowering elements. I wanted the music to amplify that.” As the title suggests, womanhood is a theme, but the album steers clear of rallying cries and hear-me-roar tropes; these songs are more about learning to embrace all sides of yourself. By singing about her conflicting emotions and life experiences, she frames her complexity as a kind of power: She can be both romantic and in charge (**“The Bones\"**), pissed off and poised (**“Flavor”**), successful and uncertain (**\"To Hell & Back”**). The latter was the first song she wrote on *GIRL* after wrestling with the explosive success of *Hero*. “It was the bitter and the sweet going on in my head,” she says. “I opened up to this other person and felt like they accepted all my broken pieces. They didn’t try to fix me.” At some point, Morris’ independence and progressive point of view caught the attention of Brandi Carlile, a fellow disrupter in Americana and folk. “She wrote me a note about how she’s got two daughters and she’s proud to know they look up to me,” Morris says. The exchange led to their duet, **“Common”**—a pleading, impassioned ballad about setting aside our differences—and eventually, a supergroup with singer-songwriter Amanda Shires called the Highwomen. (Morris has gently tackled politics before, most notably on “Dear Hate”, her response to the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.) The album’s other collaboration, **“All My Favorite People”** featuring the Brothers Osbourne, is Morris off duty. “It’s a slapping, trashy party song but has all these descriptive, intricate lyrics,” she says. “It’s my favorite kind of song to write: airtight and very country.” She co-wrote the song with her husband, musician Ryan Hurd, who gets a playful tribute on **“Make Out with Me,”** written to mimic a drunken voicemail. “That\'s one of my favorites,” she says, \"because it’s *so me*.\" Just when you think you’ve got Morris figured out, she serves up R&B curveballs (**“RSVP”**), pop-ified love songs (**“Gold Love”**), and lighters-in-the-air sing-alongs that hat-tip her influences, which include Bruce Springsteen and Katy Perry (**“A Song for Everything”**). No song packs as much zing as **“Flavor,”** a growling send-up Morris has dubbed \"an F U to your haters.” In her case, they’re mostly online. “This is my middle finger to the trolls, the body-shamers, the slut-shamers, the women-haters, the people who rain on my parade,” she says, pointing out that despite her fame, she still manages her own social media accounts. \"I wanted to tell them: You know what, I\'m cooking up my own flavor, and you don\'t have to like it, but I promise you\'ve never tasted anything like it.\"

It may seem like country’s tradition of plaintive storytelling trailed off well before the 21st century, only occasionally resurfacing since. But Erin Enderlin is one singer-songwriter who’s quietly carved out a career during this era with her steady devotion to the form. The 14 songs on *Faulkner County*, a concept album of sorts initially divvied up in a series of EPs, are knowing barroom vignettes of disappointment, settling, and self-destruction. Enderlin’s subdued bent notes convey melancholy awareness of private pain, and the understated finesse of her accompaniment—produced by traditionally inclined old hands Jamey Johnson and Jim “Moose” Brown and featuring lyrical steel guitar lines and close, downy harmonies from some of Nashville\'s finest—suits the sentiments.

Jon Pardi\'s 2016 sophomore album *California Sunrise* was a commercial and critical success, cementing the California-born country artist as one of the most exciting young acolytes of neo-traditional country music. Now, Pardi has returned with *Heartache Medication*, a lively, fun-loving LP that infuses his throwback sensibilities with modern flourishes. The album also finds Pardi turning up the volume (and the distortion) and showing off his rock \'n\' roll chops (\"Tied One On,\" \"Me and Jack\"), while throwing in the occasional soulful moment (\"Don\'t Blame It on Whiskey\") and sweeping ballad (\"Ain\'t Always the Cowboy\") for good measure. Below, Pardi gives Apple Music the inside scoop on how he brought his influences together on *Heartache Medication*. **Old Hat** \"I heard \'Old Hat\' on Jeff Hyde\'s record \[2018\'s *Norman Rockwell World*\]. It was cool-sounding, and it talked about old-school things, like opening the door for a lady. It\'s a very sweet song about being a gentleman. One of the main reasons that song is on the record is Summer, my girlfriend, loves it. She said it reminds her of how many shitty dates she\'s been on. The ladies love a gentleman.\" **Heartache Medication** \"I wrote that song two years ago. I had the title. I thought the title was really cool-sounding—you kind of knew what you were talking about without having to say it. It\'s about a guy having a good time, dealing with heartache but having fun. A little bit of drinking, a little bit of dancing, a little bit of everything to make you feel good.\" **Nobody Leaves a Girl Like That** \"\'Nobody Leaves a Girl Like That\' was written by Bart Butler, Marv Green, and Jimmy Yeary. I hadn\'t heard anything like it. Originally it was super, super, super country, believe it or not. I always wanted a Brooks & Dunn-sounding song—you could hear Ronnie \[Dunn\] singing it. I always say that would be me if I left my girlfriend, Summer. As an artist you have to put yourself in that situation to feel that emotion.\" **Ain\'t Always the Cowboy** \"That\'s the \'lighter in the air\' song right there. What an idea. It\'s something that\'s always been there, with the cowboy riding away, but it hasn\'t been sung like this. It\'s a big power ballad of a song. I like power ballads. It\'s very \'80s. I love that girl power, like, \'Go do your own thing. I\'m here toughing it out regardless of what you\'re going to do.\' I knew girls would love it, and guys love it too. It was a no-brainer when we heard that song.\" **Me and Jack** \"\'Me and Jack\' is based on a true story. I wrote that song in LA on a writer\'s retreat. I had that idea in my phone, as many of our songwriters do with our notes in our iPhones now. I put \'me and Jack and Johnny Cash\'—I wanted it to sound like Johnny Cash, with a train kind of beat. I always thought Johnny Cash had the best story-songs. At the top of the song, when it says, \'Hey Jon, it\'s nice to meet you. My name is Jack,\' that was my secret homage to Johnny Cash. In the van days, we\'d put Jack Daniel\'s on the rider for our dressing room, but they\'d always give us the gigantic bottle. Crazy stuff would happen. We took it off the rider, and that\'s where I got the idea.\" **Don\'t Blame It on Whiskey (feat. Lauren Alaina)** “You notice how we put that right after \'Me and Jack\'? I heard Eric Church\'s version in 2010 and I thought it was a great song. Then my A&R person played it for me the day before we went in to cut, and I was like, \'I\'ll cut it if you get me the permission.\' He texted Miranda \[Lambert\] and Eric and they said they were excited. I love that Lauren Alaina is on it—she sounds great. It\'s about that point in a relationship where you\'re either done or you\'re gonna try to fix it but you can\'t blame it on other things. I\'ve been there for sure. I love songs that can hit an emotion.\" **Tied One On** \"We got a lot of drinking songs. \'I cut her loose and tied one on.\' That was another one that Bart Butler brought me at the last minute, the day before we went in to record the album. The demo sounded a lot different than when I recorded it. It\'s another one I really related to, because before my girlfriend Summer, I was just over relationships. So that really resonated with me and it made me want to go dance and go party. I feel like if a song can make you feel like that, you need to record it, or write it. It\'s rock \'n\' roll; it\'s Dwight Yoakam; it has country all over it. What can I say? It\'s an awesome song. And I didn\'t write it, so I can say that.\" **Oughta Know That** \"That\'s the jam. When I first wrote that, Bart Butler had the title. We wrote it in two hours. It\'s just a stomper, a punch-somebody-in-the-face kind of song. It has rowdy all over it. Even nowadays, I shouldn\'t have stayed out too late, I shouldn\'t have drank too much, I shouldn\'t have gone to that one spot with my buddies, because I have to get up and go to work. I oughta know that by now. We can all relate to it.\" **Tequila Little Time** \"I can feel a spicy margarita in my future. I love spicy margaritas. We wrote that on a Northern California retreat at the little studio I have at my mom\'s house. Rhett Akins was on the couch, just laying down. He couldn\'t come up with nothing all day. He blurped out, \'Tequila little time with you,\' and we finished it in about an hour and a half. It\'s the old-school picking up a girl when she\'s down, but slyly. Not trying to be too creepy. When we wrote it we were like, \'We can\'t make it creepy.\'\" **Buy That Man a Beer** \"Clint Daniels wrote that song. It reminded me a lot of the guys I grew up with, like my dad\'s friends, like veterans, or people playing music downtown, just out there working hard. It\'s a song for hard workers, like, \'Here\'s a beer, bud. Keep doing what you\'re doing.\' The song took me to a different place. You have to pay respect to people, and why not do it by buying them a beer?\" **Call Me Country** \"\'Call Me Country\' was written about my \'70s heroes. It\'s a time in country music where you\'re not really gonna hear songs like those on the radio anymore. You\'ve got Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard. For me, those guys are the older generation I got into as an older listener. When I was young, I was all about some Alan Jackson and George Strait. But when you dig in to those older guys, it\'s a different sound. Waylon Jennings was Waylon Jennings, you know.\" **Just Like Old Times** \"\'Just Like Old Times\' was supposed to be on *California Sunrise*. I was like, \'Man, I\'m not going to shelve this song again. It has to be on the record.\' I didn\'t have to sing it. I just put it on the record. It was ready to go. It\'s one of my favorites. When I hear that song, it makes me want to dance with somebody. I love the story—you can see it in your head.\" **Love Her Like She\'s Leaving** \"That\'s Dean Dillon and Bart Butler and Jessie Jo Dillon. I was talking to Dean—he was wanting to get on the record—and I was like, \'Man, I love that \'80s George Strait stuff. We\'ve been digging into that.\' He came up with the song and we really produced it so it was \'80s, early-\'90s kind of style, with the gut-string guitar. I love the message—every guy\'s been there. It\'s one of my favorites on the record.\" **Starlight** \"I wrote \'Starlight\' in 2014. It was mainly inspired by my grandmother, who got me into music when I was young. She died when I was 14. I wish she could see me, but I know she\'s around me and here in spirit. I wanted to make that feeling universal to everyone. I didn\'t want to write a song about my grandma, I wanted it to be meaningful to anybody who has lost somebody they love and they feel like they\'re there around them, like when you get chills on your arm. My buddy passed away last year. Back in the day, he was the guy who thought I would never lose. I couldn\'t make the damn funeral because I was on the road, so I made this video and talked to his family—he left two daughters—and I wanted to give them something. I sent them \'Starlight\' and the video for his celebration of life. Everybody talked about the song and everybody was crying, and it showed me how powerful that song could be. And that\'s why I wanted to end the record like that, to end with a remembrance.\"

Luke Combs could’ve relied on a formula popular with so many of his country peers during the 2010s: swaggeringly flirtatious, beat-driven jams. Instead, he circled back to the evergreen country approach of placing a persuasive persona at the heart of his music, and quickly fired up a fanbase with his way of inhabiting the good-humored blue-collar regular guy role. It helped that his songwriting was sturdy and clever and his performances hearty. On the follow-up to Combs’ blockbuster 2017 debut, that vantage point is even more robust, and also more knowing. “Beer Never Broke My Heart,” a propulsive honky-tonk number that initially appeared on an EP, is a mischievous take on avoiding emotional investment in anything with the potential to disappoint, and “1, 2 Many” is a vigorous barroom boogie featuring Brooks & Dunn—experts at that style—and full of playfully cocky bragging about boozy bad behavior. “I think country music fans like songs that they can drink and have a good time to,” Combs tells Apple Music. “The fast-pumping rhythms and big Telecaster guitars take you back to what country music was like in the ’90s. Country fans are starved for an uptempo song, and that’s what this is.” Combs is equally charismatic delivering more sensitive songs, like the romantic ballad “Nothing Like You” and “Does to Me,” a collaboration with Eric Church that takes pride in down-to-earth sincerity. In \"New Every Day\" and \"Every Little Bit Helps,\" Combs brings satisfyingly agile exertion to hooks that would humble a lesser singer. He continued his partnership with producer Scott Moffatt and core co-writer Ray Fulcher on this 17-song set, re-energizing both muscular and supple sounds learned from a couple of generations of hard country predecessors.

Available Valentine's Day 2019

Over her four-decade career, Reba McEntire has made an indelible mark on country music. From being discovered at an Oklahoma rodeo—she sang the national anthem and caught the ear of actor-musician Red Steagall, who then signed her to Mercury Records—to her stints as a sitcom star and the go-to host of the Academy of Country Music Awards, she’s become one of the best-selling musicians of all time. No doubt she had some of this history in mind when recording *Stronger Than the Truth*, her 33rd (!) studio album—a back-to-roots affair that blends together honky-tonk, western swing, and other classic country sounds, presented with the same emotion that’s defined her biggest hits. “I wanted to make the kind of music that I had grown up performing, having fun with, dancing to,” Reba tells Apple Music. “It coulda been a triple album, we had so many great songs.” Reba walks us through every track to explain how each was created. **“Swing All Night Long with You”** “Sidney Cox wrote this song. The man I’m dating right now, Skeeter Lasuzzo, his wife passed away five years ago, and she was best friends with Sidney Cox\'s mother-in-law, so Sidney\'s mother-in-law sent this song to Skeeter and said, \'I don\'t know if Reba would be interested in this.\' I fell in love with it immediately. You never know where a song is going to come from.” **“Stronger Than the Truth”** “\'Stronger Than the Truth\' was written by Hannah Blaylock and Autumn McEntire. Autumn happens to be my brother\'s oldest daughter, and she\'s been writing for a while, and performing a little bit, and I heard this song several years ago when they\'d first written it. I kept it in my computer, and when I told Autumn it was going to be the title of the album, she was just thrilled to pieces.” **“Storm in a Shot Glass”** “It’s just a powerhouse song; it was so much fun to perform in the studio. I think we got it on the first take. The band had a blast with it. It’s just a fun, sassy song.” **“Tammy Wynette Kind of Pain”** “Of course it’s \[co-written by\] Brandy Clark. I\'m a huge fan of hers. It’s the ultimate country song on this album—you can\'t get any sadder than singin’ a Tammy Wynette song. It\'s definitely women\'s turn to come to the forefront. And what they\'re bringing to the public right now is very heartfelt. We\'ve been on a trend of feel-good music, but I think it needs to go back to a deeper emotional status, and I think that\'s what these ladies are bringing to the fans right now.” **“Cactus in a Coffee Can”** “I asked Buddy Cannon, my producer, \'Have you ever heard of a song called “Cactus in a Coffee Can”?\' I sent it to him, and he said, \'I produced that for my daughter Melonie 10 years ago, and nothing ever happened to it.\' And I said, \'I love it, let\'s do it.\' Oh, and by the way, Melonie and Buddy are singing harmony on it.” **“Your Heart”** “It’s a such a different song for the album, with the hollow-body acoustic guitar and that Spanish feel. I love minor chords in a song.” **“The Clown”** “I\'d had \'The Clown\' for several years also, just waiting for the right time to record it. The video for this, you\'re in that restaurant with this woman when the guy says, \'Hey, I don\'t love you anymore.\' She\'s looking for help from the waiter and he says, \'Well, is there anything else you need tonight?\' It’s such a wonderful song.” **“No U in Oklahoma”** “Donna McSpadden is a good friend of mine from Chelsea, Oklahoma. Her husband, Clem McSpadden, was the one that let me sing the national anthem in the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City in 1974, which got me discovered. So Donna tells me one day, \'Reba, I got a great title for ya: “There’s No U in Oklahoma and That\'s OK with Me.”\' And I said, \'Oh my gosh, Donna! That\'s hysterical!\' So, we were on vacation together with Ronnie \[Dunn\], and he started playing around with it. The three of us kind of pieced it together at different times, but it worked out.” **“The Bar\'s Getting Lower”** “This is a song that you\'re either going to love or hate if you\'re a woman. You can relate to it, you\'re dreading that time, if it\'s going to happen to ya. But, oh my god, what a country song! I absolutely love this one!” **“In His Mind”** “\'In His Mind\' was an idea that I had that I sent to Liz Hengber and Tommy Lee James. Tommy Lee used to be in the band with me—he was guitar player and harmony singer—and Liz is a great writer. It’s just one of those sad songs. Life is going on, and he\'s oblivious to it. He\'s thinking that his ex is coming back to him, and she never will.” **“Freedom”** “You can take this song different ways. At first I thought it was a patriotic song, but it is the freedom of being alone, freedom from being mistreated in other relationships. And this woman singing has found a new love, a new relationship—\'lovin\' you feels like freedom.\' The record label came in and listened to it and was just thrilled to pieces.” **“You Never Gave Up on Me”** “I was going to put it on my gospel album \[2017’s *Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope*\]. It didn\'t make that album, so when I was going through my computer listening to the songs that I had been holding, keeping, hoarding…I found it. I think the intent of the song was about God, but then when I wanted it for this album, I said, \'Who is the one person who has never given up on me?\' And that\'s Momma. So this song I sang with Momma. I could only sing it one time. And I said, \'Buddy, do I need to do it again?\' He said, \'No, no, no! You got a lot a heart and motion in there. That\'s perfect!\'”

Joy Williams continues to assert her voice following the 2014 breakup of her Grammy-winning Americana duo The Civil Wars, and after welcoming a second child. The songs on her sixth solo album (her second since the split) *Front Porch* reflect tests of faith and lessons learned. Though tunes like “When Does a Heart Move On” and “The Trouble with Wanting” revel in heartache and longing, Williams experiences temptation (“Hotel St. Cecilia”), hometown pride (“No Place Like You”), and gusts of optimism (“Love is always sad when it fades, but glass is better stained anyways,” she muses on the title track). *Front Porch*’s acoustic country format fits Williams well, while also acknowledging her CCM roots on “Look How Far We’ve Come,” “When Creation Was Young,” and “Preacher’s Daughter.”

Written during a stint spent living out of a suitcase in the artist-haven that is the Belmont, 'Room 41' chronicles Cauthen’s white-knuckle journey to the brink and back, a harrowing experience that landed him in and out of the hospital as he careened between ecstasy and misery more times than he could count. Cauthen has long been a pusher of boundaries (musical and otherwise), and 'Room 41' is no exception, with electrifying performances that blend old-school country and gritty soul with 70’s funk and stirring gospel. His lyrics take on biblical proportions as they tackle lust and envy, pride and despair, destruction and redemption, but these songs are no parables.

“Members of the LGBT+ community that wouldn’t necessarily be at a country show. Mega-fans in Orville Peck masks. Couples in their 80s who are huge country fans. Drag queens. Five-year-olds!” Orville Peck is describing his average audience for Apple Music. “Maybe there are a million reasons for these people to be a room together,” he says. “But it’s lovely that I’m one of the reasons for them to be together.” It’s unsurprising that the fringe-masked, pseudonymous Toronto-based cowboy crooner’s debut album has attracted a broad church. *Pony* offers a very modern subversive spin on expertly informed country, tender torch songs of homoerotic desire and raw rock ’n’ roll decorated with his rich, sonorous voice. Peck may not want to show you his face, but here he’s happy to take you through his extraordinary debut, track by track. **Dead of Night** “This is a song about unrequited love. It\'s about being with somebody you know ultimately cannot give you what you want, and is only going to break your heart. But even just that is better than being without them, so you torture yourself with the inevitable demise. It was the first song I wrote for the album, and I wanted it to sound like something familiar, but something completely new as well. I wanted to provoke the kind of sensation of torturous nostalgia. I think we all go through somewhere where you remember a moment and you think that thinking about it is going to torture you, but you do it anyway, because we have this weird human nature of putting ourselves through emotional pain. That\'s kind of why I wanted the lonely guitar sound, and I wanted to go from very low to very high. I just wanted to give that same feeling sonically that the emotion is about in the song.” **Winds Change** “‘Winds Change’ is a song about traveling around not letting too much moss on your stone. I\'ve lived in many, many different countries, and I\'ve just felt like a drifter my entire life. The song is also about the things that you give up when you live that lifestyle. The benefits are adventure and freedom, but there are things—important things—that you have to leave behind.” **Turn to Hate** “I wrote the lyrics for this song about seven years ago when I was in a really low place. It\'s one of my favorite songs on the album. It\'s about the struggle I\'ve had feeling like an outsider and an outlaw my whole life and not letting that turn into resentment. Like I say in the song, ‘Don\'t let my sorrow turn to hate.’ Anyone who\'s ever felt like a weirdo should remember that is your power, and that\'s what makes you powerful and unique. This song is a mantra to remind myself not to let it go dark.” **Buffalo Run** “I’m not a very skilled technical musician, because I just teach myself everything I play. So I write all my music from a visual or emotive place. Here, I wanted to have my version of a driving train beat: I wanted it to feel like a stampede, essentially, so it needed to start peaceful and calm and slowly build and finally you get that release. I wanted it to feel cinematic. There’s a place in Alberta, Canada, I was thinking about called Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, which is this huge canyon where they would do buffalo runs. Canada’s indigenous people would essentially herd the buffalo off cliffs and then gather them. Every time we play it, I genuinely am picturing buffalo stampeding.” **Queen of the Rodeo** “This is about a Canadian drag queen friend of mine called Thanks Jem. It’s funny, because when we first met, we did not get along. But interestingly, she really taught me a lot about myself. She’s from a small town in Canada and moved to Vancouver to pursue her drag artistry. I wouldn’t want to speak on her behalf about her stories, but the general theme of the song is around pursuing something you love, and even if it’s maybe not as fruitful as you’d hoped, it’s the act of chasing what you love in the face of adversity that’s important.” **Kansas (Remembers Me Now)** “This is a tricky song to talk about, as it’s the only song on the record that isn’t connected to my own life. I don’t want to give it away because I’m always proud when someone figures it out and tells me their version. But I’ll give a couple hints: It’s a song about something pretty dastardly. It’s my murder ballad. They have a very long history in country music. It’s about a real-life murder story which also involves a very interesting kind of homoerotic romance. This is my ode to that.” **Old River** “I wrote this very shortly after the death of a family member. It’s a cathartic song for me that I wrote literally driving through the mountains in winter on the way to the studio. I wanted sonically for it to be what is known in Appalachian country as a field holler, which is a mix of the old haunting Appalachian mountain music with a gospel influence. The Carter Family would do it really well. I also wanted it to be just short enough to annoy people. It’s an uncomfortable song for me, and I wanted everyone listening to it to feel uncomfortable too.” **Big Sky** “I grew up a very chatty, outgoing person and I was always performing. I’ve never felt insecure, socially. But the older I’ve gotten, I’ve realized I’m a very closed person with regards to sharing things about myself—real things about myself. I never knew how closed I was for a long time. The song is about three relationships I’ve had, and the funny thing is people tend to think it’s about those people. It is, sort of, but all of the lyrics are actually me exposing my own shortcomings, exposing myself and my role in those relationships, rather than holding anyone else at fault. The second verse deals with a pretty tumultuous relationship that I was pretty fearful of and had never even talked to anybody about before. It’s a really liberating song, as somebody who internalizes a lot.” **Roses Are Falling** “A song about loving somebody so much that they drive you crazy. You know that being with them is not good for you, but at the same time maybe that’s what we all need every now and again. I wanted to give a nod to the era of Santo & Johnny—that pedal-steel Hawaiian influence which moved into country—with a cheeky twist.” **Take You Back (The Iron Hoof Cattle Call)** “There is a classic trope in country music that used to be known as hokum. It\'s funny, because I think it\'s—for people that don\'t really know country today—almost what gave country a stigma for being shallow. But there’s a long tradition in country to incorporate humor, wit, and Southern charm into the music. Dolly Parton is very famous for that, of course, and I love the very famous George Strait song called ‘All My Ex’s Live in Texas.’ So this is my hokum song with gunshots, whip cracks, and yeehaws. It’s a rootin’-tootin’ song about leaving somebody and that great feeling of telling them you’ll never take that back.” **Hope to Die** “Although I sing a lot about relationships, this is the only song on the album that’s about true heartbreak. It took a long time to record and I kept making revisions lyrically and to the production because I really wanted to capture a feeling within it. It was that feeling when you’re so at a loss that something fell apart. For me, it was that I was so heartbroken and spent months walking in slow motion. So I wanted to capture that sensation of feeling numb and watching the world pass you but all you can do is think about whatever it may be. It’s strange, because it’s almost a divine, serene feeling, but it’s so negative. It’s very still and peaceful, but it’s so very lonely. That serene unhappiness is something that I imagine people could probably get stuck in.” **Nothing Fades Like the Light** “This song is about the feeling of knowing something is coming to an end, and how that feeling can be more painful than when it does actually end. Embarrassingly, I still really choke up and cry in this song when I perform it. Which sounds conceited, but it’s not because I’m so moved by my performance. It’s very funny, as like I said earlier, I didn’t realize how closed I was emotionally for a very long time. A friend of mine passed away when I was quite young, and I remember being at the funeral and being incapable of crying. It dawned on me, ‘You know, I don’t cry very often. What makes me cry? Should I be crying? Do I feel things? Am I crazy?’ It’s nuts, because after that moment something clicked in my brain and I didn’t cry for about five or six years, at all. I think it became a compulsion where I just could not seem to cry. I eventually did, and it was actually a moment of bliss. Now I cry all the time.”

Combining the lulling ambiance of shoegaze with the iconic melodies and vocal prowess of classic American country music, outlaw cowboy, Orville Peck croons about love and loss from the badlands of North America. The resulting sound is entirely his own. He takes the listener down desert highways, through a world where worn out gamblers, road-dogs, and lovesick hustlers drift in and out of his masked gaze. Orville’s debut album, Pony, delivers a diverse collection of stories that sing of heartbreak, revenge and the unrelenting tug of the cowboy ethos. Warm lap steel guitars and echoing drums move through dreamy ballads and sometimes near frantic buzzsaw tunes - all the while paying homage to his country music roots. Pony’s lead single “Dead of Night” is a torch song about two hustlers traveling through Nevada desert. Their whirlwind romance takes us on a dusty trail of memories - racing down canyon highways, hitchhiking through casino towns and ultimately, ending in tragedy. Orville recalls the adventures of his young love, as he watches the boys silently pass him on the strip, haunted by the happy memories of his past. On the campfire lullaby, “Big Sky,” Orville sings about his past lovers - an aloof biker, an abusive boxer and an overly protective jailor in the Florida Keys - and the inevitable demise of each one, as he leaves them for the wide open, big sky. Meanwhile “Turn To Hate” finds Orville struggling to keep his resentment from building into hatred. A continuous battle between embracing the strength and freedom of being an outsider, and the inevitable struggle of wanting normalcy and familiarity. It encapsulates Orville's dilemma as a cowboy. He sings about having to constantly repair situations in his wake, and fighting with himself over his decision making. To stay or go; to cry or not; whether to leave without saying goodbye in order to soften the blow; All the while wishing someone would tell him that they "can't stay," and to make the decision for him. And “Buffalo Run” acts as a warning, a song built around the imagery of stampeding buffalo in the badlands of the Northern Plains. It’s one that begins peacefully enough but soon transcends into a kinetic charge that crescendos as the buffalo are headed off the cliffside. Pony was produced by Orville Peck, recorded and mixed by Jordan Koop at The Noise Floor on Gabriola Island, British Columbia and mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering in Montreal, Quebec.

Some of the most popular country singing of the 21st century has been animated with arena-scale energy or syncopated with rap-influenced cadences. Alabama’s Dee White stood apart from all of that the minute he opened his mouth, introducing himself on a 2018 EP as a college-age country crooner. Produced by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Nashville studio veteran David Ferguson, White’s aptly titled debut full-length, *Southern Gentleman*, showcases the melancholy finesse he can bring to rustic reminiscences (“Bucket of Bolts,” “Ol’ Muddy River”), genteel classic pop (“Under Your Skin,” “Tell the World I Do”), lushly orchestrated arrangements (“Rose of Alabam,” “Oh No”), and countrypolitan settings (“Crazy Man,” “Road That Goes Both Ways”). His singing partner on the latter song is the warmly expressive Ashley McBryde, while Alison Krauss, widely celebrated for her crystalline timbre, also appears on several tracks.

After a recording hiatus lasting more than a decade, Brooks & Dunn—the Country Music Hall of Famers who\'ve inspired not only the genre\'s modern duo resurgence but everyone from Kacey Musgraves to Ashley McBryde—are back. And this time, they have a few friends in tow: As Lionel Richie and Ronnie Milsap did before them, Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn have enlisted artists generations younger on re-recordings of their classic songs with the likes of Luke Combs, Kane Brown, Musgraves, and McBryde. The R&B influence or cosmic cowgirl sounds of these contemporaries might not feel like a natural fit with Brooks & Dunn\'s neotrad stylings, but it all works seamlessly—whether it\'s capturing the honky-tonk spirit alongside Midland on \"Boot Scootin\' Boogie\" or getting funky with Thomas Rhett on \"My Maria.\" *Reboot* might be built on the past, but in these 12 collaborations, it paints a direct line straight to the present—and positions them to head into whatever sort of future they can conjure up.

“This collection of 13 songs we could have never recorded before now,” Lady Antebellum’s Hillary Scott tells Apple Music, “because what we\'re talking about is just so present for us where we are.” A dozen years on from the band’s first hit, 2007’s “Love Don’t Live Here,” Scott and her bandmates Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood have a good sense of what suits them best. Their ballads—lustrous works of soft-rock theatricality whose male-female harmonies swell with melancholy yearning—were what initially put the trio on the map. Over time, the Lady A repertoire expanded to include burnished takes on homey folk and rhythm-powered party tunes and other textures that filtered into the country mainstream in the 2010s. But partnering with a new label, Big Machine, and a new producer, Dann Huff—one of Nashville’s leading studio architects of contemporary country pop—for their eighth studio album *Ocean* has given the group a chance to reflect and return to an emphasis on the emotive. “What got us to this point in the early years was just writing and recording what spoke to us,” Haywood tells Apple Music. “We really tried to capture that earlier sound that, I think, had people fall in love with us in the beginning.” Now, though, the trio members are bringing ardent sincerity not only to familiar themes of late-night desire and loneliness (see: the glossy, crescendoing heartache of “What If I Never Get Over You”) but to the strain and pleasure of sustaining longtime attachments. The band has always functioned as a songwriting collective, but, paradoxically, on what Kelley describes as a “more open and honest and vulnerable” album, the mixture of carefully selected outside material and group-penned originals is roughly half and half. The aim was to assemble songs that could be sung from a posture of soul-baring. “None of us are going through things that somebody else hasn\'t gone through,” Scott says. “I think to be brave enough to talk about it, that just builds connection between the three of us as a band and with our fans. Just to be able to put their own story into it, but then also feel like they\'re grasping a deeper understanding of who we are as artists.” Here, Lady Antebellum tells the stories behind some of *Ocean*\'s key tracks. **Be Patient With My Love** Charles Kelley: “It is my story over the past few years, just really kind of struggling with finding my direction and what I want out of this life. We\'d been a band for 12, 13 years, and I\'ve been married now for 10 years. You kind of get to this point where you\'re like, ‘All right, where is this going? Is it going to be the same?’ I just needed a reset, and around this time I really was struggling with my spirituality. I was struggling with my drinking, all of it, and just chasing after something. We were with \[co-writers\] Dave Barnes and Ben West at the time, and we started this song and it was this funny, fun, happy song that we wrote really fast. But I was like, ‘Something about this is not good enough. Let\'s write something real.’ And Dave Barnes just started strumming his guitar and the lyrics just poured out: ‘Might\'ve done it this time/I drank too much wine/I might\'ve said something that I can\'t take back.’ The irony is the lyric is saying, ‘I\'m coming back to my senses,\' but at the time I really wasn\'t. The reality of the song didn\'t come to fruition till about six months to a year after I wrote it. This is hands down the most vulnerable and open and honest I\'ve ever been in my songwriting.\" **Let It Be Love** CK: “It was shortly after that Hillary writes ‘Let It Be Love,’ which is another song about really owning some of your struggles and knowing that end of the day it\'s all about love and what we want our kids to learn from us. It really started this conversation of us not just trying to sit here and make a record of what we think are radio hits, but let\'s just make a record that speaks to us and we\'ll hopefully speak to the fans.” **Ocean** CK: “That\'s one of Hillary\'s most vulnerable vocals I\'ve ever heard from her.” Hillary Scott: “Ultimately what I hear in that lyric and what it makes me feel is just lonely. Like, this loneliness of the person you\'re with or the person you love being just really emotionally unavailable. But I\'ve seen people commenting about it on social media how it could be for substance abuse or depression or the ups and downs that people deal with in their life. And that\'s where everyone kind of makes it their own story and interprets it their own way. But for me, it\'s just seeing the beauty in someone else that they might not be able to see in themselves in that current season in this relationship, and begging for them to open up.” **What I’m Leaving For** CK: “It\'s about our lives, that pull we have as parents—this desire to go out and chase your dream, but still this guilt sometimes that you have leaving.” HS: “The first time we heard it, it stopped me in my tracks. Both my parents were traveling musicians, and a lot of my childhood, they were gone. They would be home a couple of days during the week, and they did exactly what we\'re doing now—they were in Reba McEntire\'s band. So when I listened to this song, not only am I that momma now, I was that kid. And so that extra perspective just laid me out on the floor. That song is so real for me, and I was really thankful for the opportunity to sing lead on it as a woman. Because times are changing now, and women have worked and been moms at the same time forever, but I think there\'s this platform that we have now as working moms to really say you can be passionate and driven and love the career and the work that you do and also be a fully engaged, dedicated mom—and to show my daughters that you can have both.”

Mainstream country\'s traditionalist revolution has reached a fever pitch with the new album from Justin Moore, *Late Nights and Longnecks*, and not just because Moore looks sharp in a cowboy hat. Full of slick, modern production—this isn\'t a record that is actually trying to sound old—Moore makes a case for catchy, contemporary twang with a savvy sheen. From expert party anthems (\"Why We Drink\") to rock-flavored odes to those lost in combat (\"The Ones That Didn\'t Make It Back Home\") to piano ballads with a bit of soulful swing (\"On the Rocks\"), Moore delivers a complete and comprehensive album with a song for almost every life moment—particularly if that life moment is experienced from a front porch or a fishing dock south of the Mason-Dixon. And yes, that cowboy hat sure looks sharp, too.

Lauren Jenkins\' debut LP begins with an explosion: the electric Southern rock barn-burner \"Give Up the Ghost,\" where the Texas-born songwriter pleads with her lover to leave the past behind. With a bit of a rasp to her vocals, Jenkins never seems to rely on studio sheen or sonic perfection; she melds a pop-country sensibility with influences from idols like Tom Petty to end up with songs like the candid, raw title track, while \"My Bar\" is a rambunctious party ode to claiming your territory when a romance is past its prime. Her voice is both solid and tender, and topped with personal, potent lyrics—moments like \"Running Out of Road\" evoke the intimate conversations of Taylor Swift yet still feel universal. \"I\'ve got a full tank of gas but my heart\'s on empty,\" she sings. It\'s endlessly relatable and, in sometimes overly manicured Nashville, refreshingly vulnerable, too.

“I am a really nostalgic person, even though I am only 29 years old,” Thomas Rhett tells Apple Music. And the country star\'s fourth album bears that out, from its title—the road Rhett grew up on—on down to deeply personal songs about his adolescence and his relationship with his wife, and even a love song dedicated to his first truck. But don\'t take our word for it—ride along as Rhett goes through the stories behind each track on the album. **“Up”** “I wrote this song with the same guys I wrote \'Unforgettable\' and \'Marry Me\' with, and it is basically about how you can’t expect to experience real highs in life if you haven’t also experienced the lows. The choir on this song is one my favorite things on the whole album, and I feel uplifted every time I hear them.” **“Don\'t Threaten Me With a Good Time”** “I think everyone knows what a huge Bruno Mars fan I am. I wrote this song with a production team called The Stereotypes, who wrote a number of the songs on Bruno’s *24K Magic* album, as well as with Karen Fairchild from Little Big Town. This is one of the most fun songs we get to play live, and having Little Big Town on a song with me has been a bucket list thing for a long time.” **“Blessed”** “I love \'50s-style doo-wop music, thanks to my grandmother exposing me to bands like The Drifters when I was a kid. That background definitely influenced songs like \'Sweetheart\' on my last album, and you could kind of consider this song a sister song to that track. People always tell me how lucky I am to have met my wife Lauren, and I really don’t like the word ‘lucky.’ I feel truly blessed to have her in my life, and this song is about that.” **“Look What God Gave Her”** “This is basically a song about thanking God for the amazing women in our lives. To me, it’s a celebration of all the things that make someone beautiful on the inside and the outside.” **“Center Point Road”** “I am a sucker for any movie that is about high school or college days, and this song kind of encapsulates the feeling of those times and roots it on Center Point Road, where I grew up and had so many of these life experiences. I’ve wanted to collaborate on a song with Kelsea Ballerini for a long time, and this one was just the perfect fit. We both had similar upbringings and could both really relate to the sentiment behind this song.” **“That Old Truck”** “This is a love song about my first vehicle. People laugh when I say that, but I mean it sincerely. I spent more time with that truck than I probably did with any human being. It saw me grow, saw me fall in love, saw me get my heart broken—it\'s impossible for me to sit behind the wheel of it and not have all these memories of my 16-year-old self come flooding back. If Center Point Road is the common thread that ties this album together, that truck was my constant companion as I navigated Center Point Road from one end to the other.” **“VHS”** “There is no hidden agenda to this one. It’s just a super fun, funky, uptempo summer jam that hopefully takes you to a beach in your mind when you hear it. I wrote this one with Amy Wadge, with whom I also wrote \'Center Point Road.\' Amy is an incredible writer, probably most well-known for writing songs like \'Thinking Out Loud\' and \'Castle on the Hill\' with Ed Sheeran.” **“Notice”** “I feel like I took a much deeper dive with the love songs on this album. You could be forgiven for thinking mine and my wife’s relationship is all butterflies and rainbows because of songs like \'Die a Happy Man\' and \'Unforgettable\'; this song hopefully lets you know that we have the same issues as any other couple, where life occasionally conspires to make us feel disconnected or like we’re not quite tracking with each other. Ultimately, it’s a reminder that we’re so connected we are actually seeing things that no one else sees, and that’s what is important.” **“Sand”** “I wrote this song with another country artist, Michael Hardy, who is doing great right now, and one of my producers, Jesse Frasure, who I have written a lot of my songs with over the years. I love deep songs that make you cry and make you think, but equally I love having a good time and forgetting about your worries. This song ticks that last box and is just about taking you to another place in your mind and letting you chill out for a few minutes.” **“Beer Can\'t Fix”** “This song was written with OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder and my producer Julian Bunetta, the same guys I wrote \'That Old Truck\' with, on the exact same day. The idea came out of Julian and I playing a terrible game of golf and deciding to crack open a couple of beers instead. Suddenly, we started playing much better golf, and Julian said something along the lines of \'I guess there ain’t nothing a beer can’t fix,\' and we both looked at each other and said, \'We have to write that.\'” **“Things You Do for Love”** “I have had this title in my phone since about 2015, but didn’t know where to take it until I was in a writing session one day with Jesse Frasure, Ashley Gorley, Luke Laird, and Josh Osborne and it suddenly clicked. Simply put, the song is about how there is nothing you won’t do for the person you love, whether it’s a simple gesture that you know will mean a lot to them, or you changing your whole life around to support them as they chase their dreams.” **“Remember You Young”** “This is the song that, when we wrote it, became the anchor for the whole record to me. *Center Point Road* is about nostalgia, and this song is about capturing those moments in time and always seeing individuals through that lens. I still hang out with my high school buddies, and no matter how old we get, I am always going to see them as the same 16-year-old guys I went through so many of my life experiences with. The same is true of my wife, and now has taken on a whole new dimension with my kids.” **“Don\'t Stop Drivin\'”** “I had a song on my album Life Changes called \'Renegades\' that tapped into my love of Tom Petty, and this song does the same thing on this album. I wrote this knowing I wanted to play it in my live show at some point, and in the short term it makes me want to roll my windows down and just drive somewhere, just for the sake of driving and blasting it out of the speakers.” **“Barefoot”** “My dad had the idea for this song when he was at one of my shows and he saw a woman who had basically taken off her shoes and created her own dance floor, and didn’t care who was watching. It immediately reminded me of my wife and how if we’re out at a wedding or something and her song comes on, she’s heading for the dance floor.” **“Dream You Never Had”** “This is one of the hardest songs I have written, because it’s always difficult as an artist to write about being an artist without feeling like no one will be able to relate to it. But I think this song transcends the specifics of whatever it is we all do for a living or what kind of lives we lead. It’s a song about the sacrifice present, I think, in every relationship, where one partner gives so much of themselves to support the dreams of the other. It’s super personal to my story with my wife, but I have been blown away by how many people from all different walks of life have found their own stories inside of it.” **“Almost”** “This is my ‘sliding doors song,\' to paraphrase Brené Brown. This is about all the successes and failures that forced me left instead of right, and vice versa, and brought me to exactly where I am today, and how I wouldn’t change any of them for the world.”