We won’t officially know until Sunday (March 12) how big Morgan Wallen’s new album, the super-sized One Thing at a Time, will debut on the Billboard 200, but we know the 36-track set is already a blockbuster.
As of Wednesday (March 8), the 36 tracks have accumulated 315 million on-demand streams, already the biggest week for any 2023 album, according to Luminate. In its first four days, OTAAT surpassed the 240 million tally hit by Wallen’s 2021 album, Dangerous: The Double Album, in its first full week.
The album, which features collaborations with Eric Church, HARDY and ERNEST, was culled from 42 songs to its final 36 tracks.
“The songs just kind of naturally came in,” Wallen previously told Billboard. One Thing at a Time producer Joey Moi added, “It seemed like the more we cut, the more songs would show up. So it just kept piling up.”
Moi also noted Wallen’s involvement in the studio has become deeper with each album release.
“The first record, in a budding career [from a] new artist is weird, you kind of get stripped of all your time to make the record, so we really panicked our way through that one,” Moi said. “He was on tour, and then we would cut the songs together in the studio, and then he’d go off on tour. I’d squirrel away and work on the music getting ready for him to come back. He’d sing like six songs in one day. It was that process. Second record, we were able to engineer the calendar a little better but he was still heavy in obligations [but] he was present for way more than the first record. This one I feel like we nailed the calendar, and he was there for every moment of it. It was amazing having him in the room the whole time with me.”
Upon the album’s March 3 release, we picked the top 10 tunes, but now we’re back to rank all 36 songs on the Moi-produced set, from the least to the greatest.
One of the rap-influenced tracks on the set with trap beats and rapid-fire lyric delivery (or as rapid-fire as Wallen gets), the song recalls early Florida Georgia Line above all else and may be good for a hell-raising night but feels by the numbers. Listen here.
Like many songs on the album, “F150-50” takes a clever idea—in this case, taking the popular Ford truck name and using it as the vehicle his ex leaves in, but also to say the chances are “F150-50” that she’s coming back. It’s fun, but ultimately, unlike the popular truck, goes nowhere. Listen here.
One of the several rap-influenced tunes, the programmed drums and synths details how Wallen’s girl has done a complete 180 turnaround since coming into his world. She’s gone from a “Broadway city girl” to a “red dirt wild child” and she’s not mad about it. Listen here.
In what some folks are wondering is an answer to Megan Moroney’s “Tennessee Orange”— though he switches the woman’s allegiance from Georgia to Alabama — Wallen converts a die-hard Alabama fan to a Tennessee Volunteer after just one night together in this story song. Listen here.
Country music is filled with song titles taken from artists’ names: Taylor Swift’s “Tim McGraw” and Eric Church’s “Springsteen” to name two. Here, Wallen throws in a number of Whitley song or album titles, including “I’m No Stranger to the Rain,” “Kentucky Bluebird” and even “Miami, My Amy” as he drinks over her memory and laments that “The things I love got a way of gettin’ gone too soon/kinda like good whiskey, Keith Whitley and you.” Listen here.
For non-baseball fans, the ’98 Atlanta Braves mounted a comeback during the playoffs, but ultimately lost to the San Diego Padres. In this mid-tempo track, Wallen compares his relationship to the Braves and, similarly, coming up short despite giving it his best. Listen here.
Nature is where many people feel closest to God and Wallen and HARDY are no different in this sweet, guitar-driven ode. “Can’t get no closer to the Man upstairs/Than way out there, where the river runs,” they sing. But they admit, they may be spending too much time on old barstools instead of reading “them words in red,” but somehow these country boys will survive. Listen here.
There are some lovely adjectival descriptions here from his “dead grass drive” to her “hand-me-down earrings,” that instantly paint a picture of what life was like before she left — and the sadness that has followed as the days blur into each other. “It’s been nights that start with whiskey/ and days that end in why,” with no answer forthcoming. Listen here.
Wallen celebrates his southern and athletic bonafides in this gently chugging track, celebrating that he “wrote the book” when it comes to those his skills. However, when it comes to obeying the Bible and being an expert at following the rules therein, that’s “one book I didn’t write,” he ruefully admits. Listen here.
There’s something about a cowgirl in this easy-going, heavily programmed track that features Wallen with one of his besties. They marvel at the “never gonna settle on down girls,” who may leave you sorry they left, but never sorry that they came into your life, even if it’s only for a short while. Listen here.
In the time-honored country tradition, Wallen’s keeping company with “Jack and Jim” after he just “took a hook on my heartbreak chin.” He’s looking for a little consolation from his liquid “friends,” with the aid of Whitley and Jones on the jukebox on this catchy track. Listen here.
In this loping, steel-guitar driven track, she may have left him, but he’s not crying over her departure. She was high class while he was, by her account, white trash and never the twain shall meet. That’s just fine, as he sings, “when you say that I ain’t ever gonna find nobody just like you/Well, I hope that’s true.” Listen here.
Tailor-made for a cinematic video, this mid-tempo ballad shares the tale of how the protagonist’s ex used to have a photo of them together at her sister’s wedding as her screen saver, but now “It’s just some ocean waves.” He laments that he’ll never get the chance to apologize because he knows “she quit taking calls from Tennessee numbers.” Listen here.
A lyrically clever tale of how God created the earth and man and woman, but it took a man to make a bar so men have a place to go when women break their hearts. Church sings harmony and then grabs a verse of his own on this twangy tune, but it feels like a little bit of a wasted opportunity that he’s not featured more prominently, especially given Wallen’s adoration of Church. Listen here.
If you’re looking for a good time, Wallen’s your man in this swirling song, but if you’re looking for “a soft place to land/arms you can trust,” he’s not the one. There’s something to be said for the self-awareness displayed in the lyrics. He’s pretty believable when he says, “honestly, I wouldn’t put my money on me.” Listen here.
Via a hypnotizing melody, Wallen sings directly to a past lover who isn’t in the past as much as her new boyfriend may think. No matter where she and her new man go, Wallen’s ghost is there. “Do you hide your phone/did you change my name,” he asks, even wondering “when you’re up in his bed/am I up in your head making you crazy?” He knows the answer is yes. Listen here.
Unlike “Ain’t That Some,” where the rap intonations don’t work, they enhance the insinuating “Sunrise.” Handclaps and undulating synth programming bolster the strong lyrics. He broke up with her aw hile ago, but just like the sunrise, she “keeps coming up…at 8 a.m.,9 a.m./ all the way to 10 pm when my day ends.” Listen here.
In this guitar-drenched tale boasting unusual vocal inflections and one of the album’s catchier melodies, Wallen falls off the love wagon when his ex walks into the bar, “burnin’ hotter than a bourbon with no water.” He compares her to drink that he can’t resist: “You’re another shot that I shouldn’t knock bad, but damn, baby,” he sings, helpless to resist her spell. Listen here.
Wallen figures he’s just the perfect remedy to a woman who’s lost her way romantically in this fun ditty. He’s not promising he’s Mr. Right, but he might be Mr. Right Now as he declares, “You’ve been locked down for a while/You want some more wild and free/I don’t know who you’re waiting on but/kinda sounds like me to me.” Listen here.
Wallen cuts bait on a relationship that has turned sour in this acoustic guitar-based ballad. They are fighting more than loving and no matter how much they talk, they can’t find their way back to the good times. “I knew what I had when I had it, but, girl, I’ve had it,” a done Wallen sings. Listen here.
Wallen’s latest No. 1 on Hot Country Songs—and the third already from the album— is a finger-snapping mid-tempo track with an undeniable synth line. “You call your mama/I call your bluff,” a cocky Wallen sings, confident that last night was definitely not their last night together, even though she left him staring at her taillights as she left in a blaze of anger. Listen here.
The penultimate track is a highly autobiographical track that features Wallen’s sister singing harmony, as he revels in his changed outlook from his destructive ways to more upbeat now that he’s realized “someone’s up there/lookin’ down and lookin’ out for me.” Clearly written on a good day, Wallen feels nothing but gratitude as he’s emerged “on the flip side of crazy.” Listen here.
With its gentle acoustic guitar intro, “Good Girl” is sobering, but catchy tale of Wallen blaming another failed relationship on “good whiskey/bad decisions.” Even though he knows better, it’s a “new story/same ending.” The listener benefits from the protagonist not learning from his mistakes with this well-rendered track. Listen here.
The first No. 1 on Country Airplay from the album, “You Proof” relies on finger-snaps, a buzzy synth line and sharp production that draws in the listener as Wallen complains that the whiskey ain’t working as he drinks to forget his lost love. No matter how much he imbibes, can’t find something that’s “You proof.” Listen here.
No one is harder on Wallen than Wallen and on this twangy tune, even he is sick of his actions. His girlfriend has left and he can’t blame her. Between the “Copenhagen, whiskey straight, and empty bottle, promise breakin’,” there was no room for her in his life. Now that she’s gone, he’s still not alone, since all the reasons she headed out still swirl around him. Listen here.
Wallen is the one leaving in this musically upbeat but lyrically down tune. He takes one last spin around town before he heads for the outskirts as looks into the future and sees his ex telling her friends she’s fine but dreaming of him and the memories they made. Listen here.
Grab your boots and get ready to do a slow two-step to this finger-snapping tune that would sound right at home on a Thomas Rhett album. His girl’s gone and he’s gone straight to the local watering hole to drown his sorrows. He’s “wishin’ on a neon star” hanging behind the bar that “there’s a u-turn in your car” and she’ll return home. “Neon Star (Country Boy Lullaby)”Listen here.
After pulling the listener down to the depths of his despair, Wallen closes the set on an optimistic tone, letting us know he’s found happiness and he’s no longer “bound to hit a wall before I ever hit the brakes.” Though he once thought just as “Codeine it got Elvis /Whiskey it got Hank,” he’d find a similar premature fate, he’s found a love that has brought him contentment and a reason to live. Maybe it’s coincidence that the song opens with a guitar intro nearly identical to “Born With A Beer In My Hand,” but it feels like Wallen is bringing the listener full circle. Listen here.
This genial ode is Wallen’s second Hot Country Songs chart topper from One Thing At A Time, following “You Proof.” But the two songs couldn’t be more different. Written by Wallen with Nicolle Galyon and Miranda Lambert, this track, bolstered by the great Paul Franklin’s steel playing, is his end of a phone conversation with his mother while he’s on tour. Wallen’s eager to let her know that “all those prayers you thought you wasted on me/must’ve finally made their way through.” Listen here.
Written by Wallen with buddy HARDY and Zach Abend, the album opener sets a tone that runs through much of the release: Wallen wrestling with his alcohol-fueled dark side. Here, as he catalogs how he comes from a long line of drinkers, he also paints a picture of someone trying to stay in the light no matter the temptation as he embraces sobriety, at least for a while: “I ain’t saying I swore it off for good/I’m just sayin’ I’m doing the best I can,” he sings in this mid-tempo swayer. Listen here.
In a song that could be part two of “Neon Star,” Wallen wraps his vocals around this woeful tale of regret as he waits on the porch for his love to return so he can apologize and they can sink into the bottle he’s brought. Country lyrics are known for their clever word play and this song is no exception as Wallen hopes to put their problems behind them “and turn this wine into water under the bridge.” Listen here.
Wallen is charmingly confident as he woos a woman in a bar who’s possibly been stood up by her beau, and by the time they say good night, he’s liking his odds that he may soon be the replacement: “I ain’t sayin’ her and her man’s got any plans on breakin’ up/But I tell you what/She’s a little more single than she was,” he boasts as the track progresses. Listen here.
Wallen, who co-wrote the song, kicks it old school country on this chugging tune framed by solid slide guitar. Though the melody is ridiculously bouncy (think Kenny Rogers in the mid-‘80s), Wallen is shattered that he can’t go to any of his old haunts or enjoy his old lifestyle because everything reminds him of the gal who broke his heart. An interpolation of The Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider” includes several lyrical references to “one more silver dollar.” Listen here.
Just try not to sing along to this toe-tapping tune that features one of the most infectious melodies that Wallen has ever recorded. It’s pure pop — so much so that it feels like it should be played back-to-back with Kelsea Ballerini’s similar earworm “Heartfirst.” But since it’s Wallen, there’s no joy, only the acknowledgement that if he’s going to have to give up his ex, he can’t relinquish his cigarettes and liquor, too. “If you ain’t gonna kiss me/Then I’ll take some whiskey,” he sings. Facing her loss sober is a bridge too far. Listen here.
Written by Jessi Alexander, Mark Holman and Chase McGill, the introspective “Don’t Think Jesus” features Wallen’s strongest vocal delivery on the album as he slides from a growl to a falsetto, taking on the persona of a boy living life way too fast who realizes he’s moved far from Jesus’s teachings even when it comes to turning the other cheek: “World likes to rear back and throw a few stones / So boy wants to throw a few stones of his own / But Lord knows I ain’t perfect, and it ain’t my place / And I don’t think Jesus done it that way.” Listen here.
This ballad, written by Travis Denning, Jared Mullins and Ben Stennis, highlights what Wallen does best—wallow in love’s misery. “I’ve been tryin’ to drown these demons, but damn if they don’t swim,” he sings of the knowledge that the one he loves is with someone else sinks in. “Even the devil don’t know this kind of hell,” he sings convincingly. Listen here.