Country
Three years after initially earning a top 20 pop hit on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 as part of the duo Surfaces, singer-songwriter Forrest Frank began to compile contemporary Christian music hits. He’s become one of the genre’s fastest-rising artists, melding elements of pop, hip-hop and gospel on songs such as “No Longer Bound,” a collaboration with Hulvey, which cracked the top 20 on Billboard‘s Hot Christian Songs chart. But it’s the ebullient, summer-ready “Your Way’s Better” that becomes Frank’s first solo Hot 100 entry — the hit has reached a No. 61 high on the chart and crowns Hot Christian Songs for the first time this week (charts dated May 24). Meanwhile, his recent team-up with country artist Thomas Rhett, “Nothing Else,” resides at No. 4 on the same chart.
Frank originally released the pop-inflected “Your Way’s Better” in October 2024, but the song’s success was spurred by TikTok momentum earlier this year, thanks to a viral TikTok dance that both resonated with fans — and took Frank, then on a social media hiatus, by surprise.
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In the past year, Frank has released music at a dizzying speed, stoking fervor in the industry and his growing fan base. His July 2024 album, Child of God, was nominated for a Grammy for best contemporary Christian music album and nominated for top Christian album at the Billboard Music Awards. By that November, he returned with a deluxe version of the album; on May 9, he released its follow-up, Child of God II. The two installments currently hold Nos. 1 and 2 on Top Christian Albums, with his more recent project leading the chart.
“That’s kind of a theme for me in my career,” Frank tells Billboard, calling while on the road during the second part of his sold-out Child of God tour. “I love pushing the boundaries, and I feel like my career is busting myths.”
Below, Frank talks about “Your Way’s Better,” Child of God II and Christian music’s current Hot 100 surge.
How did “Your Way’s Better” come about?
I was having a hard day and had gone for a drive. I remember pulling into my neighborhood and that chorus came spilling out. It was just a prayer that ended up having a melody with it. I recorded a voice memo of it on my phone and didn’t do anything with it for a few months. Then, backstage at [Frank’s 2024 Child of God tour], I pulled out my laptop and produced the beat for it. Then, my producer friend PERA came out to a session and we were jamming on this song and I said, “What if you play something kind of somber?” He starts playing it, and I freestyled the melody [and] some of the words that ended up on the track.
You released “Your Way’s Better” last October, but a dance that went viral on TikTok and social media helped boost it. How did that happen?
It was my 12th- or 13th-highest streaming song at a daily rate — it was not making a big splash. There’s a couple, David Myers and Bridgette [Nicole], and they post a new dance almost every day to different songs, and it was one they did [in February]. What’s interesting is that I was taking a social media break — I had posted maybe three times in a four-month period. At first, I didn’t really engage with it, but then I saw a significant jump in my streams. I’m seeing these kids doing the dance, and it’s kind of like this vacation Bible school type thing, [learning] the dance to go with the song and do the hand motions and stuff. It is like that energy, but not in an enclosed church space. It just kind of feels like it’s across the whole world.
You just released your new album, Child of God II, on May 9, just 10 months after Child of God, and six months after its deluxe edition. Why did you want to drop another full album so soon?
They say you have to upload a song about a month before it comes out to make sure that all the distributing partners have enough time to add it to playlists and can properly program. I remember a year or two ago thinking, “Is that really the case?” So, I uploaded music closer to the deadline, like 48 hours before a release and it made it on [Spotify playlist] New Music Friday.
With Child of God, I had a song with Connor Price called “Up!” and that splashed and two weeks later, we released “Good Day,” which became the next biggest one. We kept dropping songs every two weeks because that’s the pace I was writing music. Rather than hold back music for months, why not just put everything out there and see what happens? I feel like life is short: My time and moment is finite to a degree, so if I’m excited about these songs and the fans are excited, why would I hold stuff back?
There are a lot of crossover efforts between contemporary Christian music and country happening now, such as your collaboration with Thomas Rhett on “Nothing Else.” Why do you think that’s the case?
I think including God is pretty common in country music, [but] I’ve noticed that transition in my heart and the fullness I get to experience in praising God specifically. I think the country space is starting to feel that as well. I could see in the next year or two, a lot of the A-list country artists just making straight-up Christian worship songs.
With Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll’s “Hard Fought Hallelujah” also on the Hot 100, what’s your take on the surge in Christian music’s popularity?
I think it’s just the people. Yes, it’s the artists who are expressing their genuine love for God, but also, it’s the consumers that are supporting it and championing it. With my tour, there’s this family thing going on: We didn’t expect for families to come to the show, but “Your Way’s Better” has become the music for the car ride, the music on the way to school. It was like an invisible market. I knew that there was kind of a starving family market, but here it is.
A version of this story appears in the May 17, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Sometimes, a serendipitous moment happens while writing a song that in hindsight seems like it was just meant to be.
Such is the case was with Scotty McCreery’s new single “Bottle Rockets,” which features Hootie & the Blowfish revisiting their breakthrough hit, 1994’s “Hold My Hand.”
McCreery was with songwriting buddies and producer Frank Rogers at his cabin in the North Carolina mountains for a writing retreat. There were six inches of snow on the ground when thoughts turned to warmer times and the soundtracks to their memories of summers past.
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“I had mentioned how much I loved Hootie & the Blowfish, and Frank being from South Carolina and a frequent collaborator with Darius [Rucker] knew exactly what to do with that,” McCreery says. “We started strumming the tune that would eventually become ‘Bottle Rockets,’ and at the end of the makeshift chorus we had at that point, Frank went into ‘Hold My Hand.’ It fit like a glove. Everyone was laughing and high-fiving because we knew we were on to something. The song really just spilled out from there.”
“Bottle Rockets,” which came out last Friday (May 16) and was added to more than 100 country radio stations’ playlists, is a mid-tempo, nostalgic slice of summers past — with McCreery fondly recalling a time with a young love at the beach, feet in the sand, beer in hand and playing “Hold My Hand” on the guitar. And, as if by magic in the song, Rucker and his bandmates’ voices appear, rising up like a swelling wave. It feels like the perfect summer jam.
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McCreery reached out to Rucker — and then Rogers also reached out to Rucker and the rest of the band about being on the record. “To be honest, I was nervous to ask them about this song, because ‘Hold My Hand’ has to be one of their babies,” McCreery says. “I knew I loved how the song came out, but I obviously couldn’t be sure what they would think until they heard it. I was very glad to hear each one of the guys loved ‘Bottle Rockets’ and were very open to the idea of getting back in the studio and being on this song with me. You should have seen the smile on my face when I got that text back.”
Hootie drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld tells Billboard he was surprised at how well the songs fit together. “I was certainly intrigued to see how ‘Hold My Hand’ would be woven into a contemporary song,” he says. “It’s not an easy task to do it tastefully. But geez! It truly sounds like all the parts were meant to be together when you hear the single.”
Any idea of sampling the original song was never really considered. “Frank Rogers knows Hootie & the Blowfish come from the old school, and we were gonna want to get in there and sing our own parts the old-fashioned way,” Sonefeld says.
“I’m not sure much thought was ever even given to just sampling the song,” McCreery says. “The thought in my head was always how cool it would be if the whole gang got back in the studio and sang ‘Hold My Hand’ for the song.”
Once the band agreed, it came together quickly. Almost too quickly, McCreery says. “Mark [Bryan], Dean [Felber] and Soni actually called us while we were in the studio tracking for the new EP and said, ‘We’re all together right now at the studio. Can we just record right now?’ We hadn’t even recorded the song yet,” McCreery says. “So, we got our band together real quick to find a tempo and a key, gave that to them, and they recorded their parts for ‘Bottle Rockets’ before ‘Bottle Rockets’ was ever even recorded.”
Sonefeld, Bryan and Felber recorded their parts at Bryan’s studio on the South Carolina coast. “Luckily, we were still nice and warmed up from our 2024 Hootie tour,” Sonefeld says. “Heck, we’ve all sang those parts so many times I think we could do it in our sleep.”
Rucker was in Nashville from London, where he now lives, and recorded his part in Rogers’ home studio, where McCreery does his vocal recordings as well. “Frank sent me a clip of D singing in the booth and I could tell it was just going to be killer,” McCreery says.
Sonefeld brought “Hold My Hand” to Hootie & the Blowfish when he joined the band in the early ‘90s, and it’s been the delight of his life to see it travel the world. “If you would have told me in 1989 when I wrote ‘Hold My Hand’ that the song would later be sung by our fans at concerts from South Carolina to South Africa to Australia to Ireland, and all around the globe, I’d have told you that you’re a big liar,” he says. “Heck, if you told me I’d be in a band named Hootie & the Blowfish I would have told you the same thing!”
McCreery was less than a year old when “Hold My Hand” was a hit — but growing up in North Carolina, Hootie & the Blowfish (who are from neighboring South Carolina) were practically in McCreery’s DNA.
“Being born and raised in the Carolinas, Hootie & the Blowfish is really just a part of the culture here,” he says. “Their music was always around when I was growing up. It was on the radio, in the background at restaurants, you would hear their songs at sporting events or the DJ would play their songs when everyone was on the dance floor at weddings. You couldn’t and still can’t really go anywhere without hearing them somewhere. In college was probably when I started jamming to them the most. I never performed their songs live, but I’m sure I’ve held a beer can up like a microphone and gave my friends a rousing performance of “Only Wanna Be With You” a time or two.”
Though McCreery is friendly with the band, his main connection is Rucker, with whom he shares a warm friendship. “Darius and I have golfed a bunch together — he normally wins, but I’ve gotten him a time or two — and football also is something we bond over,” McCreery says. “We’re in the same fantasy football league, and then we love to talk smack about college sports as well. He is a big [University of South Carolina] Gamecock fan, and I’m a [North Carolina State University] Wolfpack guy. D is full of stories and has shared lots of knowledge and wisdom with me over the years. Whether it be in a golf cart or on a ferry ride through the night from Dublin to London, I’m all ears anytime I’m around him trying to soak up some of that knowledge.”
McCreery’s biggest challenge has been trying to figure out how to replicate the song live, which he did for the first time this past weekend. “At the moment, I’m having my band singing the ‘Hold My Hand” hook lines and I’m singing most of Darius’ lines myself,” he says. “It’s working, and the crowds have given us a great response to it live. We may change how we do it as the summer goes on, potentially utilizing the video wall we have on the road, but for the moment, that’s what we are doing.”
Or maybe he can just reach out to his friends. “Give us a call if you need some background vocalists,” Sonefeld jokes, but seriously adds he is thrilled with the result and that a new generation may hear “Hold My Hand.” “It’s a timeless message about lifting each other up during difficult times,” he says. “And I think a younger audience will really vibe on that.”
Hunched over a paper plate piled with oysters and snow crab legs, I realized I hadn’t worn a shirt now in two days. The sun was setting on day two of the first-ever Sand in My Boots festival, hosted on the beach of Gulf Shores, Alabama—part of the stretch of Florida/Alabama Gulf Coast sometimes referred to as the “Redneck Riviera.” Since 2010, this weekend in May has been reserved for the Hangout Music Festival, a more generalized three-day beach bash whose previous headliners included Travis Scott, The Weeknd and Lana Del Rey. But this time was something different: a complete takeover curated by Morgan Wallen, the 32-year-old country superstar whose 37-track fourth album, I’m The Problem, dropped on the fest’s opening day.
Borrowing its name from the opening song on Wallen’s first blockbuster (2021’s Dangerous: The Double Album, the first album in history to spend at least 100 weeks in the top 10 of the Billboard 200), Sand in My Boots arrives as the high-water mark of the artist-curated festival. You could call the lineup that Wallen hand-picked “country-oriented,” though its details might surprise an old-school genre purist. Just past the three-day fest’s headliners (the newly roots-y Post Malone, country stalwarts Brooks & Dunn and Wallen himself) are an array of acts which suggest that, at a moment when country music’s bigger than it’s been in decades, its once strict boundaries are more porous than ever. Among rising country stars like Bailey Zimmerman and Ella Langley are a slew of rappers—some newer (like BigXthaPlug), some veterans (2 Chainz and Memphis icons Three 6 Mafia), though nearly all of them are Southern. Then there’s a handful of indie rock bands (The War on Drugs, Wild Nothing, Future Islands) which might seem comically random, were it not for the fact that Wallen’s been a champion of them for years.
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“When the idea of Sand in My Boots started becoming a reality, it was extremely important to me to build a festival of artists that I enjoy and listen to regularly,” Wallen told Billboard by email last week. “We didn’t come up with this idea trying to fill a gap, but I believe that is what we have done. We created a festival that was centered around my country culture and that just so happens to include a variety of sounds.” Whatever you want to call the Sand in My Boots vibe, all 40,000 tickets sold out in less than two hours last October. (Three-day G.A. passes started at $549, while VIP packages ranged upwards of $5,000, and private luxury cabanas by the main stage were even steeper.)
I’d arrived in Alabama’s gulf coast on Thursday afternoon, whispering “Get me to God’s country!” to the alarmingly small plane that would take me from Houston to Mobile, followed by a 2.5-hour drive to Gulf Shores. And Gulf Shores is, indeed, God’s country, if on the fourth day, God invented Zyn, the fifth day, Michelob Ultra, and on the sixth day, he declared, “Let there be scantily clad women walking barefoot in the street!” (Just across from the fest’s shuttle depot is a historic landmark: the world’s smallest Hooters restaurant.) Sand in My Boots’ two stages sit at either end of a pristine stretch of white sand beachfront along a body of water whose name no one can seem to agree on: while the festival’s website offers the opportunity to “cool off in the Gulf of Mexico between sets,” several dozen t-shirts and trucker hats I spy on attendees throughout the weekend proudly proclaim “GULF OF AMERICA SINCE 2025.”
Though I’m a fan of country music, both old-school and new, I also happen to be a Midwestern woman whose wardrobe is mostly black. This means that not only did I stick out like a sore thumb among the sea of body glitter, mesh cover-ups, star-spangled bikinis, ruffled mini-skirts, Hawaiian shirts, baseball jerseys, abundant camouflage, and yes, cowboy boots, I also cultivated the worst sunburn of my life within roughly 40 minutes of my arrival on day one. (“The sun reflects off the sand and makes it even worse!” explained a shirtless man in a mustache and a trucker hat that read “COUNTRY MUSIC TITTIES & BEER,” wincing at the two-tone paint job of my tan lines.)
Nevertheless, White Claw in hand, I set out to investigate the beachfront offerings between the stages, where a foam party was going off behind the Monster Energy Beach Club. Farther along, a man with a mustache and a microphone stood outside a makeshift chapel labeled “Love Somebody Lane,” soliciting passerbys: “Anybody wanna get married? It’s free!” (It’s more of a photo opp than a legally binding matter, he explained when I asked further: “Hell, we don’t even ask for their last names!”) All the festival grounds’ offerings are loosely Morgan Wallen-themed, from the 7 Summers Sandbar to the Up Down Cap n’ Gown (where you can collect a gift, should you have chosen Sand in My Boots over your graduation ceremony) to the booths hawking a zero sugar ice tea brand “crafted by Morgan Wallen,” to the “Field & Stream 1871 Club” pop-up, where you can subscribe to the magazine Wallen bought with Eric Church last year.
Just after twilight on night one, a throng of girls in t-shirts printed “MORGY HARDY POSTY” were buzzing around the sandy margins of the main stage, where Hardy was preparing to perform. You either know the Mississippi native from his solo material, which often draws from rock and nu-metal despite its outlaw themes, or from the endless stream of hits he’s co-written for other artists under his full name, Michael Hardy. (You’ll find his name throughout the credits of Wallen’s discography, from 2017’s “Up Down” to I’m the Problem.) Emerging onstage barefoot in camo shorts and a Death Row Records t-shirt, Hardy’s set epitomized the omnivorous sound of country today: thrashed out with a full rock band, songs like “Truck Bed” and “Psycho” felt more like mosh-pit fodder. Thematically, there was less ambiguity: “I believe America is the greatest country in the world,” he bellowed as an introduction to 2019’s “God’s Country.” “And if you don’t agree, go get a f–kin’ beer!”
On the other end of the beach, T-Pain’s set was starting; the 40-year-old former Auto-Tune maverick has been slowly but steadily embraced by country fans since his 2023 cover of “Tennessee Whiskey.” (In fact, as he shared with me last year, the Florida native lived in Nashville in the mid-2010s, ghostwriting songs for Luke Bryan, Toby Keith and Florida Georgia Line.) But having seen his set extensively, I re-upped my cocktail (a vodka/lemonade/iced tea concoction named after the golfer John Daly) and settled in for the headlining set from Post Malone, who made his official jump to country with last year’s F-1 Trillion, fulfilling the promise of a 2015 tweet: “WHEN I TURN 30 IM BECOMING A COUNTRY/FOLK SINGER.” A cynic might read the pivot as opportunistic, but so far, I’ve been charmed by Posty’s country crossover: he’s got the voice, demeanor and goodwill to fit seamlessly into the Nashville scene, where face tattoos are no longer frowned upon, thanks to Jelly Roll.
I might add that Post didn’t look half-bad in his boot-cut jeans and cut-off Cowboys jersey, strutting and shimmying down the runway through the crowd as he performed slightly rootsier versions of old hits (“White Iverson,” “Circles”) and twangier album cuts like “Wrong Ones” and “M-E-X-I-C-O.” “I came here tonight to play some sh-tty music and party a little bit while we do it!” he crowed, sitting down at one point to pull off his cowboy boots and pace the stage barefoot. Mostly, the 29-year-old just seemed happy to be there, hyping up his nine-piece band and thanking the audience profusely between every song. Beside me in the sand along stage left, a sunburnt six-year-old girl mouthed every word of “Losers” from her perch on her dad’s shoulders: “Last callers, last chancers, 9-to-5ers, truckers, dancers…”
My day-old sunburn was feeling borderline psychedelic on Saturday afternoon, but the idea of putting a shirt over my bikini just seemed wrong, particularly on a perfectly balmy 80 degree day. So I slathered on some sunscreen, chugged some water (plus a mysterious blue cocktail billed as “Electric Lemonade”) and made my way past rows of booths selling “Cowboy Nachos,” “Boot-Scootin’ Smoothies,” and discounted cans of Zyn (Sand in My Boots’ preferred nicotine delivery unit) towards the Dangerous Stage, where all of the day’s rappers were performing. First up was BigXthaPlug, the 27-year-old Dallas native with a booming voice and offensive lineman build who’s spent the past few years putting Texas rap back on the map. I was initially unsure how songs like “Mmhmm” and “Levels” would go over with an early afternoon crowd rocking t-shirts that read “SLAMMIN’ BUSCH & POUNDIN’ TUSH” and “EVERYTHING I LOVE IS ILLEGAL, OFFENSIVE, OR BRUNETTE” (plus one fellow who’d fashioned the box of a Twisted Tea 12-pack into a hat). But far more people than I expected rapped along to every word, not to mention lost their minds as X stripped off his shirt to the sounds of “All The Way (Don’t Let Me Down Easy),” his collab with Bailey Zimmerman that debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 last month.
“Ooohh, I wanna see Three 6 Mafia!” shrieked a woman in stars-and-stripes booty shorts and a MAGA trucker hat to her husband, who was costumed in Hulk Hogan wrestling attire. It is almost unthinkable the extent to which the Memphis rap group have parlayed their hellish beats and eldritch lyrics into a wildly influential 35-year career, which has brought 48-year-old DJ Paul and 50-year-old Juicy J here to incite a beachfront riot. “Can we do a mosh pit?!” coaxed Juicy J to the stabs of 1997’s “Hit A Mothaf-cka.” “I ain’t never seen a mosh pit in the sand before,” noted DJ Paul above the fray, beginning a chant: “When I say ‘WEAK ASS,’ y’all say ‘BITCH!’” “We got anybody in here from jail? DUI last night, straight from jail?” he continued with a grin. “Anybody from the hospital? Anybody from rehab?”
Sand in My Boots Festival
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Across the beach, I caught the tail end of the set from Riley Green, the 36-year-old Alabama native whose baseball player-esque good looks and horny new single, “Worst Way,” have combined to make him the festival’s unofficial heartthrob. (“SAVE A HORSE, RIDE RILEY GREEN” read one passing tank top.) Green’s the Platonic ideal of an archetype my buddy has coined a term to describe: the GCB, short for Glam Country Boy, a type of guy you know well if you live in certain parts of the South or the Midwest. The GCB listens to country and a little bit of rap, wears a thin gold chain and often a mustache, possibly played minor league baseball; but his defining feature is the half-mullet my friend described as “that salad in the back.” (I tried to keep a tally of the festival’s GCB count, but the task was too exhaustive, and I quit after an hour.) Soon Green is joined by Ella Langley—another Alabama local who tore up the stage earlier that afternoon with nostalgic songs like “Weren’t for the Wind” and “Better Be Tough”—for their pair of duets, “You Look Like You Love Me” and “Don’t Mind If I Do.” But I had an appointment with “Super VIP” catering that I was not going to miss.
At the risk of sounding like a tremendously spoiled douchebag, the dining room for the ritziest tier of VIP attendees was the most elaborate I’ve witnessed in all my days as a reporter. Saturday night, the dinner buffet included a dozen salads, charcuterie, beef short ribs, porchetta, blackened cod and a tower of crab legs piled higher than me—and that’s before you hit the oyster bar. (It’s air-conditioned, don’t fret.) And that’s how I found myself sunburnt and shirtless, cracking open crab legs as if I were Rick Ross. “Life on the Redneck Riviera ain’t too bad,” I thought, washing down another oyster with a tequila soda.
I’d answered my own question as to whether the crowd would be too young to appreciate the evening’s headliner, Brooks & Dunn—what did kids these days know about “Boot Scootin’ Boogie”? But Sand in My Boots’ crowd skewed a bit older than your average music festival, and though a few youngsters streamed towards the exit as the Nashville duo (formed in 1988) took the stage, most of the crowd knew every word to 20-something-year-old songs like “Ain’t Nothing ‘bout You” and “Red Dirt Road.” On the shuttle back to my hotel (there’s no parking on the premises, but a steady stream of buses ran from the grounds all day), a pair of sun-dazed women arrive at an inspired idea: “Girl, should we get Waffle House?” “Ohhhh, f–k me up!”
The seagulls have grown bold on day three of the festival, flying so low above the food court as to incur screams from shirtless men in Busch Light cowboy hats. As for me, I figured “when in Rome” and joined the line for the Zyn pop-up, where those 21 and up can purchase packs of the Swedish nicotine pouches favored by cowboys for the low price of $1. “Our menthol flavor has a eucalyptus aftertaste,” a gorgeous saleswoman informed me. Just ahead of me in line was a couple who’d flown in from Calgary, Alberta, the man cowboy hatted and mustached and the woman dressed to the nines in red thigh-high cowboy boots. “You guys like country music in Canada?” I asked them, to which they replied, “Oh, yah!”
All the lineup’s indie rock bands have been relegated to the Dangerous Stage for the festival’s last day, so I headed across the beach, passing the outdoor showers where a half-dozen partygoers were quite literally washing the sand off their cowboy boots. I’d been interested to see the crowd for The War on Drugs, the Philly-based seven-piece band whose t-shirts Wallen has been known to rock. Numbers-wise, the crowd paled in comparison to the hip-hop acts who played the previous day, to the point where I could clearly make out Ernest covering Hank Williams Jr.’s “Family Tradition” from the main stage. Still, I could see a through-line between the band’s synthy heartland rock and a handful of my favorite Wallen songs—2023’s “One Thing at a Time,” or the recent “Genesis.”
After another absurdly lavish dinner (peel-and-eat shrimp, crab legs, oysters, Lyonnaise salad, chicken piccata) I post up at the main stage, where 25-year-old Bailey Zimmerman is bouncing around in jean shorts before a band whose members all looked vaguely like Skrillex, reminding the crowd: “God is good all the time!” Until 2019, the Southern Illinois native had never sung outside of drunk karaoke; he worked on a gas pipeline, then gained some fame on TikTok for his videos tricking out his GMC truck. When his first-ever song, 2020’s “Never Comin’ Home,” racked up a million TikTok views overnight, he quit his job the next day. Now, between hits like “Fall in Love” and “Religiously,” he coaxed the crowd to scream “I love you!” to his mom backstage.
But like most everybody else, I’m here for Morgan Wallen, whose set tonight will close the festival. So far he had refrained from popping out for duets with collaborators on the lineup (Post Malone, Hardy, Ernest), and I was curious how much his setlist would reflect the brand-new album, whose mood was decidedly more introspective and subdued than previous blockbusters like Dangerous and One Thing at a Time. As for the crowd that had gathered around stage left, morale was high; a group of girls who’d traveled from Kentucky generously passed around a couple boxed wines and a joint. Then the lights went down, the beach erupted with screams, and video showed Wallen in white shorts and a white long-sleeve, jogging out from backstage to the sounds of “Broadway Girls,” his 2022 collaboration with Lil Durk.
Wallen kept the banter brief, taking a moment to acknowledge the years it had taken for Sand in My Boots to come together, then launched into a pair of songs from One Thing at a Time before transitioning to a handful of I’m the Problem singles (the title track, plus “Love Somebody”) and a few new songs he’d yet to play live before: “Kick Myself,” “Don’t We,” “I’m A Little Crazy.” “I wanted to find the most classy way to talk a little sh-t,” he introduced the latter. (“I’m a little crazy, but the world’s insane,” goes the chorus.) As stage presence goes, I’ve certainly seen more dynamic performers; occasionally he’d pick up an acoustic guitar, more as a shield than anything. But his raspy Tennessee drawl sounded surprisingly great live, particularly on “Cover Me Up,” a Jason Isbell song he’s been covering for years, and on the festival’s namesake track, a ballad about a one-night stand on the beach: “Somethin’ bout the way she kissed me tells me she’d love Eastern Tennessee/But all I brought back with me was some sand in my boots.”
Wallen finished with a suite of early hits: “More Than My Hometown” and “Whiskey Glasses,” followed by an encore of the inescapable “Last Night” and his 2016 debut single “The Way I Talk.” Then the festival figurehead was off into the night, and so was I—back on the east-bound shuttle bus, where the driver allowed a group of drunk girls to blast Soulja Boy and Flo-Rida over the Bluetooth speakers. I didn’t have boots to speak of, so all I brought back with me was a raging sunburn and a couple packs of Zyn.
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
It’s amusing to think modern-day cowboy Cody Johnson has much in common with an ancient Chinese philosopher. And yet his current single — “The Fall,” released by Warner Music Nashville to country radio on April 10 — mirrors thoughts about life and resilience expressed by Confucius around 500 years B.C. Johnson’s performance may hinge metaphorically on a rodeo experience, but its meaning resonates beyond the arena and across the centuries.
“When I heard the song, it sounded like the story of a lot of different people,” he says. “It is kind of cowboy, and it is authentic to me, as ‘The ride was worth the fall,’ you know. ‘I’d climb back on again.’ But it also has this relativity to a lot of other different people and their story. It’s a very unique thing that I couldn’t ignore.”
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Songwriter Bobby Pinson (“Burning Man,” “It Happens”) came up with the hook, “The ride was worth the fall,” in 2021. That line would lead to a connected thought — “The fall was worth the smiles” is the next line in the chorus — and the chorus would build one step at a time with each phrase borrowing from its predecessor.
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“There was definitely the ankle-bone-connected-to-the-knee-bone theory going,” Pinson recalls. “That’s what I call it when one thing causes the other.”
That summer, with a wave of COVID-19 bubbling in Nashville, he booked a Zoom co-write with Jeremy Stover (“Time’s Ticking,” “You’re Like Comin’ Home”) and Ray Fulcher (“When It Rains It Pours,” “Lovin’ on You”), who was signed as an artist at the time with Black River and was about to head out on a radio promotion tour. Fulcher had no idea when he would be free to write again. He told his co-writers that since he might be opening a new chapter, he wanted to close this one with something meaningful. Fulcher had been enamored as a kid with the movie 8 Seconds about rodeo star Lane Frost, so “The Fall” had the potential to turn a personal interest into a universal lesson. The writers hinted at the sport, but avoided obvious words, such as “rodeo,” “horse,” “rope” or even “cowboy.”
“We wanted it to feel that way, without all of those pictures,” Fulcher explains. “We thought it would be cooler if we could say all that stuff without saying it.”
They dug in on the chorus first, constructing a melody that matched the lyrical idea. Each line would peak a half-step or full step higher than the previous one as the story built toward a new plateau. The chorus reached a crescendo about three-quarters through, then subsided in intensity as it circled back to a repetition of the original line, “The ride was worth the fall.”
“I think that aspect of it is a big part of the song,” Stover says, “the way the melody goes with the lyric — especially the way it goes into the minor [chord] at the end of the hook.”
Turning their attention to the verses, they similarly used a minor chord to launch a dark, conversational melody as the character confessed some of his failings.
“That’s life,” Stover suggests. “We obviously know no one is perfect, and that aspect of life, I think a lot of people relate to.”
The melody turned almost bouncy in the fourth and fifth lines of the verse — just enough to enhance the sing-along quality — then returned to a serious tone, setting up the impactful chorus. After piling up nebulous, non-rodeo images — alcohol abuse, arrogance, spiritual shortcomings — the first verse’s final line set up the chorus with a bronco-busting notion: “even when I fell off.”
“Everybody’s been through these things,” Pinson says, “and the key to a good song, to me, is to put things in there that people can use to their own advantage or insert into their own life. It’s not necessarily my stories or my pictures. It’s just my paint for somebody else’s painting.”
As they wrapped, Fulcher felt like they had written the significant kind of song he had desired.“It was pretty emotional — not every write is — to kind of dig into some of those parts of yourself that have felt the same way,” he says.
Subsequently, while Fulcher was on a radio tour, Pinson and Stover produced a demo that made its way to producer Trent Willmon (Granger Smith, Drake Milligan). “The Fall” reminded Willmon of Garth Brooks. “It felt like it could be a song like Garth’s ‘The Dance,’ but in a little more cowboy sort of language,” Willmon says. “And Cody loved it.”
Still, Johnson remained “on the fence about the song,” he says, fearful that it might sound like “’Til You Can’t, Part II.” Willmon, Johnson remembers, talked him into moving forward with it:
“His exact words were, ‘You’re at a point in your career where, if you want to record songs to try them on, record them. Try them on, and if you don’t like them afterward, we’re good. We just wasted a little time in the studio, and it’s OK.’ ”
They cut it at the Starstruck Studios in Nashville with a band that included drummer Jerry Roe, bassist Mike Brignardello, keyboardist Jim “Moose” Brown, acoustic guitarist Tim Galloway, steel guitarist Scotty Sanders and electric guitarists James Mitchell and Justin Ostrander. The demo gave them a good road map, though Johnson asked them to cut the tempo just a bit and to play with a tougher vibe.
“It needed that kind of ‘pump your chest out and be proud’ aspect,” Johnson says. “When we explained that to the band, I’d been kind of playing with the little acoustic riff at the beginning. Obviously, the players that played on the track were better than me, so they took it and ran with it.”
In the process, they scrapped a bridge and replaced it with Ostrander’s scene-changing solo. Johnson sang full-throated on every pass.
“The great thing about a great band is they’re paying attention not just to the numbers that are written on the chart, but they’re paying attention to the lyric and they’re listening to the singer,” Willmon says. “I think a lot of the changes that happened during tracking was because Cody was in there singing it with all this raw power and emotion and they’re feeling it. So that dictates a lot of how that band plays.”
Fiddler Jenee Fleenor overdubbed a pile of parts, creating a string section in the process. Willmon and Greg Barnhill provided backing vocals, and the song emerged as a fan favorite at concerts. It’s at No. 50 in its second week on Country Airplay as it establishes a home on the airwaves, seemingly fulfilling its destiny.
“It was not a single, we hadn’t pushed it, and I started noticing when I played ‘The Fall,’ as soon as I started playing the guitar [intro], every cell phone in the audience came up,” Johnson says. “After the first chorus, when I sing ‘The ride was worth the fall,’ the crowd goes insane. It feels like this song has already been on radio.”
Now, “The Fall” begins its rise.
Morgan Wallen has his sister, Ashley, to thank for his new collaboration with pop star Tate McRae.
The country star and Canadian singer pair for the shimmering “What I Want,” about two broken hearts who find solace in each other, if only temporarily, on Wallen’s new album, I’m the Problem, which came out Friday (May 16).
“My sister turned me on to Tate and her music a few years ago and I’ve been a fan ever since,” Wallen tells Billboard. “She is a true pop star, a prolific songwriter and is also an extremely underrated vocalist.”
It turns out this duet has been a few years in the making. “We have known each other for a couple years and have been talking about doing a song together if the right one came about,” Wallen continues.
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“What I Want” wasn’t originally intended to be a duet, “but after listening to it a few times, she kept coming to my mind as someone that would really give the song a dynamic element that I felt it deserved,” Wallen says. He co-wrote the track with McRae, Jacob Kasher Hindlin, Ryan Vojtesak, John Byron and Joe Reeves.
Wallen has long wanted to record a duet with a woman, but was being very selective. In a Billboard interview at the end of 2023, the country star said, “I’ve reached out to a couple of people, and they’ve turned me down.” He declined to name names. “I just really want certain people, and I haven’t gotten the chance to do it yet. I’m going to keep trying to write songs for it or write with them.”
Wallen has released a number of successful collaborations with male artists, including “I Had Some Help,” his massive hit with Post Malone, as well as songs with Eric Church, Chris Stapleton, Florida Georgia Line and rapper Lil Durk. In addition to McRae, the new album also includes duets with Church, HARDY, ERNEST and Post Malone.
Like Wallen’s, McRae’s career is on fire. She earned her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 earlier this year with So Close To What, which came out Feb. 21. She is on a worldwide Miss Possessive arena tour that comes to the U.S. in August.
Morgan Wallen’s fourth studio album, I’m The Problem, has officially arrived, heralding the next chapter in Wallen’s already massive, stadium-headlining career.
His previous album, 2023’s One Thing at a Time, featured 36 sprawling tracks, and with his new project he does it one better, with I’m The Problem clocking in at 37 songs.
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The album features collaborations with Tate McRae (“What I Want”), plus artists he has previously collaborated with including Eric Church (the new album features the song “Number 3 and Number 7”), HARDY (“Come Back as a Redneck”), ERNEST (“The Dealer”) and Post Malone (“I Ain’t Comin’ Back”), but many of Wallen’s solo songs are among his most intimate, such as “Superman,” a song devoted to his son Indigo Wilder.
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Wallen co-wrote 22 songs for the album, which arrives on Big Loud/Mercury. He’s already released a handful of songs from the project, including the Billboard Hot 100-debuting “Love Somebody,” the Hot Country Songs chart-topping title track “I’m The Problem,” as well as songs including “Just in Case,” “I Ain’t Comin’ Back” and “Lies Lies Lies.”
I’m The Problem releases on the same day Wallen’s Sand in My Boots festival launches in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The three-day festival will feature an eclectic lineup of artists including Wallen, Brooks & Dunn, HARDY, Riley Green, Three 6 Mafia, Wiz Khalifa, Ella Langley, Treaty Oak Revival and more.
“We didn’t come up with this idea trying to fill a gap, but I believe that is what we have done,” Wallen told Billboard via email. “We created a festival that was centered around my country culture and that just so happens to include a variety of sounds. Sand in My Boots really was born out of building something that I was proud of, and also having a festival that these artists enjoy coming to.”
Wallen also noted in his interview with Billboard that yes, fans can expect to hear music from the new album featured during his set at the festival.
Listen to I’m The Problem below:
Morgan Wallen, country’s biggest star and one of the biggest stars in the music world right now, has built his success on super-serving his audience, and his new album, I’m the Problem, is no different. The set, out today, has 37 tracks, besting its predecessor, 2023’s One Thing at a Time by one song and 2021’s Dangerous: The Double Album by seven tracks.
As on his past albums, Wallen is still looking for love in all the wrong places, with the majority of the songs serving as midtempo explorations on heartache, longing, co-dependence and missed chances, often while drowning his sorrows. When it comes to love, Wallen (or the songs’ protagonists) admits many of the wounds are self-inflicted and he just can’t get out of his own way.
His willingness to expose his vulnerability is one of the album’s top selling points, as is Wallen’s voice. He’s in fine shape here especially when his twang is matched with a Southern rock-leaning tune, such as on “Workin’ Man’s Song,” where he gives Travis Tritt a run for his money. Similarly, on songs like “I’m a Little Crazy” or “The Dealer,” where he’s examining broader issues than romance, he shows an appealing range.
When there are so many songs, it’s inevitable that some of them sound similar, and that’s not helped by too much reliance on a Roland TR-808 beat and a midtempo sway that renders some of the tracks virtually indistinguishable from each other. Putting out so many songs at once has proven a winning gambit for Wallen with his fans and with the charts, but this album could have lost at least 12 songs for a tighter, less repetitive sound.
Morgan Wallen ‘I’m The Problem’
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Wallen co-wrote 22 songs on the project, which, like his past projects, is helmed by producer Joie Moi, with help from Charlie Handsome and Jacob Durrett. He gets some help from his friends, some old — like Eric Church, Post Malone, HARDY and ERNEST — and some new, like Tate McRae.
The album’s success is a foregone conclusion, given that it’s already spawned three Country Airplay No. 1s with “Lies, Lies, Lies,” “Love Somebody” and “I’m the Problem,” and there seems to be no saturation point when it comes to his fans lapping up his songs.
There’s plenty to enjoy here. Below is an early take on our ranking of the songs on the highly anticipated set.
“Miami”
Sneedville, Tennessee native and reigning CMA entertainer of the year Morgan Wallen has been breaking chart records with regularity over the past few years as he’s evolved from a top country music hitmaker to a multi-genre hitmaker and musical supernova, on the strength of projects including Dangerous: The Double Album and his 2023 project One […]
Blake Shelton returned to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday (May 13), delivering a rousing live performance of his current single “Texas,” just days after releasing his new album For Recreational Use Only, which arrived May 9 via BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville.
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Accompanied by his longtime band, Shelton performed the rollicking, guitar-driven track, which chronicles a free-spirited woman who’s vanished from the narrator’s life, and is, in all likelihood, somewhere in Texas.
The track is the lead single from For Recreational Use Only, Shelton’s first full-length studio album in seven years. The 12-song collection includes collaborations with Gwen Stefani, John Anderson, and Craig Morgan, alongside tracks written by acclaimed songwriters Sarah Buxton, Zach Crowell, Shane McAnally, Greylan James, Pat McLaughlin and Bobby Pinson. The album also reunites Shelton with longtime producer Scott Hendricks.
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Before his performance, Shelton sat down with Jimmy Fallon and revealed that collaborating with Post Malone helped reignite his creative spark.
“Post Malone kind of got me, a fire lit under me,” Shelton said, referencing their duet “Pour Me a Drink.” “You know, it’s been four years since I put out a record… And just being around him, you can’t be around that guy without having a good time. He’s just so excited about everything.” Shelton added that the experience pushed him back into the studio.
“I was like, ‘Man, what am I doing? I need to make a record.’ He had me fired up again.” As for Malone’s country pivot, Shelton didn’t hold back: “Now he’s, like, doing the country thing. I don’t want him to go back to anything else. I just want him to do country music.”
Following “Texas,” Shelton released a brand-new song, “Let Him In Anyway,” a spiritual-minded ballad written by HARDY, Ben Hayslip and Jordan Schmidt. The song paints a redemptive picture of a man asking for divine forgiveness on behalf of a friend who “never fully went all-in on redemption.”
For Recreational Use Only marks Shelton’s first album under BMG Nashville, following his departure from Warner Music Nashville after a two-decade run.
In today’s crop of new music, Megan Moroney and Kenny Chesney team up on a song celebrating their time spent on Chesney’s Sun Goes Down Tour last year. Meanwhile, Dierks Bentley previews his upcoming Broken Branches album with a new release. Julie Williams pays homage to those who have uplifted and inspired her, while roots music luminaries Leftover Salmon and I’m With Her also offer new music.
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Kenny Chesney and Megan Moroney, “You Had to Be There”
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On this breezy, jaunty summer tune, Moroney reminisces on a summer filled with music and magic, first as a fan soaking in music from the nosebleed seats, then as an artist. She chronicles her journey from attending a Chesney concert in Atlanta seven years ago, to being an opener on his 2024 tour. Chesney joins on the second verse, his warm, conversational voice offering advice on lines including “Keep your heart on your sleeve and your chin held high.” The song has a classic Chesney feel and serves as an excellent vehicle for their intertwined voices.
Dierks Bentley, “Standing in the Sun”
Dierks Bentley offers another preview of his upcoming album Broken Branches (out June 13). His latest song, written by Kyle Sturrock, compares life’s hardships to hurricanes and freezing snows, but maintains that his lover’s affections are life-refreshing, noting that “noise dies down and life slows up” when he’s with the one he loves. Gently rippling guitars and a laid-back tone echo the song’s sentiments.
Julie Williams, “The Women Who Made Me”
Williams, known for her work on her 2024 EP Tennessee Moon and her 2023 self-titled project, offers up a new song dedicated to confident, resilient women. Jangly guitars and serene fiddlework lace with Williams’ honeyed vocal as she pays tribute not only her mother, but also the influence of many of country music’s female greats. She namechecks songs including The Chicks’ “Wide Open Spaces,” Trisha Yearwood’s “XXXs and OOOs” and Sara Evans’s “Born to Fly,” and celebrates the strength and wisdom of her mother, who “carried a heavy load/ Never let on,” and taught her to lean into music as a solace.
Leftover Salmon feat. Sam Bush and Del McCoury, “Let’s Party About It”
Venerated jam band Leftover Salmon has been known for its latticework of country, bluegrass, jazz and rock for more than three decades, and on the new LP, Let’s Party About It (which released May 9 on Compass Records), it’s clear the group has no intention of pausing its eclectic, free-wheeling brand of music and dedication to top-shelf musicianship. The project’s title track further spotlights Leftover Salmon’s communal approach to music-making, and highlights Dave Matthews Band’s Jeff Coffin on soprano saxophone, as well as Sam Bush on fiddle. The rollicking tune pulls listeners in with its lively spirit and urges them that is better spent united in partying rather than in harmful division.
I’m With Her, “Wild and Clear and Blue”
This celebrated trio of Sarah Jarosz, Sara Watkins and Aoife O’Donovan released their first collaborative album as I’m With Her in 2018, with See You Around. They return with a new release via Rounder Records. On the project’s title track, backed by a mesh of violin, guitar, piano and mandolin, they reminisce about childhood moments spent soaking in music that played in their mothers’ cars, finding a gem of an album in dusty record bins, and how those moments spurred their musical passions and have stayed with them as the years have passed. Their shimmering harmonies are tightly woven purity, giving the song’s nostalgic message ample space to take center stage. The project marks a glorious return for this talented trio.