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In this week’s crop of new music, Randy Houser and Miranda Lambert team for a solidly country tune about time and desire, while Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown reunite for a steamy pop-country track. Elsewhere, LANCO teams with Cory Asbury on a tender song about parenthood, Hudson Westbrook issues his self-titled EP, Kashus Culpepper dips his commanding voice into ultra-soulful territory, and Kameron Marlowe offers his own spin on a previous hit for singer-songwriter Cam.
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Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of the best country releases of the week below.
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Randy Houser feat. Miranda Lambert, “Still That Cowboy”
Randy Houser welcomes Miranda Lambert for this duet, featuring on Houser’s upcoming Note to Self Deluxe album, out in January. Mississippi-born Houser’s rugged voice crackles with power, enough to make most male country vocalists envious, and he smartly teams with Lambert, possessor of one of the genre’s most distinctively country voices. Written by Houser with Josh Hoge and Matt Rogers, this sultry slow-jam finds Houser singing about the hope that time, age, and new life phases haven’t dampened his lover’s desire. Lambert’s smooth twang adds a reassuring harmony that further elevates this top-shelf track.
Kashus Culpepper, “Pour Me Out”
This Navy veteran and Big Loud Records artist decamped to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to record this righteously bluesy outing, where the angst in his gravelly voice is heightened by the song’s poetic simplicity in relating bitter romantic realization on lyrics such as “If you don’t wanna drink me baby, Don’t sip me baby/ Just pour me out.” As with his previous releases including “After Me?,” Culpepper’s masterful vocal is undeniable. He wrote “Pour Me Out” with Ben Burgess and Diego Urias.
Hudson Westbrook, Hudson Westbrook
Texan singer-songwriter Westbrook has surged into country music’s modern-day mainstream thanks to songs including “5 to 9.” His seven-song, self-titled EP is a succinct but solid collection, featuring the smoldering heartbreaker “House Again,” and the fiddle-laden, romantic throwback “5 to 9,” while he willingly trades the mellowing effects of alcohol for the thrilling feel of being with his new love in “Dopamine.” Westbrook’s voice is a blend of grit, twang and Lone Star State confidence, and he’s a co-writer on many of his songs. This is a very promising start for Westbrook.
Kane Brown & Katelyn Brown, “Body Talk”
This married couple previously earned a No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hit in 2023 with the swirling, pop-inflected and gratitude-filled “Thank God.” They return with another pop-heavy groove on this sensuous, dance-worthy track that further evinces that Katelyn’s airy, velvety vocal is a standout, and when paired with Kane’s vocal, brings out the grittier, sultrier notes in his voice. This song leans decidedly more pop than country, but brings out the best in both vocalists. “Body Talk” will be featured on Kane Brown’s upcoming album The High Road.
LANCO and Cory Asbury, “We Grew Up Together”
Country group LANCO teams with Contemporary Christian artist Cory Asbury for this tender, self-reflective pondering on how both parents and children undergo seasons of growth over the years. “You ain’t the only one who’s gonna make mistakes,” LANCO’s Brandon Lancaster sings, offering the perspective of a father singing to a child. The song was written by Asbury along with LANCO’s Brandon Lancaster, Chandler Baldwin, Tripp Howell, and Jared Hampton. “We Grew Up Together” is from LANCO’s upcoming album We’re Gonna Make It, set for January.
Kameron Marlowe, “Burning House”
Kameron Marlowe puts his own sultry spin here on Cam’s near-decade old hit “Burning House.” The pared-back production and understated, polished instrumentation provide a lush vessel for Marlowe’s pain-filled, octave-leaping voice. Marlowe’s earned a smattering of chart placements with songs such “Burn ‘Em All” and the Ella Langley duet “Strangers,” but this dynamic ballad places his captivating voice front and center.
Gracie Abrams has had the adventure of a lifetime opening for Taylor Swift on the singer’s Eras Tour over the past year. But with the end of the global outing just two weeks away, Abrams took some time on Sunday (Nov. 24) to reflect on the latest chapter in her wild ride. “Torontoooooo ❤️? I […]
Everyone has that one music video that they go back and watch over and over again. That’s certainly true for Chappell Roan, and her pick might surprise you. In a post to her Instagram Stories on Sunday (Nov. 24), Roan shared a clip of “my fav music video” — a Sims version of Lady Gaga’s […]
If anyone understands what it means to have a very sudden fandom thrust upon you, it’s former James Bond star Daniel Craig. Now, the star of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer is giving praise to Chappell Roan for the way she’s handled fans who don’t respect her boundaries. In a new interview with The New York Times, […]
Elton John has been plagued by a series of health issues over the past few years. But in an interview with Good Morning America on Monday (Nov. 25), the indefatigable Rock and Roll Hall of Fame icon said an eye infection he suffered this summer has turned into the loss of vision in his right eye, which is impacting his ability to create.
John, 77, told Robin Roberts that “it’s been a while” since he’s worked on new music, something he’s been unable to figure out because of his poor eyesight. “I unfortunately lost my eye sight in my right eye in July because I had an infection in the South of France,” said John in the interview during which his eyes were somewhat obscured by a pair of green framed eyeglasses with a yellow tint to on the lenses. “It’s been four months now since I haven’t been able to see. And my left eye is not the greatest.”
Roberts flew to England to talk to John about his new doc, Never Too Late, noting that at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year he teased a new album, a project whose future is now up in the air due to his poor vision. “There’s hope and encouragement that it will be okay,” John said. “But I’m kind of stuck in the moment, because I can do something like this, but going into the studio and recording… I don’t know. Because I can’t see a lyric, for start.”
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John said he’s working on getting his eyesight back, but the infection has “floored” him for the moment because he can’t see, or watch anything. When Roberts suggested that, after all his health struggles, John is “still standing” — as he sang on his 1983 hit “I’m Still Standing” — the singer had to agree. “I’m so lucky. I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he said.
John has released 32 studio albums during his half century-long career, with the most recent being 2021’s Regimental Sgt. Zippo, a Record Store Day reissue of an shelved album from the late 1960s.
John has been open in the past about his various health struggles, including hearing loss, knee and hip replacement surgery, as well as prostate cancer and a the implantation of a pacemaker to treat an irregular heartbeat. He recently told Rolling Stone: “I don’t have tonsils, adenoids or an appendix,” in reeling off his many surgeries. “I don’t have a prostate. I don’t have a right hip or a left knee or a right knee. In fact, the only thing left to me is my left hip.”
Never Too Late, directed by R.J. Cutler and John’s husband, David Furnish, will begin streaming on Disney+ on Dec. 13.
Watch the full interview here.
Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Toni Braxton and award-winning actor/comedian Cedric the Entertainer are expanding their Love & Laughter limited Las Vegas engagement. Six more dates are being added to the pair’s residency at The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Beginning in February 2025, the extended run’s dates are: Feb. 14-15, May 9-10 and July 11-12. […]
John Mayer is launching a new interview series, “How’s Life,” on his Life With John Mayer channel on SiriusXM and he’s kicking it off in style. The debut of the interview series in which Mayer will speak to some of the music industry’s biggest names will feature an in-depth sit-down with Billy Joel premiering at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday (Nov. 28).
Not only does Joel, 75, chop it up with Mayer about some of his career highlights and biggest songs, but he also discusses a never-before-heard tune from his archives.
In a preview clip (see below), Mayer talks to Joel about songwriting, with the Piano Man answering the host’s probing question about where the songwriter goes when he stops writing new songs; in February, Joel released his first new song in 17 years, “Turn the Lights Back On.”
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“Where does the writer go… is the writer present when you’re listening to new music, do you listen as a writer?” Mayer asks Joel. “Do you go, ‘oh, you’re gonna put a minor fourth there? Are you really gonna put a minor fourth chord?’ Do you think like a writer still even if you’re not writing?”
“Yeah, he never goes away,” says Joel. “The writer thing is a curse that you take with you throughout life. And when I listen to material, or listen to other people’s songs the writer is always at work. ‘Well, I would have done it this way.’ Or, ‘why did he go to that chord?’ And constantly trying to improve on what you did.”
Joel describes how as a young writer you don’t edit yourself as much, but as you mature you get better at it, until you get so proficient that “you’e gotten good enough so that nothing is good enough.”
Mayer’s most important question — especially for Joel fans who are constantly saying their prayers to the pop gods that the singer will get back to writing radio-friendly songs — was whether Joel ever writes lyrics or lyric ideas on his phone. “I never write down lyrics until I’m actually songwriting,” Joel says. “I start from the music first, always.” The only exception? His very wordy 1989 class “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
Mayer will be on air all day on Thanksgiving, beginning at 2 p.m. ET, when he will start taking calla and playing music in the lead-up to the Joel chat. Future guests on the show include Shawn Mendes and Maren Morris. Mayer’s year-round SiriusXM channel Life With John Mayer can be found on Ch. 14. or anytime on the SiriusXM app.
Watch a preview of “How’s Life” with Billy Joel below.
Father John Misty saw all the jokes and the conspiracy theories on Friday (Nov. 22) about how his album release schedule has eerily been synched up with Kendrick Lamar‘s music drops over the past 12 years and he responded in the only way he knows how: with a diss track and jokes.
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Okay, not a diss track in the Drake sense, but rather the first wide release of the shaggy folk rocker “God’s Plan,” which he originally issued on Bandcamp last month and which fans gleefully suggested was a soft rock shot fired at the Pulitzer Prize-winning MC. FJM uploaded it to his Instagram on Saturday with no commentary and lyrics that didn’t provide much direct linkage to Lamar. “A man’s life, God’s trash/ There’s no law but the old law, baby/ Pettiful, nothing dies/ Said by ass-drawn kamikaze/ Year zero in the summertime,” FJM sings on the track; he reposted it on X, adding three coffin emoji.
The comments did the heavy lifting: “the heart part 7,” wrote one fan in a joking reference to Lamar’s new track “Heart Pt. 6” (itself a response to rival Drake’s “The Heart Pt. 6” diss track about Lamar), with another adding, “Kendrick diss track?,” and a third admitting, “A Kendrick FJM beef is something I would’ve said could’ve only come to my imagination in a fever dream and yet here we are. Life is beautiful folks.” Leaning into the fake beef, commenters also wondered why Lamar was “real quiet since this post,” warning “u have 24 hours to respond” and asking “@kendricklamar you’ll let this slide???”
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Fans immediately heaped meaning on the post, considering that sleuths did the math and figured out that Father John and K.Dot have released new albums in the same year for more than a decade, including in 2012, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022 — though not on the same day — until now.
On Friday, Lamar dropped the instant classic GNX with no advance notice, stealing some thunder from FJM’s new LP, Mahashmashana. Misty got the joke, writing on X on Friday, “Not now I’m furiously scribbling my seeming response” to the odd coincidence, adding, “It’s okay only other times it’s happened was 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2022.” He also showed he had a good sense of humor about the unbalanced chart competition, writing, “Hm how do I tell em my albums don’t chart.”
In addition to the tweets and song, FJM had some more fun with the Freaky Friday release date action, reposting DJ Bean’s mash-up cover featuring the artwork from both men’s LPs and a second in which he was PhotoShopped into Kendrick’s car. Even Misty’s label, Sub Pop Records, got into the action, uploading an edit of the cover to the singer’s album with the Lamar DAMN. font.
The eternally arch, laconic Misty took the whole thing in stride, though Lil Wayne appeared to respond to a lyrical reference on the opening GNX track “wacced out murals” with a bit of heat. On the song, Lamar references his love for Wayne’s classic Tha Carter III album and wonders if his hard work — which includes landing the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show slot in Weezy’s hometown of New Orleans next year — had “let down” the fellow MC.
“Man wtf I do?!” Wayne wrote in his response on X. “I just be chillin & dey still kome 4 my head. Let’s not take kindness for weakness. Let this giant sleep. I beg u all. No one really wants destruction,not even me but I shall destroy if disturbed. On me. Love.”
Listen to FJM’s “God’s Trash” below.
On the first night of his Stairway to the Sky tour on Saturday (Nov. 23) Zayn Malik paid tribute to his late One Direction bandmate Liam Payne. According to fan photos and videos, the homage to the singer who died at age 31 after a fall from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina on […]
Lana Del Rey has announced a string of stadium shows in the U.K. and Ireland for summer 2025. The U.S. star’s tour will kick off at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium in Wales on June 23, before heading to Glasgow, Liverpool, Dublin and wrapping up at London’s Wembley Stadium on July 3. See the full run of […]
