This week’s batch of new country music includes Kelsea Ballerini‘s cathartic new track, collaborations from Callista Clark with Scotty McCreery, and from Jett Holden with Cassadee Pope, as well as new music from Randall King.
Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of the best country songs of the week below.
Kelsea Ballerini, “Sorry Mom”
Crackling acoustic guitar introduces this mid-tempo, pop-tilted musing, which previews the Grammy-nominated Ballerini’s upcoming album Patterns. As always, Ballerini excels in crafting lyrics dripping with exquisite candor, as this reconciliatory song finds her cataloging the ways she may not have lived up to familial expectations, including drinking, dropping out of college, having premarital sex, and sometimes putting career before family too often. But she acknowledges that while the choices made in her younger years no doubt caused her mother moments of worry, the lessons learned along the way have forged a woman stronger, wiser, more confident and decisive.
Randall King, “I Could Be That Rain”
One of country music’s most towering new country neo-traditionalist voices, King piles up the romantic fervor for an ex-lover on his latest, wishing he could sing his ex a favorite song and generally regain her affections. The Texan with the rich, confident twang brings to the table a slightly more polished production here, but still squarely traditional enough to declare his talents on equal footing with many of today’s hitmakers such as labelmate Cody Johnson. “I Could Be That Rain,” written by Brian Fuller and Mason Thornley, marks King’s first single at country radio and is included on his sophomore album Into the Neon.
Jett Holden feat. Cassadee Pope, “Karma”
Earlier this year, Jett Holden was announced as the first signing to Black Opry Records, with Holden’s debut album The Phoenix out Oct. 4. “It turns out loyalty is just as dead as chivalry,” Holden sings on “Karma,” one of the songs from the project, welcoming Cassadee Pope on this stinging, churning rebuff to a romantic traitor. Matched by seething rock guitars, Holden and Pope’s voices punch hard, standing their ground and swelling into a wounded-yet-defiant, rock-fueled declaration.
Kayley Green, “Shadow of a Cowboy”
Kayley Green has been a longtime fixture in downtown Nashville’s music scene, performing at several downtown music venues, and at one point, joining Keith Urban onstage during his Bridgestone Arena show, before Green signed with Sony Music Nashville earlier this year. She follows previous release “Live Fast Die Pretty” with this polished kiss-off to a lover who can’t tame his rambling ways. Sinewy guitars and understated percussion underpin Green’s rafter-reaching soprano, before she taunts the ex-lover with, “You’re just a shadow of a cowboy/ A real one would stay.” Green wrote this track with Jon Nite, Ross Copperman, and Ben Williams.
Scotty McCreery and Callista Clark, “Gettin’ Old”
Though Scotty McCreery possesses one of the most transcendent traditional voices in modern country, McCreery has been judicious in releasing collaborations with other vocalists, with many of his collabs being connected to his days as an American Idol contestant. But on this somber track, he teams mightily with Clark, his solid oak of a voice a foil for her sleek vocal, while they match each other heartache for heartache as they reach into their upper registers. Together, their voices embody the flickers of hope that still spark among the ashes as they sing of a couple who realize their relationship is growing stale, rather than stronger. Clark wrote this track with Averie Bielski and Karen Kasowski.
Will Moseley, “I Don’t Want to Fight No More”
American Idol alum Moseley lends his thousand-watt vocal to this track penned by Alex Maxwell, Dawson Edwards and Kameron Marlowe. Southern rock leanings plus heartbreak and weary resignation converge on this track about a couple who realize their relationship’s frayed edges are at the breaking point, making this a perfect go-to track for anyone wading through emotional despair at a relational crossroads.
