Best New Country Songs

It's time for another of our weekly roundups of all the biggest and best new releases from the world of country and Americana. It's been another record-breaking week in country music. Morgan Wallen surpassed Garth Brooks’ Billboard Top Country Albums record with his 174th Week in the top spot, while Shaboozey broke the Billboard Hot Country Songs Chart record when ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ notched up its 35th week at number one. Riley Green, meanwhile, is going for the record for the longest time anyone has ever left a Christmas tree up after Christmas as he shared a snippet of unreleased ballad, ‘Make It Rain’, with his decorations clearly still up in the background. It's been two months, Riley! It's really bad luck. You want to be careful around those sharks.

In this week's playlist we've got new ones from Charles Wesley Godwin, Kip Moore, Zach Top with Billy Strings and lots more. Listen along to our Holler Best New Country playlist on Spotify, YouTube, Amazon and Apple Music.

This week's Best New Country cover star is country-pop sensation Dasha, who returns with her new single 'Not At This Party' as she kickstarts her next era and tries to replicate the success of worldwide viral smash 'Austin,' one of the most-streamed country songs in 2024 and winner of the People’s Choice Country Award for Best Female Song.

'Not At This Party' is a bombastic banjo bashing party anthem for anyone out there dwelling on their ex so hard they just can't seem to get over it and get in the party mood. If you're sneaking off to the bathroom to check your phone to see if he's texted every five minutes and getting all moony in the kitchen about the way your ex-boyfriend used to make cheese on toast, then Dasha demands your presence immediately out on the dancefloor!

"'Not At This Party' was a title I'd been carrying around for a while," Dasha shares about the new song. "It's about that universal experience of being out with friends, but mentally checked out. When I wrote it with Ashley Gorley and Ben Johnson, I was going through something with a guy, and the song just flowed. We really tried to capture that mix of distraction and guilt in the song."

Watch the video for 'Not At This Party' below.

After stepping into the spotlight last month with their debut single 'This Morning' - flipping the script on Morgan Wallen's 'Last Night' to tell the female perspective the morning after a regretful drunken night in love - pop country girl trio Just Jayne release the harmony-soaked big weeper 'New Boots' and give us a little lesson in sustainable fashion at the same time.

"I don’t want new boots / They never fit quite right," the sing in the chorus. "Ain’t nothing like something familiar / Don’t wanna start again / Breaking new leather in / Time will do what it do / To tell you the truth / They just don’t make ‘em like you."

Michael Marcagi shares his heartfelt new single 'Flyover State,' with the upbeat mandolin underscoring his emotionally charged delivery. Lyrically, he wrestles with the day-to-day grind, “I look around, and this life ain't mine," he sings. "I’m in the backseat watching the world pass me by / I’m stuck in a flyover state of mind.”

“‘Flyover State’ is a song about falling into the trap of imposter syndrome and feeling like you don’t belong,” Marcagi explains. “It’s about taking risks, going new places, and stepping out of your comfort zone”

Ashley Anne is invoking the old adage about being able to 'lead a horse to water' but not being able to make it drink on her new single. Inspired by a personal experience Ashley had with someone who she had shown unwavering support and given numerous second chances only to get nothing in return, the melancholy ballad is steeped in the kind of countrypolitan stoicism that made golden age stars out of Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn.

"I showed them nothing but love and support, but I got nothing in return," Ashley Anne says about the single. "It’s a gut-wrenching feeling when we give our all and feel belittled and demeaned while doing so. The song is about accepting that we cannot control others, but we can only control ourselves. Love blindly, but do not be blind in love."

Elsewhere we've got new ones from Kashus Culpepper, Lily Rose, Gavin Adcock and Clay Walker, while Austin Snell releases his hard-hitting ode to leaving heartbreak in the rearview mirror, 'Heavy Metal.'

Lola Kirke treats us to two news song from her highly anticipated new album Trailblazer, due out on March 21st, and we've got them both in our playlist for you today.

Clay Walker is in a sentimental mood on 'Cowboys in Heaven,' the old softy, and Trace Adkins is wondering 'What Color's Your Wild.' Plus, we've got a brilliant new single from Sydney Quiseng.

"This song is about someone who loves you through it all," Quiseng shares about 'Phases.' "Your highs, your lows, even when you lose yourself. My husband loves me in every phase of life and I wrote this for him. "

Kassi Ashton teams up with Parker McCollum for ‘Sounds Like Something I’d Say,' a soulful duet lamenting a night of mistakes. The new song is taken from Kassi Ashton's forthcoming deluxe album Made From The Dirt: The Blooms, due out on April 25th.

"A couple years ago, Parker came up to me backstage at The Ryman and started singing a song I had written years prior," Kassi Ashton shared on her socials. "'How do you know that,' I asked. Turns out his publisher had sent it to him and he kept it on repeat. He said, 'you need to cut that.'"

"The same conversation in the same spot happened again last year. 'You need to cut that,' he said. I replied, 'Only if you cut it with me.'"

"Flash forward to a couple months later, opening for him at Red Rocks and singing 'Burn It Down' together to close out a show where it completely down poured and not a soul left because the show was that damn good. We knew 'Sounds Like Something I’d Say' had to be a duet."

It's pay day weekend and country music is cashing in! Charles Wesley Godwin releases his new 7-track project Lonely Mountain Town Via Big Loud, a quieter, more contemplative record than Family Ties, written principally out on the road as the songwriter takes snapshots of life's quieter moments.

“These are character songs,” Godwin explains. “Most of them aren’t about my life. They’re just little pieces that I’ve taken from traveling.”

The project also gave Godwin the chance to work on the EP with musicians he’d long admired, such as his cover of Jason Molina’s 'Hammer Down,' which paired Godwin with one of his musical heroes, Scott Avett, along with ERNEST who appears on 'Dead to Rights.'

Writing with ERNEST taught Godwin how sometimes the best songs can be written without painstakingly obsessing over the smallest detail.

“I saw that maybe it isn’t the worst thing in the world to sit down and try to write a song in 10 minutes and see how it turns out rather than toiling over a line for a week,” he admits. Both songs are included in our Best New Country playlist today.

One of our 10 Artists You Need To Know alumni from last month, Kasey Tyndall releases her new self-titled album. The 11-track album unveils her most vulnerable songwriting yet, with each song introducing a different “layer” that makes up who she is today, from wife and mother to dedicated rockstar musician on stage to the outdoorsy, southern redneck.

"I have never felt more clear and confident on who I am today," Kasey Tyndall says about the record. "This hasn’t truly connected through my previous releases, so with this album, I wanted to make it so in-your-face authentic that there was no denying it. I’m grateful for the different seasons I've gone through to get me here as they’ve made me even better and stronger in each role that I take on. I can’t wait for the world to listen to this release and experience all of the emotions that life brings right alongside me.”

Volume 2 of the Julia Belle: John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project is out in the world today as a huge cast of players you know and love pay tribute to the great John Hartford.

You'll hear Kathy Mattea, Alison Brown, Brittany Haas, Sierra Hull, Megan Lovell, Missy Raines, Rachel Baiman, Phoebe Hunt, Ginger Boatwright, Deanie Richardson, Allison de Groot, Della Mae, The Price Sisters, Uncle Earl, and many more on this mix of carefully selected John Hartford songs and newly discovered fiddle tunes never before heard, unearthed in a filing cabinet when his daughter, Katie Harford Hogue, was archiving his belongings.

Elsewhere we've got tracks from new albums by Racyne Parker, JD Clayton, Sean McConnell, Echolalia, The Devil Makes Three and Brett Kissel, plus Redferrin releases his new 7-track project Some City, Somewhere.

Kip Moore releases his anticipated sixth studio album Solitary Tracks, his biggest and most ambitious record to date with 23 songs split over four sides. It's a sprawling, expansive collection of songs that range from the rockabilly country of 'Around You' to the stark americana of the title track and the soulful 'Pretty Horses', packing more into its grooves than most artists manage to cover in their whole careers as Moore explores life, love and the redeeming possibilities of human relationships. Bold and invigorating, Solitary Tracks is a singular career defining triumph.

"There’s no pattern you have to follow, and sometimes you gotta gamble on yourself,” stated Moore. “You gotta be bold enough to trust your gut, and willing to roll those dice if you believe something. I’m never going to cheat by just trying to write what I think people want to hear, or hold onto a sound that worked for me. I have to constantly stretch and go where I need to go, or it’s going to be disingenuous. I’m going to always be authentic with myself, with every record, and all I ever hope is that people find a little solace. This project is a journey in itself, so I hope it helps people navigate their own life."

Every week we turn our Holler spotlight on a song that we think deserves a little extra light shining on it and this week we've picked the new song from Brooklyn-based indie Americana singer-songwriter Ava McCoy.

'Young Girl' came out this week via Acrophase Records, alongside a music video filmed in the beautiful Oregon countryside.

"'Young Girl' is a love letter to my younger self and all of the dreams she had," says McCoy. "There have been many iterations of my creative self, and this song ties all of the varied versions of me into one. I sing about mistakes, breakthroughs, disappointments, and my core music memories as a kid."

Recorded during a series of sessions in Nashville with producer Josef Kuhn, 'Young Girl' is a gently strummed, moony love letter to both early childhood and young adulthood for anyone who likes their indie country tinged; "a reminder of the strength and pain of being young" as Philip Larkin once wrote. "That it can’t come again, but is for others undiminished somewhere."

"Jos and I recorded 'Young Girl' in his home studio in East Nashville," McCoy said of the recording. "I spent a month there in 2023 working on my next album, and this song was probably the most fun. We wrote the bridge together, and really leaned into the true-Americana feel that the songwriting asks for. I made the video with my boyfriend, Aidan, when we were in Oregon visiting a former dude ranch where I spent a lot of summers. We thought the landscape spoke for itself, and showed a side to my bicoastal upbringing that I don’t normally share. I had COVID at the time, so we just shot everything outside far away from people, and the horses really stole the show. I got Aidan out of bed at 6 am and we biked over to the meadow where the horses are let out every morning - the mist we captured is still one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. The video is a time capsule of a place and time I love so much and shows me in my truest state."

Watch the video for 'Young Girl' below.

Check out this week's new country and americana song releases and listen to the full playlist below:

1. 1.

   Not At This Party

   Dasha

2. 2.

   Dead To Rights (feat. ERNEST)

   Charles Wesley Godwin

3. 3.

   Unlucky Strikes

   Gavin Adcock

4. 4.

   Sounds Like Something I'd Say (feat. Parker McCollum)

   Kassi Ashton

5. 5.

   I Ain't Askin'

   Kasey Tyndall

6. 6.

   Solitary Tracks

   Kip Moore

7. 7.

   lead a horse to water

   Ashley Anne

8. 8.

   Flyover State

   Michael Marcagi

9. 9.

   Young Girl

   Ava McCoy

10. 10.

    Talk With Me

    Kashus Culpepper

11. 11.

    241s

    Lola Kirke

12. 12.

    New Boots

    Just Jayne

13. 13.

    Slow and Steady

    JD Clayton

14. 14.

    I Know What I Want

    Lily Rose

15. 15.

    Heavy Metal

    Austin Snell

16. 16.

    Some City Somewhere

    Redferrin

17. 17.

    Phases

    Sydney Quiseng

18. 18.

    American Soundtrack

    Craig Morgan

19. 19.

    Cowboys in Heaven

    Clay Walker

20. 20.

    Young Girl

    Ava McCoy

21. 21.

    Tuesday

    Julien Baker and TORRES

22. 22.

    Chemistry

    Gigi Perez

23. 23.

    I Ain't Livin'

    Dani Rose and Brent Cobb

24. 24.

    What Color's Your Wild

    Trace Adkins

25. 25.

    Cowboys & Dreamers

    Brett Kissel

26. 26.

    Don't Cheat In Our Hometown - Live

    Zach Top and Billy Strings

27. 27.

    Off Your Boots

    Kyle Clark

28. 28.

    Snowed In

    The Droptines

29. 29.

    Last Call Cowboy

    Karissa Ella

30. 30.

    Call It A Vice

    Joe Jordan

31. 31.

    You Can't Spell Hero Without Her

    Coffey Anderson

32. 32.

    Break Your Heart

    Brandt Carmichael

33. 33.

    Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me

    Cole Goodwin

34. 34.

    Quicker Way To Jesus

    Louie TheSinger

35. 35.

    Ain't Me

    Lil Man J

36. 36.

    Bittersweet

    Taylor Rae

37. 37.

    Front Porch Lights

    Braedon Barnhill

38. 38.

    2 Damn Sexy

    Lola Kirke

39. 39.

    Hammer Down (feat. Scott Avett)

    Charles Wesley Godwin

40. 40.

    Granite Mills

    Alison Krauss & Union Station

41. 41.

    Drive You Out of My Mind

    Cody Webb

42. 42.

    COUNTRYSTAR

    Sam Williams

43. 43.

    Miss America

    Nelly Joy

44. 44.

    Dreams of You

    Echolalia

45. 45.

    Hell Of A Ride

    Luke Tyler Shelton

46. 46.

    Just In Time (To Be Too Late)

    Savannah Rae

47. 47.

    Just Like My Lover

    Angela Autumn

48. 48.

    Flowers

    Nathaniel Rateliff and Gregory Alan Isakov

49. 49.

    generations in the making

    Abby Powledge

50. 50.

    High Agenda (Smoked Up Sinner)

    Fox N' Veed

51. 51.

    NOTHING ELSE (feat. Thomas Rhett)

    Forrest Frank

52. 52.

    Inside the Lines

    Chaparelle

53. 53.

    All Around You

    Watchhouse

54. 54.

    Lights on Me

    The Devil Makes Three

55. 55.

    Hold You To It

    Ryan Nelson

56. 56.

    Don't Die Truck

    Barefoot Joe

57. 57.

    The Julia Belle Swain

    Rachel Baiman, Megan Lynch Chowning, Sharon Gilchrist, Kristin Andreassen and Vickie Vaughn

58. 58.

    Kinda Can't Say No

    Ben Gallaher

59. 59.

    See How Far It Takes Me

    Racyne Parker

60. 60.

    Fading Star

    Judy Blank

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For more of the finest country playlists from Holler, see below: