Koe Wetzel Lands #1 on Country Radio. It Sounds Like a #1 on Country Radio
Now what the hell is this? What’s the fun or challenge of getting to the top if you sell out to get there? Koe Wetzel is supposed to be one of country music’s bad boys blowing in from Texas, doing things his own way, writing his own songs, and putting a rock attitude behind it all to upset the prudes. Yet here he is releasing a radio single with seven songwriters that sounds like it was rejected from a Dan + Shay session.
Koe’s single “High Road” with Jessie Murph has been the #1 song on country radio for the last couple of weeks. Previously, Wetzel hadn’t even sniffed the Top 40 on radio, but that was okay because he didn’t need to. He was minting Gold and Platinum singles just fine and building something on his own Texas style.
Koe Wetzel’s at his best when he braying drunk for someone to get him some Taco Bell while co-eds whip bras at his face, backed by bad post grunge ’90s rock riffs. I guess now that Gavin Adcock is out there out-cocking Koe, Wetzel feels the need to be more commercially applicable. You shouldn’t be afraid of your favorite artists maturing or evolving. But in this case, putting out paint-by-numbers radio singles is a regression, even for someone like Koe Wetzel.
“High Road” isn’t entirely terrible as much as it just smacks of corporate radio product. Maybe it’s not entirely uncharacteristic of something Koe Wetzel would release, but it’s definitely not something that makes you feel like this is a win for the good guys that it went #1.
Both Koe and his attitudinal-sounding collaborator Jessie Murph’s hand gesticulations and hip-hop inflections feel incredibly fake. It’s less emotive, and more a put-on attitude from a couple of bumpkins trying to act street. To be honest, Jessie Murph is the worst part of this. Apparently she came up on Tik-Tok, and has also collaborated with Diplo, Jelly Roll, Teddy Swims, and Bailey Zimmerman too. That sounds about right.
Koe Wetzel’s music has always been somewhat vapid and pandering on the surface, while deceptively deep when you dig into the lyrics. And upon occasion, he’ll write and record an undeniably good song, even if his detractors deny it anyway. What was cool about Koe’s major label debut album Sellout (2020) is that he didn’t change himself. He still wrote his own songs and was true to his original sound. With “High Road,” it feels like he did capitulate.
When you have seven songwriters in whatever you’re doing, it becomes so detached from the original inspiration, it’s difficult to impossible to resonate, despite how easy it is to push it up the radio charts from having “that sound.” Koe Wetzel is a country male on a major label, so he apparently deserves a #1 radio single like all the others. And now he’s got one.
Congratulations, I guess.
1 1/2 Guns Down (3.5/10)
January 6, 2025 @ 12:07 pm
always have and prob always will be a big koe fan. That said this last record was certainly when his output finally took a turn for the worse. Sounded like it lost all the attitude and grittiness that he had before signing and then maintained through his major label albums Sellout and even Hell Paso. Didn’t realize he was doing these big ass cowrites so that prob explains it. Hopefully this going #1 and his massive stardom doesn’t mean more of this type of stuff bc he’s so fuckin good when he’s at his best
Jeremy pinnell rips
January 8, 2025 @ 5:29 am
Agreed. Jeremy Pinnell is how country sounds.
January 6, 2025 @ 12:13 pm
There is nothing country about this. Even his rap hand signals are gross. Country radio seems like a race to the top of the pile of people trying to sound as far from country as they can.
January 6, 2025 @ 2:24 pm
Nashville’s always been that way, ever since rock’n’roll ruled the airwaves.
The country music industry never had any pride in it’s roots. The Nashville Sound was the final nail in the coffin.
Money, always money. To hell with authencity. Today it’s so bad that even certain ABBA songs got more in common with country music than what’s currently pushed on the radio.
At least Benny and Björn could write some excellent lyrics and melody hooks.
January 6, 2025 @ 3:07 pm
If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you…… I fully agree and understand what you are saying. We know where the etiology of the disease lies, but along the way to sheer destruction, the cancer needs nutrients and those nutrients are the musical souls of people with dreams. What happens simply depends on how zealous each person is with their specific dreams. Obviously he could have been presented with this song and thought it was awesome and this success is so great for him, but most other circumstances are simply sad.
January 6, 2025 @ 12:28 pm
This might just as well be that scene in Idiocracy where Luke Wilson’s character is looking up at the movie theatre marquee sign with the word ‘Ass’ ….. because this sounds like ass.
January 6, 2025 @ 1:00 pm
As someone who is a big fan of a most of the music from the Texas/Red Dirt scene, I have never been of a fan of his. Never heard this song and not planning on checking it out. Thankfully Cody Johnson is doing us Texas Country fans proud with his music on the radio.
January 6, 2025 @ 1:02 pm
I have never gotten Koe, or at least never gotten how he is any part of country music. Sounds just like bland shlock you would hear on the “active rock” charts or something. This review doesn’t make me want to revisit him.
January 6, 2025 @ 5:33 pm
His very first charting single was, indeed, on Active Rock radio (“Creeps”).
I think ever since Jelly Roll opened a bunch of doors for other entertainers who have had charting success on country radio to also try their hand at Active Rock airplay (HARDY), Koe is trying to follow suit.
January 6, 2025 @ 1:16 pm
Livin’ It Up Down In Texas. Billy F Gibbons.
I do believe this is the answer to who(m) is responsible for the tune all the Landman enthusiasts are asking about at the end of episode 9. This past Sunday.
Thought wouldn’t hurt to throw this comment here.
January 6, 2025 @ 1:33 pm
The tune at the end of the episode is most definitely NOT Billy Gibbons. It does appear he has a song in the episode, but it’s 100% not that one.
January 6, 2025 @ 2:15 pm
Ok. Thanks for the heads up.
January 7, 2025 @ 11:25 am
Ok badass, calling you out.
What Is the last song of episode 9?
Deliver
January 7, 2025 @ 12:16 pm
I don’t know. I can say with 100% certainty it is not Billy Gibbons. It has been CONFIRMED that “Livin’ It Up Down In Texas” appears in an earlier scene in a gym. If you actually listen to the final song, it sounds absolutely nothing like Billy Gibbons, or a song that would be called “Livin’ It Up Down In Texas.” It would be like handing someone a shoe and telling them it’s a banana. I don’t know who is saying that, but they’re incorrect.
I believe the final song in episode 9 is part of the score. It’s not listed on the official soundtrack. But if a artist and title comes available, I will update it here.
January 7, 2025 @ 12:27 pm
Yes, Andrew Lockington is most likely the composer of that song.
However, Billy is not one dimensional.
January 7, 2025 @ 12:50 pm
Di,
You’re out of your depth. You’re not even commenting on the right article at this point. Billy Gibbons is not the artist of the song at the end of Episode 9 of “Landman.” Nobody said Billy Gibbons is one dimensional. The song in question is clearly playing in another part of the episode. But if you want to believe otherwise, full speed ahead. Spread it far and wide across the internet, and make sure to tell everyone else that Saving Country Music has it wrong. Best of luck to you!
January 7, 2025 @ 1:05 pm
: D What the heck?
Relax.
Just trying to get to the proper answer.
January 6, 2025 @ 2:19 pm
Could be a Billy Bob Thornton vanity piece.
January 6, 2025 @ 1:17 pm
If you haven’t checked out Jessie Murph’s solo stuff — non-rap, that is — you’ll find a capable singer in the Amy Winehouse mold. Her accent is the same. She sounds like her life has been split between Alabama and Tennessee, which is exactly how it should sound. Is she country? No, but this is a pop-country crossover record with r&b influences, just like, say, Lee Brice’s “Rumor.” It’s not a freakin’ Dan + Shay song! To me, Murph’s verse is the most appealing part of “High Road.” The hand gestures are irrelevant. You can’t see those on the radio.
I get why you gave it a 3.5, but don’t throw it into the D+S/Brett Young simpering-boyfriend cesspool. It’s more tolerable than at least half the songs on the mainstream top 40 this week.
January 6, 2025 @ 5:36 pm
The Dan + Shay comparison is not necessarily to the lyrical content, but the soft pop/R&B sound and production of the track, and the songwriter-by-committee aspect. Jessie Murph doesn’t sound like Alabama/Tennessee. She sounds like suburban white chick raised on hip-hop trying to sound tough, and failing.
January 6, 2025 @ 5:38 pm
I’ll EASILY take Dan + Shay’s current single (“Bigger Houses”) and most of Brett Young’s singles over this ANY day.
At the very least the majority of their songs don’t sound cynical and miserable. “High Road” just sounds gross and ugly, and not “ugly” in a raw, visceral, self-reflective, brooding kind of way like from David Allen Coe or Cody Jinks’ earlier stuff, etc…………..just a hollow and manufactured sort of ugly.
January 7, 2025 @ 11:14 am
I agree completely. This garbage is much worse than Dan + Shay in Brett Young. Not sure why all the defenders of this clown act like he’s not just another poser that looks like a sumo wrestler.
January 8, 2025 @ 12:17 am
I’ve come to the conclusion that traditional country these days means mid/late 90’s country pop, as we heard it done by Collin Raye, Billy Dean etc.
I pretty much gave up on the mainstream around that time. Sure, I had Chris Wall, Dale Watson, Wylie Gustafson and a few others keeping it real, but I went back to explore whoever came before disco ruined every genre in the 70’s.
Heck, even Rod Stewart and Elton John made better country in the early 70’s than what the radio fed us from ca. 1993 and onward.
January 8, 2025 @ 12:37 pm
I agree completely. I find it incredibly frustrating the mainstream artists, and hell, even some of the independents people are willing to tag as “traditional” or “real” country. That goes for even the artists of the 90s like Garth Brooks. That guy in no way was a net-positive for country music.
Don’t even get me started on this one wannabe tough guy making buttrock/rap music that we have people on this site defending. Insane.
January 6, 2025 @ 1:23 pm
If he uses this to push more of his music in the future I’m ok with it.
I doubt it though as sweet dreams is also terrible.
Cash that check man, I’m all for it I guess. Just remember ragweed.
January 6, 2025 @ 1:37 pm
It sounds like when Pat Green abandoned us Adios Days guys and did Wave on Wave.
Nights in the canyon are gone
Steven is dead, Johnny got married
and me I’m here all on my own
January 6, 2025 @ 1:52 pm
“Love,” the song Koe did with Parker McCollum, should’ve been a #1 over this. Only two songwriters for that one, the singers themselves.
January 6, 2025 @ 2:15 pm
Yep, that’s how bad the current state of commercial radio is, no matter the genre.
I spent some days in the hospital this Christmas, and my wife sent me a few links to a rapper reacting to Conway Twitty’s Hello, Darlin’ and Kenny Roger’s The Gambler. I never cared about such videos before, but damn, it took me down the rabbit hole and nourished my soul. Those youngsters loves traditional country when they’re finally exposed to it.
Modern country, not so much. As one of them said; it’s bad hip hop.
Highly recommended, if you need a boost of confidence in the future of a more traditional country music. If someone dared publish some real fiddle and steel tunes again, it’s a market for it.
January 6, 2025 @ 2:21 pm
Most people will sell out for fame.
January 8, 2025 @ 12:25 am
I tried, but nobody bought it.
January 6, 2025 @ 2:23 pm
This is the sanitized happy version with the girl in it.
The unsanitized version has a verse that starts:
Call me a son of a bitch
For being honest, yeah, that’s what I get
And fuck it, I quit
You keep on losing your head about some girl I ain’t with
Finally, Southern Pop has found a poetry to compete on Cardi B’s level.
At least it’s got rock guitars and a 6315 chorus.
January 6, 2025 @ 2:51 pm
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I’ve always thought he sucks. He’s just a big ole poser. I don’t get the appeal. Just my two cents.
January 6, 2025 @ 3:22 pm
Make it a dollar. You’re not wrong.
January 6, 2025 @ 10:58 pm
Buddy, we’re all commenting on a music blog.
A night of matching drinks, lines, and smoke with that “poser” would be the last on Earth for most everyone reading this.
January 7, 2025 @ 6:07 am
Oh, I 100% agree with you. “Poser” was just what came to mind when typing my comment. What I meant was he tries to be a tough guy, yet far from it.
January 6, 2025 @ 5:29 pm
I loathe “High Road” because of how disingenuous its framing and lyrical conceit is: where the narrator claims to be taking the “high road” yet is talking smack at the subject even in the chorus. And I know often in country music there’s witty turn-of-phrases, but if that’s what the writers were trying to go for…………they fail miserably at that too. Yeah: saying you’re just going to go and get stoned isn’t a clever way of expressing you’re taking the “high road”.
Seriously: did the writers even bother to double-check the meaning of the expression in a dictionary before broaching it? It reminds me of when Katy Perry released “Dark Horse” and I’m absolutely convinced had no idea what a “dark horse” even is.
Plus it just sounds miserable and cynical all around.
January 6, 2025 @ 5:38 pm
This is what you get with seven songwriters. The song isn’t meant to make sense. It’s meant to include the buzzwords and signifyers that tell DJs its a radio hit.
January 6, 2025 @ 7:00 pm
The “high road” Koe sings about is drugs or booze. “Have a little too much of something terrible.” That’s the way the protagonist in the song (and his girlfriend, in the version with Jessie) chooses to escape the misery and mistrust of the broken relationship. I thought that was pretty obvious at first listen.
January 6, 2025 @ 7:16 pm
Right. I just don’t think it’s written well is all.
Turn-of-phrases can either be handled rather cleverly or intelligently, or conversely sloppily or forced, depending on the writer(s). Whereas I think a song like Jon Pardi’s “Reverse Cowgirl” pulled off the conceit quite effectively in its case, or even Eric Church’s “Cold One”………….here it’s just lazy.
Also: if the narrator’s insisting their means of getting over an acrimonious breakup is by driving away in a stoned haze…………..shouldn’t at the very least the narrator either 1) express a relative degree of swagger in the moment or else 2) be projecting a sort of denialism facade that the breakup has gotten under his skin and that facade is being conveyed in the tone of the song’s production (specifically the chorus)? And then the bridge or outro perhaps offers a brief glimpse behind the curtain?
I feel some of Wetzel’s earlier catalog has a bit more emotional variance and descriptive detail even if it taps into a similar sort of curdled, angsty vein tonally. “High Road”, comparatively speaking, just sounds very one-note and uncommitted to my ears.
January 8, 2025 @ 12:21 am
Rusty Weir’s High Road, Low Road is how it should be written;
When you get lonely with no place to turn
Memories of the old days
Makes your heart to yearn
For the good times when we thought
All our love would grow
But you took the high road
I took the low
January 6, 2025 @ 6:27 pm
I posted on 10/22/21:
Zach Bryan, Parker McCollum, and Koe Wetzel are the new generation of Outlaw/ Red Dirt Country Music insurgents that are disrupting the industry and forging a their own path to the top of the genre.
One out of three ain’t bad.
January 6, 2025 @ 8:16 pm
I frequently make fun of Zach Bryan but he’s one of the few in the mainstream that have caused meaningful change in Country music.
January 8, 2025 @ 4:40 pm
I think one can be fan of just how Zach Bryan handles his business separate from the music. That’s kinda of the category I now fall into. I can’t wait to see what he does next to disrupt or change the industry.
January 6, 2025 @ 7:36 pm
I’ve never liked him because he exudes douchebro energy.
January 8, 2025 @ 12:22 am
Doesn’t every single one of them, these days?
January 6, 2025 @ 9:00 pm
Hadn’t ever heard this shit pile. Now I wish I never have. Koe Wetzel sucks and is a bro-douche who thinks he’s cool. Fuck that guy.
January 6, 2025 @ 10:44 pm
I think the sound is very much sanitized for radio – felt that way about “Sweet Dreams” as well. However, lyrical content is still very much what you’d expect from a Koe track. It’s a trashy alternative song. “I don’t need a ticket to your shit show. Knock yourself out and hit a new low” doesn’t sound like a line that is coming out of any Nashville writer room.
This album definitely didn’t hit the same heights that Hell Paso or Sellout did, but it had some bright spots, a few tracks that still bang, “Black Cat”, “Leigh”.
Koe has always been an anomaly. Texas Redneck influenced by millennial era Red Dirt and Pop Punk, playing alternative music on Jackson guitars. It’s a weird as shit amalgamation, but it works. Koe is a real rock star. I just worry that the rock star life is wearing on him. In recent interviews, he’s been pretty open about burnout and letting people “help” him on this album. It’s just tragic that it’s led to a worse product with greater commercial success.
January 7, 2025 @ 7:07 am
I’ve always kinda liked Koe’s music when I’m feeling in a mood to rock out a bit. Though I was raised on country, I drifted into the hard rock and metal lanes during my teen years like most of my friends. I stayed there for quite awhile until country music started slowly but surely creeping back into my main genre. Koe has been a nod towards both of my favorite genres. I have to say that his latest album 9 Lives has been a bit disappointing though. The album feels a bit uninspired, neither edgy and rocking, nor really country.
As for this song and Jessie Murph? I have listened to it quite a bit due to my wife being a big fan of Murph. It’s not a horrible song, and I don’t mind listening to it with my wife, but it’s nothing special either. I’ve kinda grown to like Murph who has that retro style vocals like a Elle King or Gin Wigmore. Most of her music is a little to pop for my tastes, but she has a few gems like the bluesy I Could Go Bad. I honestly think it is Murph who is the better of the two on this song, and probably her rising popularity that brought Koe his first number one here.
January 7, 2025 @ 9:16 am
Maybe he Koe will turn 45 & decide to make real music. And while I ramble, I am tired of no creativity. The last 10 years or so,it seems, ass, shit, etc., are creeping into mainstream country lyrics. And I grew up with Tupac & Project Pat… I never thought it was necessary in country music.
January 7, 2025 @ 9:36 am
My wife got me into new country when we met in 2010. And at the time all I knew were the classic artists that were in my rotation alongside other genres. For the next several years I listened to country radio, The Highway, mainstream awards ceremonies, etc. not knowing there was so much better coming from outside that limited space. And for years I would tolerate crap like this waiting to hear something remotely resembling traditional country which was rare during that bro country dominated stretch.
Thankfully Spotify and sites like this opened my eyes several years ago and I never looked back on country radio. True it would have been better hearing about and appreciating something like Adobe Sessions upon initial release vs. seeking out on my own several years later but better late than never. Yesterday I saw an article referencing the Top 40 country hits of 2024 and outside of a select few (Dirt Cheap was a welcome inclusion) I didn’t even recognize the names of the songs. Yet the artists I follow now have similar streaming numbers and are selling out bigger and bigger shows. This is fine for me.
Yes this song sucks. And yes the country radio apparently approves. But who cares about country radio if we have great music coming out on a regular basis that is still being recognized and rewarded in forums that are the way of the future and not the past?
January 7, 2025 @ 10:14 am
Koe Wetzel falls on the wrong side of the ‘Douche Diagonal’ graph. According to the ‘Douche Diagonal’ it states that if a performer is X amount of “Douchey” he must also be X amount of talented. (Best score see: Steve Wariner. Worst see: Jackson Taylor Band)
January 8, 2025 @ 7:33 am
C’mon now. I love Jackson Taylor. I know he gets discarded now because he’s not on the politically correct side of independent country, but this dude was cranking out traditional outlaw country before Bro-Country. Jackson Taylor, along with guys like Dallas Moore, Shooter Jennings, and Ray Scott, are what attracted me back to country music. Whether people like him personally or not, Taylor is underrated in his contributions to saving country music.
January 7, 2025 @ 10:37 am
I’m gonna take the high road and not mention the fact that I never liked him. Oops
January 7, 2025 @ 12:56 pm
Even Jack Ingram’s Lips of an Angel era thinks this was a questionable choice.
January 8, 2025 @ 8:45 am
I don’t necessarily disagree that the new record was a change, but to act like Koe’s music hasn’t always had hip hop influences is hilarious. It has, and he’s always been very open about it and his love for hip hop. I mean come on, he made a song with Kodak Black. Sundy or Mundy, from the album you reference (Sellout), is essentially a hip hop song, and it’s one of his best songs. Also, this obsession over number of songwriters is always so ridiculous, because traditional country greats like King George constantly had a litany of different people writing their songs. He wrote almost none of his own music, and everyone always points to him as “real country”.
Koe’s clearly maturing, which he has also been open about, and you can hear that in the record. People that are so scared of artists evolving are so annoying.
January 8, 2025 @ 9:05 am
As was said in the review, “High Road’ isn’t entirely terrible as much as it just smacks of corporate radio product. Maybe it’s not entirely uncharacteristic of something Koe Wetzel would release, but it’s definitely not something that makes you feel like this is a win for the good guys that it went #1.
As well as, “You shouldn’t be afraid of your favorite artists maturing or evolving. But in this case, putting out paint-by-numbers radio singles is a regression, even for someone like Koe Wetzel.”
So I think we agree more than you think. But George Strait never had seven songwriters on a song. I really think the writing is where Koe let himself down here. Honestly, I wouldn’t have thought twice about this song. It goes #1 on country radio and folks celebrate it as a landmark achievement for an important artist, it invites scrutiny.
January 8, 2025 @ 9:53 am
I definitely agree that the writing is a regression
January 8, 2025 @ 12:47 pm
Ah. Koe Wetzel..I was a huge fan until I lost all respect for him when he slurred his way through a headlining opportunity at Cheyenne Frontier Days. He was a mess, wasted $80 on that drunk. Now he’s sold out and gone pop. What a waste of talent.
January 8, 2025 @ 3:48 pm
I saw in the YT comments saying that there needed to be a 20-minute extended version of this.
Me, I was out at 1:15.
January 8, 2025 @ 4:36 pm
Whatever floats your boat.
January 11, 2025 @ 9:03 pm
Koe comes across as a cardboard outlaw to me. Actually most of the ‘outlaws’ these days are xeroxed copies of fake outlaws pretending to be outlaws. This song is garbage. What’s surprising to me is that it takes seven people to write this junk.
January 14, 2025 @ 2:20 pm
Creed called, they want their sound back.