Newest Adds to Saving Country Music’s Top 25 Current Playlist (#153)
“MoDErN cOUnTRy SUcKS!” What are you nuts? It’s an embarrassment of riches out here. You just need to know where to point your nose. Turn off Bobby Bones and get to listening to the best in independent country music.
The Saving Country Music Top 25 Playlist is built to keep you informed on all the best songs and albums coming out right here, right now in country and roots music. It’s available on most all streaming formats (see below), or you can just use the song, artist, and album recommendations to find something new to listen to. New songs just added.
Newest Additions:
Charley Crockett – “Game I Can’t Win” – A killer cautionary tale from Mr. Crockett about the rapacious snakes lurking in the grass of Music City that’s served up in honky tonk style with banjo for good measure. Charley rarely misses, and he doesn’t with this new song ahead of his major label debut Lonesome Drifter out March 13th.
Sierra Hull feat. Tom O’Brien – “This World Is Cold” – Sierra deserves to be in the same conversation as Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle for making bluegrass cool again. “The World Is Cold” starts off light and easy, but builds into a super infectious crescendo. It’s off Hull’s self-produced new album A Tip Toe High Wire out March 7th.
Cole Goodwin – “Fast Track Back” – Cole Goodwin from Pooler, Georgia is definitely one to get on your radar, and “Fast Track Back” is a good reason. He’s been on the road opening for Zach Top, and could be the next great neotraditionalist to break out.
Eagle Rock Gospel Singers – “Wicked and Cruel” – Killer classic/Southern rock track that you would swear was recorded in 1976 by some sweaty bell bottom-wearing folks with miles and miles of swagger. But no, the Eagle Rock Gospel Singer came up with it in the present tense, and it’s sure to get you up shaking your bones.
Spencer Hatcher – “The Way She Lies” – Songwriters Tim Owens and Derek George make great use of the double entendre, and Spencer Hatcher delivers an excellent performance to make “The Way She Lies” feel like an instant classic. Keep an eye out for Spencer, who is turning out to be yet another excellent young traditional country singer with a very bright future.
Jason Boland and the Stragglers – “Take Me Back To Austin” – Jason Boland might be a bonafide legend of Red Dirt, but he’s never been satisfied with just resting on his laurels and singing “Pearl Snaps.” His new album The Last Kings of Babylon is out March 14th.
Kristina Murray – “Watchin’ The World Pass Me By” – Kristina Murray waited ten years paying dues in Nashville before New West/Normaltown finally gobbled her up. Part rumination and part kiss off, “Watchin’ The World Pass Me By” is Murray putting her experience to song. New album Little Blue is out May 9th.
Cam Pierce – “This World Is Cold” – Cam’s new album A Thousand Lonely Horses is a great specimen of Western and Americana songwriting, with excellent and thoughtful textures. “The World Is Cold” is indicative of this, and a sleeper on the album. It’s the piano that really brings the beauty of the song out.
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The Saving Country Music Top 25 Playlist primarily lives on Spotify, but is also available for those who use Amazon Music, YouTube, and Apple Music. For those who don’t stream music, you can still find the song recommendations in list form below.
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Please Note: The songs on this playlist are curated for listening pleasure and flow. Otherwise, they are not in any specific order.
Saving Country Music’s Top 25 Current Playlist:
- “Game I Can’t Win” – Charley Crcokett – Lonesome Drifter (3-14)
- “Nobody Knows Your Love” – Madison Hughes, Brent Cobb – (single)
- “Fast Track Back” – Cole Goodwin – (single)
- “Horses” – Jesse Welles – Middle
- “There Goes Another One” – Mason Via – Self-Titled (4-25)
- “There’s A Drink For That” – Josh Ward – Same Ol’ Cowboy, Different Rodeo
- “Come Out Of My Blues” – Sierra Hull feat. Tim O’Brien – A Tip Toe High Wire (3-7)
- “Texas 42” – Silverada – Texas 42 (acoustic album)
- “My Love, My Love” – Harper O’Neill – (single)
- “Cinnamon Blonde” – Tony Logue – Dark Horse
- “Ain’t Enough Cowboy Songs” – Ashley McBryde – (single)
- “Mr. Bossman” – David Quinn – Up To Snuff
- “This World Is Cold” – Cam Pierce – A Thousand Lonely Horses
- “Pass Me By” – Vinny Tovar, Aubry Rodriguez – (single)
- “Young Man’s Lament” – John Mutchler – (single)
- “Casseroles” – Hailey Whitters – (single)
- “Wicked and Cruel” – The Eagle Rock Gospel Singers – (single)
- “The Way She Lies” – Spencer Hatcher – (single)
- “Somewhere Along The Way” – Whitey Morgan and the 78s – (single)
- “Watchin’ The World Pass Me By” – Kristina Murray – Little Blue (5-9)
- “Take Me Back to Austin” – Jason Boland and the Stragglers – Kings of Babylon (3-14)
- “Rein It In Cowboy” – The Doohickeys – All Hat No Cattle
- “Brother” – Mark Morton, Cody Jinks – (single)
- “Somebody’s Knockin’ – Summer Dean – (single)
- “Tow Truck” – Hillbilly Casino – (single)
- “Can’t Remember How To Smile” – Courtney Patton – Carry You With Me
- “Talkin’ To Your Picture – Josh Ward – Same Ol’ Cowboy, Different Rodeo
February 23, 2025 @ 9:14 am
Charley Crockett’s, Game I Can’t Win, is serious fun.
February 23, 2025 @ 9:50 am
I know this will be an unpopular opinion but, re: Cole Goodwin – I’m still waiting on these 2024/2025 “neotraditional artists” to churn out higher quality songs that stick with you. Cole Goodwin’s song isn’t bad on any technical level, but it also feels like empty calories. Great, it has a 90’s traditional sound and production. I won’t knock that, but too often these songs feel like “lets write a song that sounds like something Tracy Byrd would record” than really being focused on find or writing and cutting something that lasts.
I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I would rather have “diet Tracy Byrd” than Morgan Wallen or whatever slop Jelly Roll is recording, but I also haven’t really gotten excited about a lot of these young guys emerging yet because it just feels like “shove a bunch of 90’s radio songs into ChatGPT and spit out a song to record” than anything feeling more authentic or “lived in”.
I know that isn’t fair to the artists, but I guess in short wake me when the songwriting catches up to the sound.
February 23, 2025 @ 10:14 am
Mike you have to understand to younger folks that “90’s sound” you’re talking about sounds fresh and new. They weren’t around then, nor do most care about who was popular back then. I know I’ve said this before, and I personally was around in the 90’s but wasn’t listening to Country so I love this Zach Top and the others etc “sound”. I’ve listened to Cole Goodwins songs and do like em so far but we’ll see……. I do get what you’re saying though. Different perspectives.
February 23, 2025 @ 1:02 pm
Fair. I just find a lot of it to be empty calories to me. Admittedly, I have always enjoyed the more “singer songwriter” types over the “hat acts”, but I just find the level of songwriting to be a bit weak. Is it possible that changes? Absolutely, and I would welcome it. Nor do I expect artists to only record pensive singer-songwriter ballads, but I just am waiting for a little bit more originality to peak through in both the production and writing. So far so much of it feels very by the numbers and for that reason I just am left with “meh”.
February 23, 2025 @ 1:58 pm
Songwriting in general sucks these days, in every genre.
I guess we were spoiled by the flow of excellent tunesmiths from the 1940’s and up till (perhaps) ca. 1990. Sure, some of the old guard still hung around then, like Harlan Howard, Leonard Cohen and Mickey Newbury, but they didn’t hit the mainstream with their songs.
A new Gershwin or Carmichael won’t happen again, sadly. The market isn’t there anymore. Dinosaurs like us are soon to become extinct, and the mammals following us simply grows up in a different world where there won’t be any living links to the greater past.
Goodbye, Shakespeare. Hello, AI.
February 23, 2025 @ 2:15 pm
The notion of traditional country seems to stretch back to the early 90’s, and it ends there.
It sure isn’t traditional country like Lefty Frizzell, Merle Haggard, Ray Price or even early Clint Black and Alan Jackson.
It’s “americana”, at best, and yes, that’s much better than bro-pop with a steel and psuedo-rap, true enough.
But it’s not 4/4 shuffles and twin fiddles with lyrics a grown-up can relate to. That’s what traditional country means to me. Everything from Bob Wills and Merle Travis to Keith Whitley and Tracy Byrd is okay in my book, but every decennium it became harder and harder to come by.
Today it’s as good as gone.
February 23, 2025 @ 10:02 am
Game i cant win is a great song. One of charleys best originals in my opinion. I liked lonesome drifter but i love this one. Looking forward to new album. Was going to preorder but i was gonna pick up visions of dallas too since i never bought it, just listened off spotify. But they were going to ship separately and charge shipping each time so i will wait.
February 23, 2025 @ 10:13 am
Impressive adds TY.
For me that Friday Justin Wells is a grower I’ll admit but man glad to have it.
Biggest surprise the Garrett Bradford – if you got a little double-clutching in your toe tapping there’s some truck driving gems… and even the more pedestrian stuff is well done.
February 23, 2025 @ 2:54 pm
madison hughes , very very nice
February 23, 2025 @ 5:24 pm
Juliet McConkey has a new album out.
February 24, 2025 @ 8:07 am
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I bought cds by Jason Boland, James McMurtry, Dale Watson, Stapleton, Sturgill, Isbell… Wayne Hancock and lots of other artists I was introduced to by this website.
Most of them I listen to… infrequently. It’s not that I disliked anything I heard but I just didn’t find the motivation to listen to Jason Boland instead of the Louvin Brothers, Hank Thompson etc.
I saw Isbell, I saw Stapleton, I saw Sturgill Simpson, yeah? i couldn’t tell you the last time i listened to a stapleton cd, or a sturgill CD.
I went to see Charley Crocket a couple years ago. I’d never actually heard a Charley Crockett song BUT I knew he was really making waves so i had the chance locally to see him at a small venue and I took it, because I knew I wouldn’t get a second chance.
The first notes of that performance are forever etched into my memory as strikingly, as jarringly, as unforgettably, as strikingly as the sound of a foghorn penetrating the deepest sleep in the quiet of an undiscovered tomb.
It was unreal.
I have 3 Charley Crockett CDs in my car right now.
Charley Crockett is IT. The most ‘IT’ person I’ve yet heard in the modern music scene. The only modern country act in probably fifty years that I can truthfully say I like MORE than Hank Thompson or the Louvin Brothers.
As a side note, when i left the Charley Crockett performance i found someone had put a slice of processed cheese under my windscreen wiper. Still not sure how to respond to that.
February 24, 2025 @ 10:04 am
@Fuzzy,
Am glad to see this comment.
This week, getting tickets to see Buddy Guy, in June.
And your comment decided it. Also going to get a ticket to see Charley Crockett, in May. At a Really great 2K seat venue.
February 24, 2025 @ 11:42 am
@Fuzzy–I’m sure Hank Thompson was a great live performer with his guitar playing skills and his Western Swing band but I don’t listen to his records because as a singer he was completely unengaged with whatever he was singing.
One of my favorite Hank Thompson recordings for it’s utter cluelesness is his version of “Wreck of the Old 97,” a classic, dramatic train song sung by many singers from Woody Guthrie to Hank Snow to Johnny Cash, among others.
When the lyrics tell of Steve, the train engineer, ordered by his boss to speed over the White Oak Mountain and “get her into Spencer on time”: “He was going down a grade making 90 miles an hour/ The whistle broke into a scream/He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle/ Scalded to death by steam”–Hank Thompson sings it with such care-free jauntiness that you’d think he’s singing “It’s such a pretty world today, Look at the sunshine (look at the sunshine).”
February 24, 2025 @ 10:33 pm
You got that right, Hank was first and foremost a bandleader (and what a band!).
His music was about one thing; get up and dance, even if it’s a chiller like ‘Cocaine Blues’. Hank sings it in his thin baritone like it’s a jolly good time. And ruins the whole story, in my opinion.
I love Wills and Thompson both, but they’re oppositions. The free-wheeling anarchy of the Texas Playboys vs. the strict conservatism of the Brazo Valley Boys, where execution by Hank looms if you dare to improvise.
February 26, 2025 @ 8:00 am
Lucky and Sofus:
I ‘get’ what you’re saying but for me that’s part of the charm of a Hank Thompson record. The infectious happiness. Plus Hank’s strength as a writer.
I get it, but it’s part of the appeal for me. A Thompson record is a happy experience.
Plus as far as country singers go Hank Thompson had an incredible repertoire of both of standards and originals as well as songs normally outside the country fold.
And yeah Hank Thompson the singer isn’t the draw as much as hank thompson the arranger/bandleader. Brazos Valley Boys were locked in.
February 27, 2025 @ 12:42 am
I find myself listening to Hank a lot more than I listen to Bob Wills, simply because Hank (aka BVB) are much easier on the ears (not to mention the genius Merle Travis, who always played up front whenever he was a part of the recordings).
The californian smoothness of Hank is an easy sell, and it’s all classy as fuck. We won’t see their likes again.
It would be an interesting article; bands who are/were better than their frontmen (the Brazos Valley Boys, the Buckaroos, the Fallen Angels and so on).
February 24, 2025 @ 3:34 pm
Just listened to Cam Pierce’s new record, This World is Cold is one of my favorites. Also really like Passing Train.
February 24, 2025 @ 7:42 pm
Just wanted to pass this along if anyone interested. Bill medley of the righteous brothers released a vaguely country album, straight from the heart. Has a few artist along with him, vince gill on one song. Bills voice is a little raspy, hes 84. A few covers of famous songs. Calling it country is a stretch but if u were a fan of the righteous brothers might be worth checking out just for kicks.
February 24, 2025 @ 10:13 pm
Matt Daniel’s “Long Way Home” needs to be an add. Been waiting for him to put out some new stuff and it didn’t disappoint.
February 25, 2025 @ 6:23 am
Cam Pierce, Courtney Patton, Kristina Murray, Summer Dean, Tony Logue, AND Hillbilly Casino all on one list! What’s not to love? Some of the best shows at Duke’s Indy happened because of these talented folks. If you haven’t already, go to all their socials and give them a like, watch some YouTube, and build a playlist with songs from all of them. Seriously, talented folks and some of the hardest working in the business. Did I mention every single one of them takes time after the show to get to know their fans, sign merch, and pose for photos?
February 25, 2025 @ 7:49 am
Time after time, SCM proves there is a lot of good country music. Some great tracks. Some new names worth looking out for in future. Thanks as always.