During Night One of his blockbuster 2026 MT&T Bank Stadium show in Baltimore, Maryland, Morgan Wallen reflected on his next chapter of music, before performing the live debut of ‘Been By Now’. Wallen's new single arrives on Friday, July 24th.

Before revealing the song's release date and performing the long-teased track for the first time, the ‘Thought You Should Know’ singer-songwriter got candid with fans about his next era. Wallen explained that he's had some weeks away from the road of late, and as is his nature, he's inevitably used some of that time to record new music.

Wallen began by sharing, “I just had a few weeks off tour, so y'all know me, I can't help but work a little bit. I've been in the studio working on my...whatever's next”.

The Sneedville megastar made it clear that there are still a lot of question marks around his follow-up project to 2025's I'm the Problem, admitting, ““I don't exactly know what's gonna be next yet”, before finally confirming the keenly awaited release date for ’Been By Now’, “But I do know that this song I'm about to play right now is gonna be my very next single and it comes out on July 24th”.

While fans will inevitably be a little disappointed to learn that ‘Been By Now’ isn't necessarily the lead single from a new album, at the same time, it's exciting to hear that Wallen is at least thinking about what comes next after the success of I'm the Problem.

The ‘Love Somebody’ chart-topper usually waits two years between album releases, and with I'm the Problem dropping in May 2025 and remaining at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 over a year after its arrival, there's surely no hurry to share a new project just yet.

Wallen has been openly toying with the idea of exploring other genres more wholeheartedly in interviews over the past few years, with the ‘Whiskey Glasses’ hitmaker surprising Theo Von last Spring by discussing his hope to one day release a House project. Wallen outlined that he was considering doing so under an alias.

Wallen's producer Charlie Handsome, meanwhile, shared his thoughts on what he envisioned the ‘20 Cigarettes’ crooner doing next in a recent interview, “One of my goals moving forward is for Morgan to be able to have No. 1 pop songs with no features. So even though his voice is definitely country, I feel like it could be the No. 1 song on Pop Radio. And obviously we did do that, but we did that with Post, who had done it before in that space. So I think, moving forward, I'm gonna merge more of the things that people could consider ‘pop’ and find a way to do that”.

Perhaps, therefore, Wallen wants to step away from the traditional album-every-two-years approach, and explore more standalone song releases or a few smaller projects situated in different genres. Few country artists are able to flit between sounds as seamlessly and as sincerely as Wallen, with the country titan able to incorporated trap, Hip-Hop, indie-rock and EDM-leaning textures into his style with ease.

We'll have to wait and see exactly what Wallen has planned, but the imminent release of ‘Been By Now’ undoubtedly feels like an exciting step in the direction of a new body of work.

Whether Wallen holds off on a full-length record until 2027 - as we'd usually expect him to - or whether he tests out an EP format later this year, either way, new music from the genre-blurring maverick is always welcome. Judging by the ‘Been By Now’ snippet that's been flooding TikTok and Wallen's live rendition of the song in Baltimore, we think it's safe to say it will be en route to become his latest No. 1.