On June 4th, roughly a year after releasing his fourth studio album, I'm the Problem, Morgan Wallen shared an Instagram post with that simple yet familiar ‘voicenote’ symbol emblazoned across it. It was, surprise surprise, a new song - ‘Been By Now’.

And so began the tried and tested rollout for every new Wallen single of late. This usually works like clockwork: he shares a voicenote demo, fans immediately start clamouring for a release date and flooding TikTok with videos using the snippet, and then, just as we're starting to lose patience, Wallen finally drops the song.

It's a process that has worked extremely well with songs like ‘I Got Better’, ‘I'm the Problem’ and ‘Love Somebody’. But this time around, there's been a slight hitch in the plan.

Similarly to how someone leaked part of Wallen's Dangerous album in 2021, a TikTok user - @genemcgarrahh - has somehow stumbled across the full version of ‘Been By Now’.

Back on June 6th, McGarrah shared a clip of him lip-syncing to a second, previously unheard verse from ‘Been By Now’, which wasn't included in Wallen's initial clip.

At first, many fans responded by suggesting this could just be AI-generated, with numerous fake songs designed to sound like Wallen drifting across Instagram and TikTok.

But McGarrah repeatedly stressed that this was the real deal, and that while he didn't want to upset Wallen's fanbase or his team by sharing the full song, he underlined that he had the entire track in his possession. Then, on June 21st, Wallen uploaded a video of him backstage at a recent show singing along to ‘Been By Now’. Only this time, it was the second verse - the exact same one from McGarrah's video.

McGarrah later made a video explaining how he came across the leaked version of ‘Been By Now’, claiming that he found it by clicking on an ad from ‘@countryverse799’, which then led him to a website where the full song was available to listen to. The site has now been taken down, but McGarrah explains that he screen-recorded the track to save it, which he then turned into his own file to share on TikTok.

Of course, leaking music has been a blight on the industry for years, and it's not something that's going to go away any time soon. But rather than examining the ethical implications of sharing leaked music, we're wondering what this latest leak - Wallen's first high-profile case of this ilk since 2021 - means for his next rollout.

Wallen's tactic of sharing unreleased songs and then seeing how fans respond before deciding which to drop has been immensely successful. But it's also become a little frustrating.

We saw this most noticeably with ‘Love Somebody’, where numerous fans felt cheated after he first teased it on May 16th, 2024, quipping, “I feel like this one's gonna sound good on the boat”. Wallen proceeded to wait until October 18th to officially release it, with fans lamenting his decision to drop this apparent ‘boat song’ long after summer had ended. Naturally, the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Yet there have been continued complaints levelled at Wallen for how long he waits before releasing music after first teasing it - something we also saw with the five-month wait for his Post Malone duet, ‘I Had Some Help’.

‘Been By Now’ sounds like a summer earworm, and when Wallen does decide to release it, it will surely be on course for a No. 1 debut. But there's no question that the leak has taken some of the wind out of its sails, given the fact that we've already heard most of the song. Rather than bemoaning the leak, though Wallen and his crew could take this as a sign that it's time to change tack, and experiment with a surprise drop next time around, instead of a tease-then-release approach.

Because let's be honest, Wallen's songwriting and his ear for a killer hook is unparalleled in today's landscape - and his groundbreaking stats, records and milestones all highlight this. So really, an artist of his stature doesn't need to A/B test his music anymore, with these demo clips feeling more like overly orchestrated rollout plans than speculative, spur-of-the-moment uploads from Wallen and his team.

Originally, there was a thrill at getting a sneak peak at new music direct from the artist, making us feel like we were part of the decision-making process of which songs to release.

But in 2026, rollouts that are obviously heavily planned and machinated are starting to feel a little outdated. Now, when an artist pretends that they've decided to defy their label's wishes by ‘teasing’ a new song via social media, we all just roll our eyes, knowing that it's a tactic from the label to try and instigate a buzz.

As a result, we think 2026 should be the year we bring back the surprise drop. Wallen is the biggest country artist on the planet. In a genre where carefully curated rollouts are still the go-to format, it would be refreshing to see the Sneedville native leading from the front with a novel rollout. He was, after all, one of the first artists to implement the tease-then-release approach with ‘7 Summers’ and ‘More Than My Hometown’ - perhaps he is the one to introduce the next strategy.

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