Best New Country Songs

Happy Halloween! It's spookily quiet in the world of country and Americana this week, but our round up of all the biggest and best new releases is still filled with some absolute treats. And only one or two tricks.

Listen along to all the songs in the playlist on Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music and YouTube.

This week's Best New Country cover star is Kaitlin Butts. She puts us all out our misery and releases her version of Jimmy Eat World's 'The Middle' today and quite honestly we've never needed a song more!

"After 'You Ain’t Gotta Die” had its viral moment, I had lots of eyes pointed at me all at once and all of that great attention came with some really negative attention too," Kaitlin Butts says about her version of the noughties punk pop classic. "For a moment, I was feeling particularly down about myself after some of that negative attention and I was starting to wonder if maybe they were right about me. Am I cringy? Am I too much? Am I not talented? Are my body, face, personality just all wrong?"

"One night, I went out to karaoke with my friends and a girl started singing 'The Middle,' a song that I was very familiar with, but in reading the lyrics on the screen, it was the first time I was able to take in what the song meant and I started to tear up. I needed to hear those words in that exact moment. It was a reminder to me that I’ve worked my entire life for these huge opportunities I’m getting, and that I’ll be damned if I let anyone rain on my parade."

"I hope my version meets someone the way that song met me in that moment."

Kaitlin will unveil her new Yeehaw Sessions EP on November 14, her first single since signing with Republic Records which includes versions of 'Red Wine Supernova' by Chappell Roan, 'Sin Wagon' by The Chicks,' 'Tulsa Time' by Don Williams, as well as 'The Middle' and her viral hit 'You Ain’t Gotta Die (To Be Dead to Me).'

“The Yeehaw Sessions EP is a collection of cover songs that I’ve been performing in my live show in the last couple years. After putting out “What Else Can She Do”, a collection of songs about hardship that I had written during a difficult time in my life, I put out a small project called Sad Yeehaw Sessions. I recognized that I needed more videos of me playing live and to put out new music in between major projects and I wanted to put something out that coincided with my recent project, a collection of sad covers that I have always loved and wish I had written myself."

"When releasing Roadrunner!, a collection of much happier songs, I wanted folks to know if they had ever gone through any of the things I had written about on 'What Else Can She Do', that there were brighter days ahead and my story is an example of just that. On the Roadrunner Tour, we played a collection of covers that my band and I love and I decided that I wanted to create the antithesis of Sad Yeehaw Sessions and make Yeehaw Sessions! so that each and every one of you could take the Roadrunner Tour home with you!"

Watch the video for 'The Middle' below

"In Jimmy Eat World’s original music video, a girl shows up to a party, strips her coat at the door and walks into a party where everyone is in their underwear," she says about taking inspiration for her own video from the original. "In this video, I wanted to pay tribute to that and throw my band in the back of a truck like we were on our way to that party. I called up Chris Beyrooty to direct and we headed to Taylor Sheridan’s Bosque Ranch in Weatherford, TX. With the band dressed in their skivvies, we hit record and captured something hilariously beautiful."

Elsewhere in this week's Best New Country we've got new songs from Colter Wall, Lee Brice and Drew Baldridge, plus Orville Peck is back with his first new music since last year's duets album Stampede with his new song 'Drift Away' from his forthcoming Appaloosa EP, due out in two weeks.

Russell Dickerson brings in the Jonas Brothers for a reimagining of his monster hit 'Happen To Me,' Jamey Johnson and Riley Green duet on 'Smoke' and one of our Holler 10 Artists You Need To Know this month, KC Bruner is getting in the mood for Halloween with her new single 'Country Magic Spell.'

“I wrote 'Country Magic Spell' after falling for a guy who didn't like Country music - which honestly threw me off... Call it confidence or delusion, but almost every girl has had that 'maybe I can change him!' moment at some point and mine was thinking 'if he falls for me, he'll fall for Country music too," shared KC Bruner.

Elsewhere we've got new ones from ERNEST, Mitchell Tenpenny, Charles Kelley and Greylan James, while Adam Warner releases his brilliant new single, 'Back Row Church Pews,' and James McCann is wondering 'Did She Think of Me.'

As a reminder that "art is the thing nobody asked you to do," as the artist and writer Babak Ganjei once said, Warren Zeiders has recorded his version of the classic hymn 'How Great Thou Art' and Little Big Town have covered 'Wonderwall' by Oasis.

It's eerily quiet in album and EP releases this week too but luckily we've still got a few big releases for you. Joshua Slone releases his debut album, Thinking Too Much and Greensky Bluegrass celebrate their legacy with their many friends and collaborators over their 25-year run, including Sam Bush, Billy Strings, Lindsay Lou, Nathaniel Rateliff, Aoife O’Donovan, Holly Bowling and more on XXV, released on the exact date of the band’s formation.

“We’ve called on some dear friends to breathe a touch of new life into some classic Greensky songs for your listening pleasure,” says the band's dobroist Anders Beck. “We’ve reinvented the sounds of some of our (dare I say) ‘hits’ because after a quarter century of Greensky Bluegrass, with plenty of new music on the horizon, we believe it's worth celebrating what the five of us have created together… and we want you to have a damn good time listening to it.”

Elsewhere, Nick Shoulders is showing his softer, quieter side on his wonderful fifth album, Refugia Blues, with nine songs rooted in the stylings of Southern traditional music, stripped back and sparse.

"This is my Nebraska," he says, nodding to Bruce Springsteen's lo-fi acoustic record from 1982. "Some people listen to Bruce for the E Street Band and the big radio hits, but I like the intimacy and rawness of Nebraska instead. I'd like to think of Refugia Blues as a little window into the heart, as opposed to the drumbeat of a revolution."

Nashville singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Lydia Luce releases her stunning new album , Mammoth. Produced by longtime collaborator Jordan Lehning and recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios, Mammoth reflects the natural world and the stillness in it. We've got 'Belly' in our playlist today.

"This song was written when I was deep in the struggle with chronic pain," Luce says of the song. "I had been lying to myself and those around me, because I was afraid that if I admitted I was in pain I would lose work as a session violist. I remember playing certain songs live on guitar and being so nervous to play bar chords because the pain was so intense. Yet, I kept playing for years. It all came to a head when I was about to go on a tour opening and playing violin in the band I was opening for. I was in rehearsal and I couldn’t feel my fingers. This was new and terrifying. Still I didn’t say anything. I used KT tape and kept on going. The bridge of this song is a coming to terms moment when I just accept the pain because the more I hide it the worse it gets. Once I started listening to my body and respecting my body's boundaries, I started to heal. I have developed a connection to my body that I never had, and while I’m not grateful for the pain, I’m grateful for the outcome and the awareness."

Every week we like to shine our Holler spotlight on a song that deserves a little extra light shining on it and this week we're shining it on British singer songwriter Hannah Jane Lewis with the follow up to her 'Good Sport' single from last month.

Her new single ‘Navy Blue’ is the latest single from Hannah Jane Lewis’ upcoming Riding in Cars with Boys EP and it's the perfect cosy country folk song for the clocks going back and the evenings drawing in. It's been playing on repeat all week on the Holler stereo.

"It’s probably the most personal love song I’ve ever written," she shares. "A snapshot of all the ordinary, quiet, everyday things that add up to a love that sneaks into every corner."

Watch the lyric video for 'Navy Blue' below

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

1. 1.

   The Middle

   Kaitlin Butts

2. 2.

   The Longer You Hold On

   Colter Wall

3. 3.

   Blessed

   ERNEST

4. 4.

   Country Magic Spell

   KC Bruner

5. 5.

   Give Me A Second (the before)

   Greylan James

6. 6.

   Happen To Me (feat. Jonas Brothers)

   Russell Dickerson

7. 7.

   Navy Blue

   Hannah Jane Lewis

8. 8.

   Adeline

   Joshua Slone

9. 9.

   Hill Folk

   Nick Shoulders

10. 10.

    Rebel

    Drew Baldridge

11. 11.

    Killed The Man

    Lee Brice

12. 12.

    Therapy

    Mitchell Tenpenny

13. 13.

    Smoke

    Jamey Johnson and Riley Green

14. 14.

    Drift Away

    Orville Peck

15. 15.

    Wonderwall

    Little Big Town

16. 16.

    Back Row Church Pews

    Adam Warner

17. 17.

    Steal Your Heart

    Charles Kelley

18. 18.

    Broken Highways

    Greensky Bluegrass

19. 19.

    Unhinged

    Sophie Gault

20. 20.

    Did She Think Of Me

    James McCann

21. 21.

    Belly

    Lydia Luce

22. 22.

    On Purpose

    Sammy Arriaga

23. 23.

    You're The Reason Why

    Lathan Warlick

24. 24.

    Freak In A Creek

    Rvshvd

25. 25.

    65 On The Interstate

    Christian Hayes

26. 26.

    Sage and Shine

    Hannah Anders

27. 27.

    Spit It Out

    Telander

28. 28.

    Whiskey On Ice

    Drake McCain

29. 29.

    Burn the Books

    Nikita Karmen

30. 30.

    Young With You

    Grace Gunn

31. 31.

    I Want It All

    Skip Ewing

32. 32.

    Long Way Home

    Reid Morris

33. 33.

    Heaven Sent

    Preston James

34. 34.

    One Half Of Two

    Brian Dinsdale

35. 35.

    Villain of the Week

    Aubrie Sellers

36. 36.

    How Great Thou Art

    Warren Zeiders

37. 37.

    There's a Boot in My Wallet

    Rodeo Mouth

38. 38.

    Best Western

    Joey Myron and Lucky Dog

39. 39.

    Whorror Stories

    Matthew Goodnough

40. 40.

    Stuck in the Rain

    Jeremy Pinnell

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