A few years ago it seemed like Sam Hunt was on his way to becoming the biggest country star under 40, but then he took 5 years to release his moderately successful second album, and got lapped by Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen. I have mixed feelings about Hunt, personally, I hate all the songs where he does this cheesy speaking-then-singing Drake thing. But the first single from his third album is really excellent stuff, a nice syncopated synth bassline under twangy guitars is a much better way to show his hip hop influences, and it's a sweet nostalgic sort of song about young love. Here's the 2022 singles Spotify playlist I update every month. 

The gender imbalance that's taken hold of country radio in the last decade just feels more entrenched than ever now -- the current top 10 is nine songs sung by men and one male/female duet. The industry giant iHeart Radio made a gesture at pushing against this problem by introducing a weekly program called "Women of iHeart Country" in 2018, but it feels a bit empty since my local station airs it at 7am on Sundays, when most stations play their FCC-mandated 'public affairs' talk programs. But I have worked a lot of Sunday mornings lately and have been in the car when it's on, and I do enjoy the show and hearing some songs I don't otherwise hear, including Morgan Wade's breakthrough single. Wade's 2021 independent album Reckless was reissued by a major label earlier this year and the catchy, bittersweet "Wilder Days" has been slowly rising up the radio charts the last few months, I'm hoping I start hear it outside Sunday mornings. 

I roll my eyes at the ubiquity of samples of 2000s R&B hits in current R&B hits. But there's a nice symmetry in "Over," the breakthrough single from Lucky Daye's second album and his first Hot 100 hit, using the same Francis Lai sample as "Halfcrazy," the breakthrough single from Musiq Soulchild's second album and his biggest Hot 100 hit. And I have a geeky interest in hearing how a sample from a song in 6/8 can get chopped up and turned into a song in 4/4 like this, although the coolest example will always be the "I Put A Spell On You" sample in "Kick In The Door." 

Coi Leray took some fairly expected ridicule for debuting at #89 on the Billboard 200 less than a year after tweeting a prediction that her album would be #1. But I thought Trendsetter was a better album than I was expecting from her, and it included all four of her big singles, including "Blick Blick," which is one of the few collaborations between Nicki Minaj and a younger artist in recent years that didn't feel really awkward and forced. 

When Lizzo blew up a few years ago, I found it a little depressing that there was a new pop star who could skillfully play an instrument, but only seemed to play flute as a sort of comedy prop in performances and social media posts, and rarely seemed to use it in her music. So I'm happy to see Lizzo feature some flute on her big summer jam single, appropriately employing it much the way you used to hear flute riffs on some old disco records. 

After DS4EVER was released, I wrote about how it was kind of funny how even as Gunna was becoming a bigger star and his albums were selling more and more, he'd really never had a hit solo song without any guests. Oddly, even with the success of DS4EVER, which has a lot of potential singles on it, Gunna decided to follow "Pushin P" with a non-album single "Banking On Me," but it seems to have worked out, since it's now really the first Gunna solo track I've heard on the radio regularly. Unfortunately, with this whole RICO charge against Young Thug and Gunna and the rest of YSL, it seems like what was going to be a big triumphant year for Gunna has taken kind of a dark turn. 

Another guy that I hold in high regard as one of the best voices in contemporary country is Justin Moore, and I somehow missed that he released a new single several months ago until I heard it on the radio the other day. And it feels like it's a song his catalog was lacking, uptempo and romantic and a little bit playful. 

The record-extending 14th Luke Combs single to hit #1 on country radio opens unpromisingly with a press junket anecdote: "Someone asked me once in an interview..." But then Combs goes onto say that if he wasn't doin' this (writing hits and playing huge arena shows) he'd still be doin' this (writing songs and playing in whatever bar would let him onstage). It's kind of a familiar sentiment that a lot of stars have expressed to seem humble, but as someone who's passionate about making and performing music even without seeing much of a material reward for it, it resonates with me, I believe him. That said, "Doin' This" sounds a lot more portentous than it needs to, I think it'd be a better song if he kicked the tempo up a few BPMs and dropped the piano tinkling. 

I didn't wanna heap scorn on this song because it features two artists who have each made a sizable share of the best chart hits of the last few years. But their first collaboration is just so anticlimactic and weirdly flat. And comparing female anatomy to pie wasn't a good idea when Warrant did it, and it wasn't a good idea when that Jason Biggs movie came out, and it isn't a good idea now either. 

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