12 songs that show just how good modern country music can be

Where we stand today: 2020 and beyond

“Lilacs” by Waxahatchee (2020)

Waxahatchee is both the stage name singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield took for herself and the name she gave to her band in subsequent years. Saint Cloud was her fifth album, and it was the closest thing she has released to a full-fledged collection of country songs. Crutchfield has always vacillated between being an indie rocker with a twang and a country singer with a healthy dose of indie rock.

“Lilacs” may be the most breezily country song she has ever recorded, and its timing – being released at the onset of the pandemic - offered a perspective on life that didn’t brush off reality but also refused to succumb to despair. “When I live a sparse existence, I’ll drop down in the fold – Lean into an urgent falter, spin silence into gold.”

“Trinity River” by Charley Crockett (2022)

There’s no rule that says you have to have lived a certain number of years or had a particular back story to make it in country music. But the fact that artists like Chris Stapleton and Charley Crockett were well into their 30s before finding mainstream success as solo artists suggests that sometimes a world-weary knowledge can go a long way. We are somewhat removed from the era of Charley Pride, but Crockett still stands out as one of the few African Americans who has built a substantial following in country music.

Crockett had been releasing his unique blend of country and R&B over more than ten albums before 2022’s The Man From Waco won him both critical and popular acclaim. “Trinity River” has Crockett’s straightforward delivery, which sounds like Bill Withers singing country, with a jazzy sheen served up by Kullen Fox’s trumpet. Crockett always comes across crystal clear on his studio releases, but if you ever have the chance to see him live, he positively blows the roof off of wherever he is playing.

“Brenda Put Your Bra On” by Ashley McBryde (2022)

Ashley McBryde’s album Lindeville is one of the three best country albums of the past five years. The conceit is wonderful. McBryde and a group of her singer-songwriters pals including Brandy Clark, Pillbox Patti (Nicolette Hayford), Aaron Raitiere, and Benjy Davis, got together to write a song cycle about the fictional small town Lindeville – named for songwriter Dennis Linde (who wrote the Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl,” from part two of this series).

McBryde serves as the band leader, but they all write, sing, and perform throughout the disc. It opens with the brilliant table-setter, “Brenda Put Your Bra on,” sung by McBryde, Patti, and Caylee Hammack about some “s**t going down in the trailerhood.”

“Going to Hell” by Adeem the Artist (2002)

If Lindeville is one of the best country albums of the 2020s, then Adeem the Artist’s song “Middle of the Heart” may be the single best country song released in the last five years. And that’s not even the one I'm picking for this discussion. “Middle of the Heart” is gorgeous, meaningful, and devastatingly sad. To hook you with something a little more upbeat, listen to the song that follows it on Adeem’s White Trash Revelry album, ”Going to Hell.”

Adeem, who identifies as non-binary, uses fiddles, banjos, and mandolin on a veritable rip-roaring hoedown posing the simple question “Do you really want to go the heaven when we get this rapture started – Or do you want to go to hell, children, with Adeem the Artist?” and concluding with a final argument “They play country songs in heaven but in hell, we play ‘em loud.”

“Liar” by Jelly Roll (2024)

It has just been a few months since one of 2023’s biggest breakout stars, Jelly Roll, sang his song “Liar” on Saturday Night Live. He had already introduced it to the country world at the Opry and the CMA Awards, but SNL showed the non-country world what modern country could be. With the vigor of a fire and brimstone preacher, Jelly Roll rails against false promises of every stripe – from drugs to people and beyond. It is one more tour de force from one of the biggest voices in country music in 2024.

“Billy Miller” by Low Gap (2024)

I figured Jelly Roll’s song would be the most recent one I’d include on this list. After all, I had plenty of other fantastic tracks from the likes of Luke Combs, Maren Morris, and Ian Noe on a short list. Then I listened to Low Gap's brand new three-song EP, Say a Prayer, and decided to bypass some of the more established voices in modern country for what may well be the next chapter.

Brothers Gus and Phin Johnson have yet to reach their 20th birthdays but they have been putting out country music that feels both old and new for three years now. Beginning with the earworm song “Mockingbird” from 2021, they have been improving their writing to the point that we now have “Billy Miller,” a mid-tempo rocker about a misfit that has the warmth of a John Prine song – high praise indeed.

OK, that’s twelve more songs, bringing our total to 36. If you don’t find anything you like in these songs, then I’ll stop bugging you. Country music isn’t for you, and that’s just fine. But I’m betting you won’t just find one song that you love. You’ll find a dozen or more.

One of the songs I wrote about in part one, Buck Owens’ “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail,” was co-written by Harlan Howard, among the most iconic of all country songwriters. His quote about a great country song –“three chords and the truth” – remains as pertinent today as ever, regardless of the new voices, new instruments, and new debates that have helped keep an old tradition very fresh. Give it a try. There’s a lot to be gained.

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