![]() With a world-weary voice that sounds far older than his 22 years, Dean broke through in 2022 with this bluesy stomp about escaping. This is just one of the perceptive tracks that populate the artist’s latest album, Good Person. With a few arrow-sharp phrases like “They’ve lived in the same house for almost 40 years now/ The last day they were on the same page was in a yearbook,” Andress precisely sets an aperture in that assumption. But Andress turns the expectation of idyllic nostalgia on its head. High school sweethearts (class of 1980) get married and everyone presumes a happily ever after awaited them. The result is a song full of hope and possibilities that cuts through radio clutter like the sun breaking through the clouds on a rainy day. As Ballerini’s gossamer vocals soar and skip over the toe-tapping melody, she acknowledges that she could get her heart broken, but she’s jumping into her new romance regardless. It’s impossible not to smile while listening to “Heartfirst,” a delectable country-pop confection co-written by Ballerini, Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Alysa Vanderheym. This became one of the biggest chart hits of McCreery’s 11-year career, notching three weeks atop Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. The song namechecks King George (Strait), along with many of Strait’s biggest hits, but with the astute shifting of the phrase “damn straight,” it becomes clear that the Country Music Hall of Famer’s music was the theme to a relationship that ultimately fizzled out, leaving the heartbroken narrator feeling the urge to change the station anytime a Strait song plays. McCreery has become known for letting fans follow his life through songs like “This Is It” and “Five More Minutes,” but he’s also shown he has an ear for a great outside song, like this cut from Jim Collins and Trent Tomlinson.
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