These are the FIRST 5 new releases of the week that I think you should start with. There are hours and hours of new music every week, so I listen to everything and this list is meant to take you in different directions and give options on what mood your in or what your taste in country happens to be.

There were more than these FIRST 5 that stood out to me, today, and I had to make some sacrifices so that I could stick to my palatable promise of just five recommendations. But I packed my updated playlist with new music that didn’t show up here.

All the stuff I’m listening to is on my official playlist TY BENTLI’S DAILY SOUNDTRACK

Here are the FIRST 5 new releases you should hear:

“Good Life” - Kip Moore

Kip Moore probably has wilder stories than me, but this song make me sit back and try to list the crazy moments in life that seem like trouble but were possibly just adventure. I decided to not share that list cuz I realized how freaking long it would be (a relief - turns out I’ve done a lot of fun stuff, even without the couch-surfing, wayfarer adventures that Kip has experienced).

Instead, I wanted to just mention that it reminds of a feature I do on my show called “Two Sides to Every Story.” I find two songs that could exist in the same world (if you use your imagination) and show how they tell two different stories from the world that’s been created.
*Think Marvel Cinematic Universe, but for songs

As I listened to the new song from Kip Moore, I was reminded of a song that I loved singing along to as a little kid who fell asleep to 101.9 KTWB on my clock radio, every night. I didn’t know what a lot of the words meant, but it was catchy and I knew that the guy in the story had lived an adventurous life. At that point, I was a kid in Sioux Falls SD & my adventures involved forts and parental supervision.

It was a song called “What a Way To Go” by Ray Kennedy. The singer meets someone at a bar who has all these wild stories…and if time means nothing, maybe that guy was Kip Moore (in this song).

Hinting at Chuck Berry rock, with fearless Jay Joyce production, its just Kip. This dude continues to draw me into his music. I didn’t hear enough Kip Moore music as he was starting out. A few years ago, I finally took time away from the dumb (limited) radio playlists of my old life, and I immediately realized I’d been missing out on something for years! Ever since then, I’ve been like the guy in a movie that meets a 22 year old son he never knew he had, and is adamant about making up for lost time.

In true (IDGAF) Kip fashion, there’s a daring approach with this new song, and its lit! Line by line, the trials of life unravel to show that with all those experiences has come adventure!

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “Good Life”

“Rock & Roll Found Me” - Eric Church

Was there a movie that had a significant impact on your life? Eric Church wrote the first song on his brand new (out today) Soul album based on inspiration from the Elton John movie “Rocket Man”

Its weird to admit, but I think the movie that had the biggest impact on my life (aside from a babysitter letting me watch Dracula when I was 3 - which trigged a weird fascination with vampires) was… god this is weird.. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

That’s a true story. I watched it for the first time after a Bears game at my friend Brad’s house in Le Mars, IA. I was staying with his family for the weekend. My parents had grown up as best friends with Jane and Barry (Brad’s parents). I am pretty much positive we watched it two times in a row. And then I saved up $19 and bought it…”for my dad”…as his “birthday present.” Everyone did that, right? Bought something for your parents as a gift because you really wanted it? ..or for your wife?

That movie - and Jim Carrey, in specific - are what jump-started my intrigue with comedy and entertainment. I’d spend hours - literally hours - in the bathroom, just practicing faces in the mirror. I learned to do every impersonation that Jim Carrey did (but instead of doing a “Sean Connery” or “William Shatner” impression, it was a “Jim Carrey doing Sean Connery” or “Jim Carrey doing William Shatner” impression). I forced my eyebrows to learn how to do the worm, like Jim had done. I wrote sketches for group improv classes (and competitions) that were highly based on the opportunity to do Scottish accents or porpoise impersonations in the midst of the skit. I was the first to buy tickets to the premier of “Dumb and Dumber,” “the Mask,” and “Ace Ventura 2” in my hometown.

That may seem a little like a hobby or some trivial kid-interest thing, but it formed my desire to make people laugh, and ultimately find my way to radio, and the opportunity to not just laugh but share a lot of experiences. Some of that through stories, or humor but a lot of it through music. So that movie literally guided me into my path. If Gladwell asks, my first 10,000 hours of entertainment were probably spent in the mirror of my bathroom.

Eric Church, though, was in the midst of a marathon of writing (he’d tell us eventually that he and his crew wrote and recorded 28 songs in 28 days, during a writing retreat in NC). He’d taken a break while his kids and wife visited for a weekend, and was watching Elton’s biopic “Rocket Man” when there was a line in the movie about “then rock and roll found me…”

Chief paused the movie, ran to other room and quickly let his manic-songwriting mind take over. He wrote the song right there, and it ended up becoming the first track (and my favorite of the songs that debuted today when the album dropped) on Soul. It immediately sets the tone for the third and final of this triple album. Soul, so appropriately titled.

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “Rock & Roll Found Me”

“when was it over?” - Sasha Sloan (f. Sam Hunt)

I knew the day I took her home to meet my family. I won’t say which girlfriend it was. I just remember getting back to South Dakota, and walking into my parents’ new house. I had never been to this house, and I hadn’t seen my family in months, so I was really excited about the trip.

Adding to the excitement was that I was - for the first time ever - bringing a girlfriend home to meet my parents. And it was soooo weird. I don’t really even know what happened. I would think that maybe my girlfriend had also realized that it was over, in that moment, and that she pulled back because of that. But after we broke up a month or two later, she was still showing up at my house with little gifts and trying to rekindle, so I don’t think that was it.

Whatever the case, though, my girlfriend definitely had thrown up some sort of barricade. She was almost cold to my family. Cordial, but not open at all, and certainly not warm and gracious. It still is confusing to me. She was such a sweet person most of the time, but I immediately saw red flags and I know that was the beginning of the end. I remember that ending more than the one that actually WAS the end.

This idea of a moment where it was a truly over before it was spoken is so real. As I listened to Sasha Sloan singing the first verse, and the moments she was tossing out I was carried back to the trip back to Sioux Falls. When Sam Hunt kicked in, I remembered another breakup - in that case, she broke up with me and I don’t actually know the moment it was over (we had moved to LA, lived with her cousins, and we didn’t break up until we had saved up enough for our own apartment and then she told me she didn’t know if we should live together). DAMN! I just stopped myself from telling more of that story as I got carried away again because of this song.

The reflective tempo of the song is enveloping. Ironically, the song itself is over before you’re ready for it to be..

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “when was it over?”

“Gotta Be God” - Lathan Warlick (f. Russell Dickerson)

I got pulled into Lathan Warlick’s music when he teamed up with Matt Stell on “Over Yonder” - I started (as I always do) researching more about this new artist, and listening back to hear what he’d been doing before this song. Lathan’s got a really eclectic musical past. You hear that in the layers that make up his brand new EP (My Way is out today). Where I got hooked, though, was on "Roots” where he and Raelynn teamed up for a song that’s unbelievable in every aspect! From the outset, Lathan acknowledges the disruption of a song like “Roots” suddenly playing inside of a ‘country’ playlist. The message is incredible, the styling is unfathomably badass, and its so catchy that I can’t stop returning to it week after week.
*Plus, ya gotta see the YouTube series he created around the song - 1 minute episodes, easy watching!

For everyone anticipating this album, you knew that the most exciting part of it was that a we didn’t actually know what to expect! I knew that Lathan would tell his story, and share the moment that really redirected his life - a misunderstanding at a bar, led to Lathan and a couple friends running from a bad situation…only to realize he was going to have to fight his way out of this thing…until the other guy pulled out a .45 caliber pistol and aimed at Lathan as the gunman’s friends encouraged “shoot him shoot him!” That’s when Lathan turned to God. A prayer for help that was answered and an ongoing faith that now seems to guide him to create music that can add light into a dark world.

Likely because I was waiting to hear that story, I think that this is a song to highlight for you as you dive into music, this week. If it weren’t for the opportunity to hear Lathan’s story inside the lyric of “Gotta Be God” I might have pointed you toward the incredible collaboration with Lauren Alaina (she’s sings her FACE off throughout “In His Hands”). With this song, though, there is something really unique. It is an incredible song, but it holds no pretense. No ego. They’re not trying to shine. Both Lathan and collaborator Russell Dickerson are just present to share the song. (like if the song was a brilliant movie, but Lathan and RD are simply the tv that’s broadcasting it). Interesting. Art. Powerful.

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “Gotta Be God”

“Somehow You Do” - Reba

SECRET #1: I lost my voice so hardcore, today. Luckily, its Friday and my weekly “Country Caffeine Radio” show on Apple Music Country is based off of one of the biggest playlists, so we put a lot of production into it and I record ahead of schedule.

So, as I have NO voice (could barely even convince my kid I was singing him a song before bed last night - he probably had nightmares of me turning into a zombie), I see Reba - REBA! - has a new song out. My self-consciousness spiked and I obviously had to listen to what she released.

SECRET #2: I always want to hear a new song from Reba…but I don’t always like them. I grew up with “Fancy” and “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.” Loved them and would have named Reba as one of a short list of my favorite artists. When I started jobs in country radio, she released “Turn on the Radio.” LOVED IT! She’s got killer collabs like “Redhead” and “Dear Rodeo.” LOVE THEM! But…as I do enjoy a lot of dynamic and energetic music, I falter on songs like “Does He Love You” or “Back to God”. I’m probably supposed to pack up my sh!+ and move out of Nashville now, but that’s just me acknowledging that I don’t connect with every song. But her voice…that is what I’m in it for! And her personality, and all of the things. She’s so damn talented and I will ALWAYS listen to new Reba before anything else.

With “Somehow You Do” I was listened to the first couple lines of the song and wasn’t sure which way this would fall…then I fell right into it. The song scoops you up. I’m a generally happy person, but I think we all carry a weight - this week, my burden is centered around my sister’s cancer diagnosis and a seemingly insurmountable fundraising goal for a campaign I am involved in for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (oddly, not related to my sister - we got the news about Jen a few weeks after I’d accepted this LLS campaign). All of that came flooding up just moments into this song. It took me to that place, but it also carried me throughout.

My thought is that much like Tigirlily said, I don’t know who needs to hear this song, but Somebody Does. And Reba is a person who makes you believe in the strength that is inside. This song has bursts of power (one word at a time, Reba lets her voice reign) alongside the musical lullaby and tangible empathy. By the end, you know that if you’re feeling hopeless…and are afraid you’ll never get through this battle ahead…. Somehow you do.

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “Somehow You Do”

Its Not Over

There is more 🔥 new music to share. Killer new releases alongside my favorite tunes to play on The Ty Bentli Show. Bands like Last Bandoleros, new EP from Levi Hummon, throwbacks and do you know Reyna Roberts, yet? A playlist built to showcase every avenue and you’ll love it start to finish:

TY BENTLI’S DAILY SOUNDTRACK is on my homepage on Apple Music.

FIRST 5 - Start With These New Releases 4/23