Its a beautiful summer day in South Dakota (I took a quick trip home to help host a Boys and Girls Club Hall of Fame ceremony, yesterday) and you will see that nearly all of the stories that these new songs drummed up are tied to my childhood or family…almost all of whom/which are here in the Midwest. Its the amazing thing about a powerful song - you, too, will connect a memory to it!

To make it easier for you to find the great music that is dropping this weekend, I wanted to get you started with the FIRST5 new releases you should hear. They’ll take you on rabbit holes of exploration and adventures to find even more great music, but this is where you should start.

Within 15 minutes you’ll have a full understanding of what’s been released. I combed through everything sent my way and tracked down even more tunes to make sure I’m turning you on to the best.

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

First things first..
These are the FIRST 5 new releases you need to hear:

“If I Didn’t Love You” - Jason Aldean & Carrie Underwood

When I first took over as the anchor of America’s Morning Show back in 2016 (the nationally syndicated radio show that evolved into The Ty Bentli Show when we began syndicating internationally), our first week or two was a whirlwind of craziness. And one of the most unexpected perks that this industry ever afforded me was the offer to fly on "Jason Aldean’s private jet” - which actually turned out to be his label’s airplane - to broadcast our show live from Fenway Park in Boston as he got ready for a massive concert that night with Thomas Rhett opening, and Kid Rock on the bill!

There are two pieces of that memory that are so cool for me. Certainly not that I could brag about the private airplane (the thing I loved most about the plane was from an aviation angle, as I’m still eeking my way toward my pilot’s license). I think the experience might is cool but I’m not sure where it should or would come up in conversation with others, so its really about the people I share an experience like that with. In this case, two of them made a big impact.

First, we took the flight with a couple members of the label. I think the plane had around 10 seats, four of them being fancy swiveling leather ‘captains chairs,’ with some bench seats up front. At one point, the president of the label realized that it was hard to have a conversation the way we were spread out across the plane. So, he made a decision that defines the type of person he is. He gave his seat to someone on his team that had been sitting up front…and he came to sit near my swiveling chair at the back of the cabin. Fully clothed and as if he were just kicking it on a lawn chair, he sat on the closed lid of the toilet in the bathroom just behind me. The president. The head of the label. Gave up his fancy seat and sat on the toilet so that he could join in our conversation. No ego, no hiccup. That was his instinct of how to proceed and it will forever define him as a person to me.

Hearing Jason Aldean collaborate is often a reminder of how great this guy is as an artist. When I think of Aldean, I picture the dude that’s constantly joking around and being a smart ass with his friends. I think of the concerts that are a rockin’ helluva time. But similar to seeing his name beside Miranda’s (“Drowns the Whiskey”), when I saw J and Carrie Underwood had teamed up, I couldn’t wait to hear it!

This song is painful and evocative - I’m immediately taken back to the nights of driving along Cantrell Road in Little Rock after having my heart broken. As great as the lyric of this song is at relishing in that heartache, its all about the vocals. Two all stars at the top of the game. Being a song about a split, this could easily have become a song that pits the vocalists against each other, but instead the two deliver in a way that precisely defines the point of the song: its not about the fact that they are now apart…its about the fact that it still feels like they should be together. Carrie and Jason zig zag from the foreground to the background, lead to harmony. At first we hear them each as individuals, and then it just becomes one entity. One message. One voice. Really Really cool - but sorry if you’re on Cantrel Road with a broken heart.

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “If I Didn’t Love You”

“Know My Way Around” - Lily Rose

I knew who to call for some weed…me. I mean, after that first stash was gone I would’ve been lost, but there was always a metal storage container of drugs down in the store-room of our house. *Although I wouldn’t have been dumb enough to touch it. It wasn’t mine. It belonged to my dad…errr…technically it belonged to the police department he worked for. And mostly it was for the dogs living in our house (who also worked for the police department).

When I was a kid, Dad started the K-9 unit at the SFPD and those kits in the closet off the office, downstairs on 33rd St were for training purposes.

Sidenote - the dogs also had to learn “take-downs” so every once in a while, dad would have me slip the giant woven bite-sleeve onto my arm and take off across the field in front of our house…10 seconds later I’d hear a sharp command, and about 4 seconds after that a dog slammed me onto the ground. Looking back, I wonder if Dad knew how fun that was for me - I assume he understood that I counted myself as extremely fast (I was) and also have this adrenaline-junkie side that was totally ok with being chased by a police dog and dragged to the ground. I never got hurt even a little, and it was cool to be part of that training! Plus who else can say they’ve been tackled, multiple times, by a K-9 unit?

Lily Rose has yet to fail, from where I’m sitting. Her voice is easily identifiable, and her songs paint a picture in 3-D. ‘Villian’ gave us the story along with the deeper emotion of what was being revealed. She’s back with the same ability to paint the scene and then take us into the sensation of being enchanted with someone new.

Juxtaposing familiar aspects of life (although I don’t actually know where to get a fake ID - it never would’ve helped in my hometown & especially with my dad being a cop) against the excitement of the unknown… and it all happens in less than 3 minutes!

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “Know My Way Around”

“Mama Ain’t Jesus” - Jordan Rowe f. Lainey Wilson

Its only fair to admit I’m back home in South Dakota today, and getting to hang out with my mom. When I was a kid and even when I was a teenager and definitely when I was in college (so like - always) I was already telling people how perfect my mom was.

I learned how to love until your heart is going to burst from Annie O. She is family first and cares more about that family than she cares about anything else in the world. I described her as “June Cleaver” to my friends (back when they sort of knew that reference, from really old reruns on Nick at Nite). When I was growing up in a super strict household, and when I was a teenager battling for my independence, and when I was in college experiencing that independence: I always knew how lucky I was to get the mom that I got!

Luckily I got my sense of humor from her. So she cracks me up - even when it was at my expense. I can’t forget the time I went into a gas station with her as a 5’6” high school freshman. I wanted to grab a snack but when I got to the counter, I didn’t have as much cash as I thought. The cashier said, “looks like you’re a little short” and my mom quickly chimed in from the gum aisle “and he doesn’t have enough money, either!”
*She bought me the Little Debbie snack. **I grew 4 inches that year, and then another inch over the following 25 years.

From the onset of this song, you knew it spoke about the kind of mom I know. Not just the lyrics - “you hardly ever see it, but you don’t want to see her mad” reminded me of a time that a bicyclist got annoyed at my mom for passing him and flipped her the bird with all 3 of us kids in the car and she slammed on the breaks to explain some things to him - Jordan Rowe and Lainey Wilson approach this song with a completely intangible authenticity. You can’t peg exactly what it is, but you know for fact: their moms are just as important to them as my mom is to me.

For everyone who can feel the comfort of a mom-hug just by picturing it. For everyone who has called home and heard their mom answer with a joy in their voice that is unmatched by any other person in your Contact’s List. For every mom who wonders if their kid notices?

*and for every time a mom says “You’ll never know how much I love you” - just positive that their kid can’t possibly love them as much in reverse
…there’s this song.

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “Mama Ain’t Jesus”

“Break Like You Do” - Chris Young

Freakin’ Facebook…Instagram…tik tok. No wonder Sam Hunt thought it was easier breaking up in the 90s. We didn’t have to see an ex moving on.

I’m kinda lucky that I never really watched for that stuff and the last time my heart was torn out was back when Facebook had just started to take off, so I could ignore it fairly well. The toughest part of a break-up for me in the age of social media was always when people would be like “well ya gotta delete all the pictures of her on your posts” - and I flat out refuse. I still keep ex-girlfriends in photo albums and I had a bunch of photo frames with cool trips or memories that included an ex up until Corri and I moved in together. And the only reason I ever took them down was cuz we’d started creating so many more important and special memories. I still have all those frames somewhere and the photos, I just packed them away & hung up the ones that make me most happy these days (the kids, a snowboard, a concert).

But seriously - do you delete exes from your socials? Do you ever clear up and archive?

I’m a nerd for lyrics, and they hook me from the first two lines. You know exactly where things stand. One person is moving on. One person isn’t even close. And also..they refuse to stop checkin Instagram stories.

Chris Young is a badass vocalist. He’s nailing the melody, but its the words he chooses to accent that make it Chris Young. He’ll pick one word and hit it more powerfully than any other in a sentence. “Break” - I hate that I don’t BREAK like you do.. Not hate. break. Cool choice. (Early in the tune you hear him stretch “long waaaaaay out” - again, its a unique choice of inflection). And the production is packed with cool decisions, too - many of those are thanks to Chris’s much more hands-on effort in all aspects of his upcoming “Famous Friends” album. As the song progresses, new instruments appear, we get solos from the band, we lose half the studio for moments…as if the music is phasing in and out of plane that this pain exists on. Nothing can be predicted in this song, that’s my favorite element, its just felt.

Dustin Lynch is home where I want him with this new song. Its full on Western and quite literally his sweet spot. Broken down and simple, you’ll hear why Dustin broke through a very very very crowded table in his country music class a few years back. His voice has a perfect home just in front of the strings. Much like George Strait, when DL is in his element, its all about the song. He can race across a stage like Garth when he wants to, but this is a planted-foot, steady hand cowboy tune. (And yup - my nostalgic mood this week is once again fulfilled)

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “Break Like You Do”

“New Truck” - Dylan Scott

The scariest moment I can think of in my life (and I’m not trying very hard to think of others, but I kinda tried and nothing pops to mind) involved a single-vehicle accident - not the one where I was in the back sea and woke up to an interior that was blacked out by airbags as our SUV was rolling over and over at 80mph into a swampy Mississippi interstate median. This happened before all of that. And I was in the driver’s seat surrounded by the three people I felt most responsible for in the entire world.

Corri and I were headed from my parents’ old lake house to the airport in Sioux Falls to fly home to New York. It was a few days after Christmas, and I was driving my dad’s truck. My youngest sister (the one I’d been responsible for babysitting or just keeping an eye on before heading to college) was with us, along with our new baby, Radley.

The Midwest is covered in snow and frigidly cold that time of year, of course…but the road looked clear. I put on cruise control.

As we neared a slower vehicle, I signaled and began changing to the passing lane JUST as the cruise kicked in. I quickly learned that we were driving on black ice - basically, its invisible sheets of ice that you can’t detect on the road. The rear of the truck kicked sideways and the cruise fired back up (we’d lost speed since we were angled sideways and it didn’t realize that the last thing I needed was more speed), we gunned straight toward the grassy median off the interstate.

Living in New York, I hadn’t been driving much at all and I think my instincts were extremely poor on this one particular day. I didn’t think to look for the cruise “off switch” on the steering wheel, and that probably would’ve helped. Instead, as we were already barreling into 4 feet of snow and I was praying repeatedly in my head that we wouldn’t flip “don’t flip, don’t flip, don’t flip.”

Somehow we stayed upright as I attempted to keep the nose of the truck forward, and tap the brakes to get the cruise off while I white-knuckled the wheel and kept us on a path that I hoped would keep four wheels on the ground. It did…but then we fired across the oncoming traffic side of the interstate. In New York, we’d have been in real trouble, but in South Dakota, traffic is light - even on interstates - and people are always watching for trouble on a snowy or icy day. So we made it across the two lanes and finally came to a stop in the ditch on the other side. I hate reliving that. I hate thinking about Kristye, Radley, and Corri and feeling like they should be able to trust me as a protection against things in the world…not the guy at the wheel when things go wrong.

It reminded me that I’m not invincible. Even though I am completely comfortable driving in ice and snow and have done it since getting my permit at 14, I still had a lesson to learn.

Increasingly worse: We were about to miss our flight home, so the police who’d responded helped out. They crammed me into the passenger seat, belted Radley in back with Corri and loaded suitcases. We left Kristye with the other officers and a totaled truck.

So…that’s what I thought of when I saw Dylan Scott’s new song was titled “New Truck.” That time my dad needed a new truck. And the scariest moment of my life - not because I was scared for me (that’s why the rollover accident I was in a few years later wasn’t traumatizing) but because I was so scared about the other people in the car. It breaks my heart to this day.

As amazing as it was to drive my dads NEW truck (its actually probably like his 4th new truck since that day?) on that same interstate just a few hours ago…the heartbreak side of trucks is what Dylan Scott is singing about here.

With his voice leading the charge, Dylan paints a picture of the passenger that had wrapped him around her finger…and now she’s gone. You’ll appreciate every memory he is trying to rid himself of, because these are memories we have all experienced. Not to be punny, but the driving music behind the woeful lyric will make it hard for you to see a “For Sale” sign in that F-150 on the corner without wondering about the poor lonely dude selling it.

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “New Truck”

Its Not Over

There is more 🔥 new music to share. New releases alongside my favorite tunes to play on The Ty Bentli Show. 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 (July 23rd)