Ty's FIRST 5 - Start With These New Songs 1/8/21
Friday mornings,I wake up with a massive playlist of the new releases that magically loaded into my phone, overnight. Its an immediate feeling of excitement. 2021 is bound to be more complicated than we all hoped. The transitions back to normalcy may be coming, but the end date isn’t promised…
What has been promised: Release dates!
Some weeks, there are literally hundreds of new songs to comb through on Apple Music Country (where I host The Ty Bentli Show every weeekday - its live to 165 countries!). To alleviate the lift, or just help you get started, here are the FIRST 5 songs to hear…start with these, then go nuts!
“865” - Morgan Wallen
If I’m being honest, I could easily have listed five Morgan Wallen songs on my FIRST 5, this week. Of the songs that hit Apple Music for the first time on Friday, I’d have mentioned “Warning” “Silverado For Sale” “Whisky’d My Way” and the Stapleton collar “Only Thing That’s Gone” (not to mention the songs that had pre-released like “Livin The Dream” and “Somebody’s Problem” - OH! and the Isbell cover of “Cover Me Up”)
I listed to his debut album, If I Know Me, relentlessly - and its rare that I find time to repeat an album. I’m usually taking in all the new music I can, or studying the history of a song or artist that I want to share on-air. Dangerous has that same potential. I’ll play it on my way to Dairy Queen, or when I’m dropping the kids at school or while working out (do gyms still exist? ..its been a while).
The first time I met Morgan was ACMs weekend of 2017 at the MGM in Vegas. I was broadcasting my old morning show when Morgan showed up - he immediately told us he’d pulled an all-nighter. Not an ugly, shameful kind of all-nighter, though. He was wide eyed (wild haired) and in awe of the fact that he was really there!
A few months later, I was introducing Morgan on-stage at a showcase on the rooftop of the BMI Building off Music Row in Nashville…then a few months later, he headlined the show I hosted at 3rd and Lindsley downtown. Every time I saw him, he’d become more rooted in this world that he was clearly destined to.
That excited kid from East Tennessee made sure he didn’t miss a minute of the experience or possibilities surrounding him. But, as the world continued to open up in front of Morgan, this song shows that his heart and his head may still return to Knoxville - whose area code is (865)
Not only is the song well-crafted and vulnerable (it is), it also pulls you in for another reason. Its the new “Jenny - 867-5309” - but with the area code! The song demands that you lean further toward your speakers with each number that is revealed.. “He’s not gonna say the whole number, right? ..wait he’s still saying more numbers? That’s the whole number! Is that a real number? Whose number is that? Should I call it? …wait, I’ll google it first. Its not on Google!? I’ll have my friend call it!”
LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “865”
“Damn I Do” - Whitney Duncan
If you want to find Whitney Duncan, there’s always a good chance you could turn on your tv - just for being a badass who’s living life to the fullest, we’ve seen her on: Nashville Star, Survivor, Say Yes To the Dress, Amazing Race (and I’m sure I’m forgetting stuff - check IMDB).
But music is why I’m here and I had a blast listening to her new Heartbreaker EP (I had to pick JUST one song, to get you there - it was almost the Shania-esque “All She Wants To Do”)
As this year begins, I think that there is so much baggage that many of us want to leave in the past. The truth is, though, that 2020 is going to be a year that has fundamentally affected nearly everyone on earth because of its obstacles and challenges. As we all wanted to look forward when we hit 2021, the truth is that we aren’t yet past it all. We may be optimistic and know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re not there yet.
There’s something unique about the ability that this song has to pull that honesty out of all of us - the lyrics focus on the internal struggles of what our heart still feels while I head fights it. And ultimately, the song reveals the unfortunate truth. Its a struggle, and it implies that there will be good times ahead…but..
LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “Damn I Do”
“New Truck” - Florida Georgia Line
Oh man, getting to kick off The Ty Bentli Show with this song on Friday was just so F’n fun! F as in TGIF.. as in Thank God its Florida-Georgia-Line (see, if I use hyphens, it worked).
Took me right back to that time a couple years ago when BK was trying to find that tan and maroon step-side pickup (he and I went back and forth about it, as he continued trying to track down this EXACT Silverado). My Dad was back in South Dakota, hitting up friends (checkin lots, checkin farms).. BK ultimately finally tracked the thing down, but we all know that when you find that perfect truck that it just fits like a glove.
This song is FGL from the first syllables - I jokingly started my show with “I apologize: Its gonna be tough to figure out who this artist is, and especially challenging to figure out what they just bought..” (you’ll get it)
We all have a soulmate 4x4.. (or not! Maybe your perfect truck is that Ranger that Carly Pearce told me she’d wanted from the time she was a little kid). BK and Tyler bring up all the specs - lift kits, Cybertrucks, etc. They even acknowledge that hard decision of what to do with the old faithful truck you might’ve had before. Where’d you buy it? Don’t matter.. Terrible grammar…don’t matter. No matter what, this is the song you want on in that new truck! Yeah baby…
LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “New Truck”
“Words” - Barry Gibb & Dolly Parton
Each Friday, I listen through a massive playlist of all the new music I know about. About an hour into listening, something felt…I dunno, ‘familiar.’ Just those opening bars of music. Then: Dolly.
The world literally stops for me when I hear Dolly’s voice. Stops. Its all I care about for that time. She is so special and identifiable. She is comforting. The whole world feels this way, right? Dolly is part of our family.
That familiarity I felt as I was listening to my playlist came from an intro I’d heard before. A song that wasn’t quite country, but was so special in story and lyrics that it is totally country - it just happened to be the Beegees singing it back in 1968. Now Barry Gibb is revisiting his family’s songs on Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers’ Songbook, Vol. 1.
He’s brilliantly slowed the tempo just a hair, to create this duet with Dolly. Its simple. Its emotional. And the last line is something that is art only in its rawest form. Heartache as presented through a dedicated and conscious expression by two indelible artists.
LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “Words”
“You Didn’t Have To” - Brown & Gray
I’d be remiss (i’ve never said that in real life, but its fair here) if I didn’t encourage you to go back and check out a song I have made a staple on my show on Apple Music Country called “Make You Mine” - that’s a great way to hear Brown & Gray, if this is your first time!
I’m sure that so many of you have personal experiences and relationships with first responders in your life. I don’t feel like I can properly do justice to thing that are so heartfelt, because I have a tendency to get choked up at memories of love or loss at the same speed that I can lose my voice when I watch touching moment on a dogfood commercial. I genuinely just feel those moments. But as the son of a police officer, and a mom whose empathy and love were on her sleeve at all times, I want say this with weighted, deep, extreme gratitude: Thank you to the women and men who have faced the terror, grief, and battles of COVID that I can’t imagine being surrounded by for months and soon to be a year. Thank you for what you did before that, but especially for the sacrifices of your time, emotion, and the toll it took on your families in so many ways. You’re heroes to a LOT of people. There are songs being written. Music videos paying homage. Parades. Nightly, organized claps. Because you are heroes.
Coming off of a song like “Make You Mine,” I didn’t know what to expect as I expressly started one of my marathon playlist listening sessions by tracking down Brown & Gray. It took one line to understand what this was about.
The genius harmonies of Brown & Gray show up throughout this song, but the lyrics are the real star. And that star shines brightly on the very extraordinary people whose faces I kept picturing as I listened. I have seen them on the news, in the news, from afar, and also up close in person throughout my life. You all were so special before, and now I hope you are seeing clearly that it does not go unnoticed. Thank you to the front line warriors.
LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: “You Didn’t Have To”