The 10 Best Country Songs of 2022: Staff List

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. 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. This became one of the biggest chart hits of McCreery’s 11-year career, notching three weeks atop Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. – JESSICA NICHOLSON

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. 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. 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. – MELINDA NEWMAN

High school sweethearts (class of 1980) get married and everyone presumes a happily ever after awaited them. But Andress turns the expectation of idyllic nostalgia on its head. 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. This is just one of the perceptive tracks that populate the artist’s latest album, Good Person. – J.N.

With a world-weary voice that sounds far older than his 22 years, Dean broke through in 2022 with this bluesy stomp about escaping. Co-written with Luke Dick, “Lookin’” has a slightly menacing tone, leaving no doubt that, when Dean growls “If I don’t come back/ don’t come lookin’,” he means it. Aided by a synch placement on the powerhouse series Yellowstone, “Lookin’” introduced the world to a striking new talent. –M.N.

The lead single from his project Flower Shops (The Album), this song was written by Ernest along with Ben Burgess and Mark Holman, and features a collaboration with Morgan Wallen.

He knows he’s messed up after a bender that left “tears in her blue/ bloodshot in mine,” and he’s intent on buying out the flower shop’s inventory in hopes of making up for his shortcomings — a classic country trope of a heartbreaker seeking forgiveness. Yet it’s the lilt in their voices, the traditional country-leaning feel and a casual, tip-of-the-hat hook (“It’s a bad day for love, but a good day for flower shops”) that make this stand out. –J.N.

Songs rarely come as bleak as “Wait in the Truck,” a murder ballad about a man who picks up a battered hitchhiker and decides to seek vengeance by killing her abuser — no questions asked. We don’t know why he’d go so far for a stranger in a move that sends him to prison, but there’s something undeniably satisfying about this tale of vigilante justice that doesn’t reach pat conclusions or a happy ending, especially as a refrain of “Have mercy on me” builds at the end. This one’s sure to be a CMA song of the year contender next year.  –M.N.

Rhett, Hubbard and Dickerson are all known for their pop-inflected, sometimes frothy tunes, but this gripping track is all guitars, grit, self-reflection and heart, inspired by a trip the three artist-writers took to perform for inmates in a men’s prison in Tennessee. The song offers a stark message of forgiveness, humanity, emotional transformation and commonality, as they recall meeting an inmate who “ain’t touched the grass in 30 years,” and another who sings “Amazing Grace” with joy and abandon, “with one hand raised and one foot chained to the ground,” just days before he’s put to death. –J.N.

Take two of country music’s most authentic voices and turn them loose on this twangy tale of lost love, and the result will demand repeat listens and become an instant add to karaoke night. The spirited, toe-tapping melody matches the sense of motion in the lyrics, as the protagonist tries to escape the memories of a past lover by hitting the road to no avail. Throw in some classic country instrumentation including banjo and pedal steel, and just enjoy the ride. –M.N.

The agony of unrequited love plays out in this 3:40 cinematic, atmospheric tale. Against a spare, haunting acoustic melody, Bryan sings with restrained desperation for the object of his desire to “please turn those headlights around,” even though he has earlier admitted, “something in the orange tells me you’re never coming home.”  Desolation and despair never sounded so inviting. –M.N.

You can let the needle drop anywhere on Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville and land on an excellent track courtesy of McBryde and her creative cohorts. But this standout, which details the stories of a bartender, musicians and a dancer that help make a small-town bar a near-churchlike setting of its own — building to a key line, “Hallelujah/ Jesus loves the drunkards and the whores and the queers” — highlights Davis’s grainy, world-weary vocal. Written by Davis, McBryde, Brandy Clark, Connie Harrington, Aaron Raitiere and Nicolette Hayford, this evinces their talents as keen-eyed, open-hearted troubadours. -J.N.