Within the coming weeks, the nation music candidates for what shall be thought-about the 2025 “Music of the Summer season” will begin to align, and Lainey Wilson has supplied up a brand new single that definitely may discover itself in competition.
With a outstanding fiddle, a well-recognized reference and theme freshened to a brand new perspective, and like so many nice nation songs, evoking geography in a significant and resonant means, “Someplace Over Laredo” attracts inspiration and nostalgia from Judy Garland, perhaps a bit of Merle Haggard’s “Silver Wings,” and symbolizes the form of nation music that an artist like Lainey Wilson ought to be singing and releasing.
Going by awards present recognition, Lainey Wilson is essentially the most embellished nation star of the previous few years. This consists of Entertainer of the 12 months wins from each the CMA Awards (2023), and the ACM Awards (2025). However Wilson has as many Entertainer of the 12 months wins as she does #1s. It’s simply as a lot about what Lainey Wilson has completed as it’s that her identify isn’t Morgan Wallen that has ensconced her on the prime of the trophy depend.
The reality is that even for those who’re Lainey Wilson and on the very prime of the category in terms of nation girls, you’re nonetheless not going to compete with the bros on nation radio. As every little thing is shifting away from overproduced nation radio schlock, nation radio is doubling down on it. A music like Lainey’s “4X4XU” may work seamlessly with the nation radio format, and be ripe for retrofitting for a F-150 industrial. However even then it nonetheless stalls out at #4 on radio.
So why not launch one thing a bit extra formidable, and little extra nation, and a bit extra emotion-laden? “Someplace Over Laredo” isn’t excellent, but it surely’s the form of music an artist like Lainey Wilson must be releasing—nation, however smart and accessible. It even someway made it throughout the desk of producer Jay Joyce, a.okay.a. the “Destroyer of Worlds” in terms of nation manufacturing, and he didn’t squelch all of the life out of it like he did for big swaths of Lainey’s final album Whirlwind.
“Someplace Over Laredo” is likely one of the bonus tracks from Wilson’s Whirlwind (Deluxe) set to reach on August twenty second. As a reigning Entertainer of the 12 months, if Lainey Wilson desires to guide, it’s songs like “Someplace Over Laredo” she must heart.
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