What is Going On with These New Brad Paisley Songs?

Fans of country music artist Brad Paisley have been celebrating recently as new songs from the performer have been populating on streaming services a few at a time, and have been reminding them of his early career output in the best of ways. The songs come very anticipated from Paisley fans since it’s officially been over nine years—since April 2017’s Love and War—that we’ve heard a proper new original album from the singer and guitar slinger.

The six songs released so far are full of strong traditional country word play, double entendres, and catchy puns in hooky, easy-to-love country songs, while the instrumentation and production is indicative of ’90s country. This doesn’t just feel like old Brad Paisley. It feels like Brad Paisley at his best when he’s able to work his cleverness into country songs.

The first of now six new singles called “Fallin’” was released on May 11th, and came the same day it was announced as part of a greater project titled Tacklebox. But Tacklebox wouldn’t exactly be an “album” per se, and it wouldn’t exactly include new material.

“I see this ‘project’ as never-ending. It’s almost like the fans have a direct link to my Dropbox or to a playlist that never ends,” says Paisley. “We are calling it Tacklebox because it’s a box full of hooks, country lyric hooks. In this digital age, I have every song I’ve ever written at my fingertips. This project gave us a license to dig back into the catalog of songs that were never released, that feel like a time period, a style of writing, a sound, and nostalgia.”

In other words, these are not “new” songs, even if they might be new to the public. Paisley goes on to further explain,

“We went back into the studio to record or re-record at The Castle in Franklin, TN, the same place where several of my first few albums were recorded. When I first started writing and recording music, I couldn’t have dreamed of the ability to put something out instantly for the fans.”  

Don’t get it wrong. Even though these songs are older, they are still cool, and dare we say even cooler since their coming from an earlier era in the Brad Paisley legacy.

But despite the positivity around the recently released songs, there’s still something that feels weird about how all of this is transpiring. Instead of the song releases perhaps being an indication that the dam is finally starting to break that’s held back Brad’s creative output, it might be the latest sign yet that something is inherently wrong in his career, either with a publishing deal, his record label deal, or both, or something else.

Brad Paisley has released other new music in between whatever Tacklebox turns out to be, and his 2017 album Love and War. Just last year, Paisley released a really excellent Christmas record called Snow Globe Town. It feels like one of those seasonal albums that you’ll be returning to each season for years to come. But this is different from a serious, proper studio album.

That’s what we were supposed to receive from Brad Paisley in 2023, or shortly thereafter. On September 29th of that year, Paisley announced a new album called Son of the Mountains. As a native of West Virginia, the album was going to be Paisley’s return to his original roots through a very forward-thinking project where he sang about the beauty of Appalachia, while also confronting the crises plaguing the region.

Coinciding with the announcement was the release of the album’s first four tracks, which were said to be sequenced very intentionally to tell a deeper story. The opening song featuring Dan Tyminski and Jerry Douglas and was called “Son of the Mountains,” written by Paisley with Lee Thomas Miller. So was the second song “The Medicine Will,” which addressed West Virginia’s opioid crisis.

Anticipation was high for the album. It felt like Paisley was trying to put together a project similar to the insurgent Appalachian artists that were reshaping country music at the time—artists like Tyler Childers and Sierra Ferrell. But those first four songs are all we ever received from Son of the Mountains. After that and further promises of details forthcoming about the upcoming project, the entire thing appeared to be mothballed, if not scrapped altogether. By the time Paisley’s Christmas album came out in November of 2025, Son of the Mountains seemed to have been completely memory holed.

So the next question is, what exactly is going on with Brad Paisley’s career? Sure, it’s great to get these older Paisley Tacklebox songs that are new to us. But why can’t the guy release new music and a new album per normal?

Just like Gary Allan, Josh Turner, Joe Nichols, and other artists, Brad Paisley likely signed a record deal back in the day that might not reflect the realities on the modern music industry. Their deals and the label heads managing them often don’t know how to move forward without a dedicated radio strategy, putting these artists’ careers in limbo. Ultimately, if a label can’t see a profitable outcome for releasing new music, they’re more likely just to sit on their hands and not release anything new at all.

For Brad Paisley’s entire career starting with his debut album in 1999 Who Needs Pictures, he’d recorded for Arista Nashville, which was a division of Sony Music Nashville. In the spring of 2023—so right as Son of the Mountains was likely being finalized for release—Artista Nashville was shuttered, with the artists on the label being shuffled to other Sony Nashville imprints. But Paisley ended up on Mercury Nashville, which is part of the Universal Music Group, not Sony.

The closing of Arista Nashville at the time was said to be a “strategic consolidation implemented by Sony Music Nashville to better align with the needs of country radio.” That “country radio” part very well might be the key to understanding what’s happening with Brad Paisley’s career.

At the beginning of 2023, Paisley released the song “Same Here” that featured the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. If Paisley had released the single a year previous when the Ukraine War was still experiencing more universal sentiment, the single might have skyrocketed. But at the time, support for American aid to Ukraine was beginning to become very polarizing. The single failed to chart.

The same fate befell Paisley’s “So Many Summers,” as well as “The Medicine Will.” In fact, Paisley hasn’t had a Top 5 country hit since 2016’s “Today” (#3), or a #1 since 2014’s “Perfect Storm.” To put it bluntly, Brad Paisley had become cold product to country radio. And now having been shifted to a different label, he might not have the same long-term relationships to fall back on.

But why and how was Brad Paisley able to release a Christmas album, or singles either recorded or re-recorded from earlier in his career? That’s a good question. Interesting to note, those four songs released as part of the Son of the Mountains project were released through EMI Nashville. The new Christmas album and Tacklebox tracks were released by Mercury Nashville. So Brad Paisley hasn’t moved labels once, but twice in the Universal tree of imprints.

All of this is to say that Brad Paisley very well could be suffering under some sort of weird label/contract regime that is forbidding him from releasing actual new music. Many of these Music Row-based labels, if they don’t see a radio strategy for you, they just don’t know what to do, and ultimately, do nothing.

Releasing a Christmas album that’s not going to interface with radio anyway, or some previously-written/recorded tracks where most of the investment capital had already been spent in the past, well that makes sense. That’s why celebrating the release of these Tacklebox tracks should come with a bit of caution. Brad Paisley fans should be demanding the release of the entirety of the Son of the Mountains project, and whatever other new music Paisley might have sitting in the can. Or if the label is unwilling to play ball, Sony should let Paisley out of his contract.

Brad Paisley is now 53 years old. He’s made quite a few weird steps, and outright missteps in his later career (“Accidental Racist,” anyone?). It’s unlikely he has another hit album or a hit single just waiting to be released. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve the creative freedom to release the music that he wishes. Clearly he was feeling passionate about Son of the Mountains at one point.

There’s a good chance Brad Paisley ultimately ends up on the Country Music Hall of Fame. But as we’ve seen time and time again, when an artist ages out or loses radio support, their careers gets fumbled. It’s a lonely place where you’re no longer mainstream relevant, but are still too young to be considered legendary.

The Tacklebox project is definitely a cool thing, and some of the best music Brad Paisley has released in years. It’s also fits well with the resurgence of interest in ’90s country. But Brad Paisley deserves to release whatever music he wishes, not just what Sony Nashville has the stomach for that’s already sitting on the shelf.

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Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Brad Paisley is no longer on a Songy Nashville imprint, but a Universal Records Nashville imprint.

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