Don’t Miss New Albums From Margo Price, Rodney Crowell, Zach Top, Christian McBride & More

Margo Price released her fifth studio album, Hard Headed Woman, through Loma Vista Recordings. The singer-songwriter recorded the follow-up to 2023’s Strays with producer Matt Ross-Spang, who had a hand in producing Price’s 2016 debut Midwest Farmer’s Daughter and her second album, 2017’s All American Made. Sessions for the 12-track album were held at the historic RCA Studio A, marking Price’s first time recording in Nashville, where she’s resided for over two decades.

The tracklist includes co-writes with Rodney Crowell and a cover of a Waylon Jennings song championed by his widow Jessi Colter. One of the Hard Headed Woman co-writes with Crowell, “Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down” is also credited to Kris Kristofferson (who wrote a different song with the same title) and Price’s husband/musical partner Jeremy Ivey. Fellow singer-songwriters Tyler Childers and Jesse Welles are featured on separate Hard Headed Woman songs.

“I always hope to do like Johnny Cash did, which is speak up for the common man and woman,” Price stated. “But there have been so many threats and anger and vitriol over the years, when I am only coming from a place of love. So I made the decision to rebuild everything from the ground up. I hope this album inspires people to be fearless and take chances and just be unabashedly themselves, in a culture that tries as hard as it can to beat us into all being the same.”

Rodney Crowell recruited an impressive cast of guest musicians for his new album, Airline Highway, released today through New West Records. Crowell recorded the follow-up to 2023’s The Chicago Sessions with producer Tyler Grant at engineer/mixer Trina Shoemaker’s Dockside Studio in Maurice, Louisiana. Cowell’s 21st album saw the veteran singer-songwriter accompanied by a variety of special collaborators. Ashley McBryde, Lukas Nelson, Blackberry Smoke guitarist Charlie Starr and Larkin Poe’s Rebecca Lovell and Megan Lovell appear across the 10-song LP.

“This record is a document of me falling in love with these musicians,” Crowell stated. “That’s one of the great perks of this job – falling in love with the people you’re playing with. And we caught that on tape.”

Zach Top issued a new album, Ain’t In It For My Health, through Leo33. The Sunnyside, Washington native’s new record follows Top’s April 2024 debut album, Cold Beer & Country Music, which was nominated for the Academy of Country Music award for Album of the Year. The ACM recently named Top New Male Artist of the Year for 2025. November 2024 also saw the singer-songwriter releasing a three-song EP, Me & Billy, with guitarist Billy Strings, taken from a Apple Music Nashville live session.

“With this record [Ain’t In It For My Health], it’s like I’ve lived a little more, and so I have a little more to say,” Top told Apple Music. “There’s just a little more depth to it, I think. It goes a couple layers deeper than the first record, which I love and I’m very proud of it. But I think there’s more meat on the bone with Ain’t In It For My Health.”

Acclaimed bassist Christian McBride released a guest-filled big band album, Without Further Ado, Vol. 1, through Mack Avenue Records. The follow-up to McBride’s Grammy Award-winning 2020 LP, For Jimmy, Wes & Oliver, saw the bassist backed by McClenty Hunter, Jr. (drums), Rodney Jones (guitar), Xavier Davis (piano/electric piano/clavinet), Frank Greene, Freddie Hendrix, Brandon Lee, Nabate Isles (trumpets), Michael Dease, Steve Davis, James Burton III (trombones), Doug Purviance, Max Seigel (bass trombone), Justin Mullen (french horn), Steve Wilson (alto/soprano saxophone), Todd Bashore (alto saxophone/flute), Ron Blake, Dan Pratt (tenor saxophone), Carl Maraghi (baritone saxophone/bass clarinet), Janet Axelrod (flute), Alan Kay (clarinet), Pedrito Martinez (percussion), Warren Wolf (vibraphone) and Shannon Pearson (background vocals).

Additional contributors to the eight-song release included Samara Joy, Dianne Reeves, José James, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Jeffrey Osborne and Antoinette Henry. The Police’s Sting and Andy Summers appeared on the lead single, “Murder By Numbers,” marking the first time Sting and Summers have worked together since The Police’s 2007-2008 reunion tour. The song appeared on The Police’s 1983 album, Synchronicity.

Accomplished drummer Nate Smith’s issued his latest album, LIVE-ACTION. Smith, whose many credits include membership in The Fearless Flyers, worked with an impressive array of musicians on LIVE-ACTION. The record’s roster features guitarists Charlie Hunter and Lionel Loueke, keyboardists DJ Harrison and Keifer, rapper JSWISS, horn players Josh Johnson and Marquis Hill, bassists Michael League, Ben Williams, and CARRTOONS, vocalists Lalah Hathaway, Jermaine Holmes and the group säje.

“It was a way to activate all of these relationships that I’ve been building over the last five or six years since the pandemic, many of them through social media,” Smith said of the album’s collaborations. “I wanted to make a record that sounded like it was recorded on a cassette in my bedroom. I limited my options. I used analog gear. I used the same instruments throughout the album. I did two or three takes of each element, no copy and pastes or anything like that. All of the instruments on the album are played live, nothing is programmed or sequenced.”

Blood Orange (Devonté Hynes) released a new album, Essex Honey, today through RCA Records. The first full length Blood Orange album in six years was written, recorded and produced by Hynes. The array of guests appearing on the new record include Lorde, Caroline Polachek, Daniel Caesar, Mustafa, Turnstile’s Brendan Yates, Tariq Al-Sabir, Liam Benzvi, Ian Isiah, Tirzah, Eva Tolkin, The Durutti Column, Wet’s Kelly Zutrau, actors Naomi Scott and Amandala Stenberg and, singing on an album for the first time, author Zadie Smith.

Zion Garcia shared his “The New Film Star” EP. The Sydney based hip-hop artist drew inspiration for the title and subject matter on “The New Film Star” from a book he read on the “Golden Age” of Hollywood.

“Through ‘dorky, geek rap,’ melody-heavy cuts and punk-rock elements reminiscent of N.E.R.D. and Paris Texas, The New Film Star is Zion Garcia both rewriting history and ‘figuring shit out’ in real time,” press materials described the EP. “‘The New Film Star’ pulls the curtain back on Zion Garcia and plays out like a vignette viewed in technicolor and intersected with elements of growth, accountability, independence, love, grief and confident delusion.”

Pop vocalist Sabrina Carpenter returns with her seventh album, Man’s Best Friend, which arrived today through Island Records. The follow-up to 2024’s Short N’ Sweet sees Carpenter again working with that album’s producers Jack Antonoff and John Ryan.