Cody Johnson - Ain't Nothin' To It

Cody Johnson self-released six albums and built a following playing Texas dancehalls before a major label came anywhere near him. Ain't Nothin' To It, released in 2019, was his Warner Nashville debut and his seventh record overall. It went straight to number one on the Top Country Albums chart, which is a rare thing for an artist who arrived with an audience already fully formed and no interest in changing course to keep it.

He is a former rodeo bull rider and the music carries that plainness. Produced by Trent Willmon, this is unfussy, road-tested honky-tonk played by a real band, closer in spirit to Randy Travis than to most of what Nashville was pushing in 2019. "On My Way To You," written by Brett James and Tony Lane, is the ballad that broke him nationally. "Dear Rodeo" is the one his own audience already knew by heart. "Nothin' On You," "Monday Morning Merle" and a cover of Charlie Daniels' "Long Haired Country Boy" are where the record loosens its collar, and the two live bonus cuts on side C are the tracks that tend to convert anyone still on the fence about him.

Everything that followed, the platinum singles and the arena tours, starts here. It remains the clearest statement of what Johnson actually does.

This double LP includes a single-sided second disc with an etched B-side. On Warner Music Nashville.