Cody Johnson - Leather [Deluxe Edition]

Cody Johnson's argument has never been complicated: traditional country does not need reinventing, it needs somebody willing to sing it straight. Leather, released in November 2023 and produced by Trent Willmon, is the most confident version of that argument he has made. The Deluxe Edition, out a year later, adds thirteen tracks and pushes the whole thing to twenty-five songs across three LPs.

"The Painter" led it off and became a number one, then took NSAI Song of the Year in 2024. "Dirt Cheap" followed it to the top and won Storyteller Song of the Year at the People's Choice Country Awards, which is the right category for it. The deluxe material is where the record opens up: the Jelly Roll duet "Whiskey Bent," Brooks & Dunn turning up for "Long Live Country Music," and Carrie Underwood trading verses on "I'm Gonna Love You." "The Mustang" closes it out at nearly five minutes and earns every one of them.

At twenty-five tracks this could easily have been a dumping ground, and it is not. Johnson's voice carries the sequencing, and the extra songs mostly deepen the case rather than pad it. For an artist who built his following playing rodeos long before Nashville paid attention, this is the record that proves the approach scales.

The Deluxe Edition presses the full twenty-five tracks across three LPs. On Cojo Music / Warner Music Nashville.