Morgan Wallen continues NYE tradition, releases new rock-tinged ballad 'Smile'
The 19-time Billboard Music Award-winning, 2024 CMA entertainer of the year has released "Smile," a song continuing his embrace of rock.
Popular music's favorite country performer is embracing rock and roll.
That's the most substantial take from Grammy-nominated and 19-time Billboard Music Award-winning artist Morgan Wallen's surprise single release, "Smile."
2024 marks the second time in four years that the 2024 Country Music Association entertainer of the year has released new music on New Year's Eve. At the beginning of 2022, Wallen paired with Ernest for the neotraditional country ballad "Flower Shops" and released the hip-hop-aided Lil Durk duet "Broadway Girls."
The song is written by Wallen along with back-to-back BMI song of the year co-writers John Byron and Ernest, plus Rocky Block, Ryan Vojtesak and Luis Witkiewitz. It continues a turn towards guitar-driven, lovestruck and mellow rock-aimed tracks like the Sneedville, Tennessee native's "Lies Lies Lies" and "Love Somebody."
"It was good to see you smile / Girl you know it's been a while / It was good to see you smile / Even if it was just for the picture," Wallen sings.
Morgan Wallen's 2024 in review
2024 ends with Wallen having achieved 16 No. 1 singles on Billboard's Country Airplay chart in under a decade. This includes a quintet of No. 1 singles in the past 12 months:
- Thomas Rhett collaboration "Mamaw's House"
- Eric Church collaboration "Man Made A Bar"
- Post Malone duet "I Had Some Help"
- "Cowgirls," featuring Ernest
- "Lies Lies Lies"
Two months ago, Wallen's rock-tinged heartbreaker "Love Somebody" debuted at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart and was immediately No. 1 in five countries worldwide. The song's success made him the first artist to have three singles simultaneously sit atop the Billboard 100 and Hot Country Songs charts.
During his recently completed, two-year-long, and 87-date "One Night At A Time" world tour, he played at venues including over four dozen stadiums to over 3.1 million fans, setting weekend attendance records at Knoxville, Tennessee's Neyland Stadium and Columbus' Ohio Stadium.
What's next for Morgan Wallen in 2025
2025 finds Wallen achieving his peak in both fame and infamy.
On Dec. 12, the performer pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment, reduced from the three Class E felonies he was initially charged with. The plea ended an eight-month process stemming from being charged with three counts of reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon and one count of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, after he threw a chair from the roof of Chief's on Broadway, a six-story honky-tonk opened by Eric Church in Nashville, Tennessee, in April.
He was held for seven days in a DUI education center and is currently on supervised probation for two years.
In May 2025, the "Last Night" vocalist will also host his inaugural Sand In My Boots Festival on the beaches of Gulf Shores, Alabama. The sold-out event will feature headlining sets by Wallen, Post Malone, Brooks & Dunn and Hardy across three days and three nights. Additional guests include Riley Green, Bailey Zimmerman, T-Pain, Diplo, Wiz Khalifa, The War on Drugs, 2 Chainz, Chase Rice, Three 6 Mafia, 3 Doors Down, Ella Langley, Ernest, Morgan Wade, Moneybagg Yo and more. For full details, visit sandinmybootsfest.com.