With a handful of CMA and ACM Awards under his belt, Cody Johnson knows a thing or two about selecting songs to attach his name to.
Like many singers in the genre, the Texas native not only writes his own song, he also hand-picks offerings from various songwriters to include on his projects. But if a song is written by someone else, how do you choose something that feels authentic to you?
Cody Johnson Shares How He Picks Songs for His Albums
When it comes to finding tracks that have that Cody Johnson feel, despite being written by someone else, Johnson turns to the people closest to him. It’s not just about their opinion though.
He has to be able to trick them in to believing he penned the song. It’s an experiment he’s done for years and it has served him well.
“When I first started picking songs and listening to demos and outside songs,” he explains to On The Record TV. “I would learn the song on my acoustic and I’d go like in front of my friends or my wife or my parents or anybody else and say, ‘Hey, check out this song I wrote the other day.'”
After playing the song for them, he would ask if they believed he wrote it. If they believed he was the one behind it, then it would go on the album.
“Because if you believed I wrote it then I’ve picked the right one,” Johnson explains.
Cody Johnson Wants All of His Songs to Sound Like Cody Johnson
In his mind, this blind test was the perfect way to select songs for his collection.
“And that process has gotten easier and easier over the years to when you hear one and you go, that one is straight up and down me,” he adds.
Is Cody Johnson Releasing an Album in 2026?
While firm details about a new project from Johnson have yet to be revealed, he has spilled some tea about his next collection of songs.
“The goal is to come back in February,” the CMA winner shared with Country Countdown USA in November. “Probably go into the studio to do vocals in January to get a record out next year.”
“We’re pretty much done with an album,” he adds.
Johnson also revealed he is cooking up some new collaborations for the new project. After the success of his duet “I’m Gonna Love You” with Carrie Underwood
“Just need some guest performances by Luke Combs and Brothers Osborne,” he tosses out. “Then we’re done.”
Perhaps Johnson’s new album will land on our Best Of list for 2026.
The Top 10 Country Albums of 2025
The top country albums of 2025 prove the genre has room for all kinds of artists — as long as they’re authentically themselves.
The Top 3 albums on this list are so different from one another that they almost shouldn’t be in competition at all. A traditionalist, a genre outsider and a pop-country duo represent some of the very best country music released this year, and the one thing they have in common is that each leaned fully into their strengths.
Staff opinion and reader input made up the bulk of Taste of Country’s Top 10 list, with streaming numbers, sales data and chart performance rounding out our decisions.
Gallery Credit: Carena Liptak
