Two years after his breakout hit, the country star returns with an ambitious concept album whose strongest moments place him in a deeper conversation with his genre.
The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales is a 20-track epic from a man whose registry of financial woes—“Gasoline and groceries/The list goes on and on”—has shortened significantly since he wrote his breakout hit. Since Shaboozey captured global attention in 2024 with “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”—currently tied for the longest-running No. 1on the Billboard Hot 100—and two appearances on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, success has granted him the resources to do whatever he wants. This summer, he hired a 12-piece backing band to break into Bill Monroe’s bluegrass classic “Roanoke” during his Tiny Desk Concert. And for the follow-up to his star-making third album, Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, he’s made a record that plays like an entire season of Yellowstone on fast-forward.
Pink Floyd’s The Wall is one of his all-time favorites, but the Virginia-born songwriter seems to draw more inspiration here from Red Dead Redemption and Tarantino films. The narrative goes something like this: A female protagonist sets out to avenge her father’s murder and falls in love with an outlaw from the gang responsible for the very murder she’s seeking to avenge. She tries to fix him but—spoiler—murders him in the final act. An ensemble cast helps tell the tale, with interludes from Teyana Taylor as our remorseful villainess, Sam Elliott as every character he’s ever played, and Jamie Foxx, who warns that “Hell is hot” atop hay-bale rattles with the hushed gusto of the megachurch pastor from a Druski skit. The ambition is admirable, but without a companion comic book to fill in the blanks between the more formulaic tracks, the grandiose plot falls flat.
As recounted to Rolling Stone, Shaboozey’s creative director cautioned the singer that this project could demand “long-term attention from people in a short-span economy,” and the album’s elaborate framework could be read as an intentional alternative to trying to recreate the viral success of a hit. Still, he makes a couple attempts anyway. Just as “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” took inspiration from J-Kwon’s 2004 hit “Tipsy,” this album’s “High Noon,” featuring Gunna, bears the loose shape of Yung Joc’s 2006 single “It’s Goin’ Down.” A ready-for-war gym-bro track for the Skoal set, it’s an apt choice for ESPN’s 2026 College Football Anthem, sure to sell many cases of the flat vodka seltzers it shares a name with every Saturday. The buoyant “Cowgirl” is the most obvious imitation act, featuring the line “Got another bar song for you and all your friends” over a similar stomp-clap beat. Its wordplay is peppered with radio-ready drinking-game subliminal messaging, from “Shooters gotta shoot” to “Let me see your hand,” none of which are clever enough to provoke anything too disruptive.
Shaboozey has made crossover impact in an industry whose outdated list of prerequisites he can still claim, and he fares better when his influences stretch back to country music before “Tipsy.” He does his best John Prine on “Drunk,” talk-singing an ode to love lost and bottle found, only faltering when he ups the theatrics with the slurred diction of a regular, perhaps in pursuit of an A24 development deal. It’s a clear homage and all the more impressive for its lack of novelty: “If I’m dying, I wanna die drunk,” he sings, a chorus so intuitive you’re surprised it hasn’t been uttered a million times before. Baritone balladeer Orville Peck makes the album’s final guest appearance to cover the American standard “Streets of Laredo,” and even if its climactic death scene falls somewhat flat, the choice allows Shaboozey to take part in the genre’s ongoing oral tradition.
A beacon of positivity in his public image, Shaboozey has a boundless charisma that gives him an edge over Music City’s preferred smarmy machismo. He’s more likely to cite Townes Van Zandt than Toby Keith as an outlaw north star, even if the foot-stomping shuffle on a track like “Born to Die” lands closer to Avicii. After prior success at appealing to spiritual struggles (“Amen,” “Good News”), he’s thrown away any autobiographical bits in favor of becoming a full-blooded storyteller, and his best songwriting on The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales successfully makes the case. “If I Was an Outlaw,” his most faithful honky tonk interpretation, is a walk-’em-down ditty with the same singalong heart and hesitancy as the barroom anthem “You Never Even Called Me by My Name,” popularized by David Allan Coe. Here, Shaboozey knows what he wants but he’s too kind to pull the trigger: “Ma’am, put that money in the bag, goddammit/I don’t mean to be rude.” Even if you don’t remember which character he’s portraying, the singer remains easy to root for—one of the last likable drinking buddies standing.
