It’s hard to believe 2022 is almost over.
With Christmas coming up this weekend, and New Year’s following shortly after, that means we’re wrapping up what was actually a pretty great year for country music.
And as we approach the new year, you know we love to bring you tons of great lists and end-of-year content, and our Top 40 Country Albums of 2022 list will be here very soon.
But in addition to tons of great music dropping over the last 12 months, some of my favorite songs got the full treatment with a music video, and though they’re pretty few and far between for the most part, quite a few artists put out some really good ones.
They certainly ain’t what they used to be (remember when CMT was actually fun to watch on Saturday mornings?), but artists like Whiskey Myers, Koe Wetzel, Miranda Lambert and more nailed it this year, so I wanted to put together a quick list of some of my personal favorite’s to close out 2022.
And because I narrowed it down to five, I had to leave out some good stuff from artists like Luke Combs (who typically has some of the best music videos in the business), Midland and Jon Pardi, and even Kip Moore and Morgan Wade, but maybe we’ll have more videos coming from them in 2023.
In no particular order, let’s get into it…
“John Wayne” — Whiskey Myers
The lead single from their Tornillo record, “John Wayne” was accompanied by a great video, that kicked off with a hilarious Star Wars like intro and featured famed actor and beloved tough guy Danny Trejo, who portrays one of the bad guys.
The guys of Whiskey Myers do a quick little hilarious dance routine in cowboy getup, sing their song with the full band, and even take on the criminals themselves.
It’s easily one of the most creative on this list, so make sure you check it out if you haven’t already:
“Creeps” — Koe Wetzel
Aside from Luke Combs, Koe Wetzel easily has the best music videos in country music. They’re consistently very well done and always high quality, well thought-out projects (even if full of a bunch of debauchery), and the one he filmed for “Creeps” was awesome.
The second single from his Hell Paso record, we see Koe play zombie slayer and try to save the girl he loves (even if she’s bad for him)… but you’ll have to watch it for yourself to see how it all ends:
“Thought You Should Know” — Morgan Wallen
Morgan released the video for his current single at country radio on Thanksgiving day, and the sweet song for his mom is easily one of my favorite tunes he’s ever put out.
The video includes some adorable home videos of Morgan with his mom when he was a little boy, showing some precious moments from his childhood growing up in east Tennessee, so suffice to say it definitely tugs at the heart strings.
You even see them on set together in current day towards the end, and it’s really a perfect, heartfelt video for this song:
“If I Was a Cowboy” — Miranda Lambert
This video was released back in January, and “If I Was a Cowboy” was ultimately the lead single from Miranda Lambert’s Palomino record.
The video finds her imagining what it would be like to be a cowboy and live free out west, roaming around little towns and pretty much doing whatever the hell she wants without consequence.
Miranda takes center stage as the main cowboy in her entourage here, riding across the wide open plains, calling all the shots and showing everybody who’s boss. It’s perfectly “her” in every sense:
“Hurt You” — Cody Jinks
And I couldn’t end this list without giving a shoutout to Cody Jinks’ music video for “Hurt You.” If you can believe it, it’s also the first music video he’s ever done.
The video shows a girl walking into a dark church full of people, with a guitar over her shoulder. She walks to the front, where three people are sitting, and appear to be judging her.
Sure enough, there’s a surprise waiting for you… make sure you check it out while you’re here:
And that rounds out my top five country music videos for this year… what are some of your favorite’s?
