Cody Johnson Releases Highly Anticipated New Album, “Leather”

(Background) Terry Wyatt / Stringer / Getty Images / (Inlay) Chris Douglas

The New Cody Johnson Album, Leather, Is Finally Here

The moment Cody Johnson fans have been waiting for is finally here. On Friday (November 3), Johnson released his highly anticipated new album, Leather.

Leather is Johnson’s followup to 2021’s Human: The Double Album. The project contains a total of 12 tracks, including two collaborations.

Johnson recorded “Long Live Country Music” with Brooks & Dunn and “Whiskey Bent” with Jelly Roll.

See the full track list for Leather below:

1. “Work Boots”
2. “Double Down”
3. “Watching My Old Flame”
4. “That’s Texas”
5. “Dirt Cheap”
6. “Jesus Loves You”
7. “Whiskey Bent” (feat. Jelly Roll)
8. “Leather”
9. “People in the Back”
10. “Long Live Country Music” (feat. Brooks & Dunn)
11. “The Painter”
12. “Make Me a Mop”

Johnson Explains The Meaning Behind Leather & Its Cover Art

During an interview with Billboard, Johnson explained how he was drawn to the album’s title track, which was written by Ian Munsick, Rivers Rutherford, and Jeremy Spillman:

“My jaw dropped,” Johnson recalled of his first reaction to the song. “Everything about a cowboy has to do with leather, so lines about it taking ‘Years of work and dirt and hurt to make him,’ or ‘He’ll start out stiff and rough, but give him time and he’ll soften up/ And that just makes him twice as tough’… It is so well-written. It also has this cool yodel thing; I almost took that out, but Trent said, ‘You have to do that. That’s cowboy.'”

Johnson embraces that cowboy feeling through the album’s cover art as well. The image shows his worn and bloodied hands gripping on to a leather strip:

“I was working at the ranch that day, so I told my photographer Chris Douglas to come over,” Johnson told Billboard. “That’s blood and hair in that picture from castrating bulls and giving them shots that day. We didn’t stage any of that. We got started at 5:00 a.m. and worked all day and he ended up getting some incredible photos while we were working.”

There Is More New Music On The Way From Cody Johnson

As Johnson told Billboard, he has more new music up his sleeve. A deluxe version of Leather will be released sometime next year (2024). Johnson says the deluxe project will feature even more collaborations.

But he’s keeping tight-lipped on exactly who his collaborators are, for now. “Those are the ones I can’t mention,” he said.

Head below to listen to some of the songs from Leather, and scroll up to listen to Johnson’s collaborations with Brooks & Dunn and Jelly Roll.