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The 16 Songs Project
April 2026
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Welcome back to The 16 Songs Project and welcome to April. If you live in a part of the world that has four seasons, it's safe to say that spring has arrived and there are few times of year better suited to playlist creation.
It's the beginning of porch and patio season. Nothing beats a crisp spring day, a crisp cold beer, and a speaker nearby buzzing something pleasant into your soul.
That's not everything on this month's playlist, but it is damn well represented. Go ahead, play this month's picks in your car with the window down or with your feet up in an Adirondack chair.
16 Songs - April 2026 | The Playlist
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I believe this helpful link will take you to this playlist, no matter which service you use for your music (Apple, Amazon, YouTube, Tidal, Etc.) Let me know if you're a non-Spotify user and this did or did not work for you!
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"What's On Your Mind?" - Truman Sinclair
Sometimes one artist or album takes up so much of my listening space in a month that it becomes difficult to even get to 16 Songs. I'm not sure this month would fully reach that threshold, yet it was close, thanks to Truman Sinclair.
The former member of an emo band called Frat Mouse (good band name) has hit it much bigger as a singer-songwriter, currently opening for Courtney Barnett on tour.
His 2025 album American Recordings came across my desk and immediately became the thing I listened to most this month.
In fact, we'll have another song from the album later in this playlist.
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"Louisiana Wind" - Vincent Neil Emerson
I've been a fan of Vincent Neil Emerson for a while. though I'm fully aware that his twangly jangly act can feel a little flat after plenty of listens. Like many artists in his lane, my favorite of his work takes chances with some additional instruments and sounds.
That's exactly what happens here, with horns joining the party, a rocking piano and guitar party already.
The rest of his new album is good, but this song is the clear standout in my book.
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"Ballad of the Texas King" - Cut Worms
Cut Worms is another in the very post-2010 trend of "Band Name, But It's Actually Just One Guy."
In this case, the guy is Max Clarke, who has now released four albums as Cut Worms, including a self-titled effort in 2023 that included this gem.
It sounds like a British Invasion band era band spent a week in Austin, Texas. As someone who gets deeply, religiously obsessed with George Harrison's All Things Must Pass three or four times every year, this is about as high a compliment I can bestow.
Cut Worm's put out an album in March of 2026 that I'm just diving into and fully expected to be represented in this space next month.
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"Paid Time Off" - Noah Kahan
I have a lot of thoughts about Noah Kahan and I will do my *best* to not get carried away with the word count here.
Noah Kahan is a massively successful commercial artist. He's got 31 million monthly listeners on Spotify and his most popular song ("Stick Season" which is...fine) tops a billion plays on that streamer. He plays baseball stadiums and arenas when he tours.
Part of me does not fully understand how this is the case. A much larger part of me deeply understands it, begrudgingly.
Kahan feels like the second wave of the pop-folk-Americana movement, following a first wave that crested 10 to 15 years ago with the massive popularity of The Lumineers and Mumford & Sons and The Avett Brothers. That wave spawned dozens of bands and artists that veered several degrees in every direction. A band like Caamp got a little folkier. Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats were a little more bluesy. Someone like, gulp, Phillip Phillips chased the pop version of this sound. There was Houndmouth and The Head & The Heart and The Revivalists. The list goes on and on. I like a lot of that music. But more often than not, I liked that music, back when it was cool and interesting to like a shouty banjo jam.
I kind of moved on, and I thought most of the rest of the world did too, until Kahan became such a massive success.
His success currently dwarfs anyone else in that lane, up to and including the most recent music released by The Lumineers and Mumford & Sons, neither of whom has dropped anything that made me raise an eyebrow in...gosh, it's been a decade.
For that reason, Kahan really exists in a stratosphere that makes me compare him to two other artists.
The first is Zach Bryan, who in many ways is the country answer to Kahan (the two collaborated on the very good "Sarah's Place" in 2023). The main differences between the two are Bryan's insistence on releasing every song he ever conceives in his brain (four albums, 2 EPS, and countless singles since 2022), plus Bryan's penchant for stumbling into the tabloids with the goings on in his personal life and his relationship with (the deepest sigh you can imagine) Barstool Sports personality Briana Chickenfry. I'm sorry for making you read that string of words.
To Kahan's credit, he's avoided oversaturating the market. His new album is his first release of new songs since the wildly popular Stick Season in 2022. He's also avoided the celebrity trap, seemingly preferring to golf with his buddies than get famous (Kahan posted seven scores to his handicap in April, according to my deep dive in the USGA app).
The second artist that Kahan reminds me of, and again I'm sorry for going here, is Taylor Swift.
There's a few reasons for that. His music feels like a fever dream of the Swiftie who loves Folklore above the rest of Swift's catalog. To me, they feel similar because despite wild popularity and rabidly obsessed fanbases, their music is often very bland and leaves me wanting more. Usually a lot more.
Like Swift, Kahan's music often works for me when it either has some pep in its step or takes a two-step towards country-western. I like Taylor when she's more Dolly than Adele, just like I prefer Kahan to be more Willie than Dylan. Neither Swift or Kahan is releasing anything you'd expect to hear on pop country radio, but if you squint, the bones are there.
This song, "Paid Time-Off", is a perfect example. The humming and strumming aren't putting this on the country charts, but the sweet and simple lyrics about riding in a truck, drinking burnt coffee, and working a (seemingly) blue collar job are classic country and make for a pleasant listen.
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"Homesick" - Noah Kahan, featuring Sam Fender
To hammer the point home, here's Kahan on a collaboration with an artist that brings a lot more excitement to a track, British pop-rocker Sam Fender. His work sounds like The Killers after a pint at the pub and a bloody cuppa tea, bringing some arena energy to one of Kahan's biggest hits.
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"Sowin' Seeds" - Angela Autumn
For those following along for the last few months, I swear to god I don't normally listen to this much sad music from lady banjo players. You caught me in my Depressed Cowgirl Era, so let's ride. Yeehaw.
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"Let's Go Dancing" - Deer Tick
Admittedly, this is not a song I was able to slot into its proper context. It's from a collection of singles honoring the work of Kevn Kinney (correct spelling, not a typo), most notably a member of the band Drivin N Cryin, but also a wildly prolific songwriter over the last four decades. The collection has featured dozens of artists, like Jason Isbell, Darius Rucker, and Old Crow Medicine Show, covering Kinney's creations.
I don't have a particular existing love for Kinney's work but came to this song from my love of Deer Tick, who are set to release a new album next month. I already featured the lead single from that record last month and this song was a nice holdover while waiting for the rest of that album to arrive
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"Thanks for Saving My Life" - Billy Paul
Once again, I have music producer Owen Cutts and his weekly TikTok series "Old Music Friday" to thank for introducing a real ear-pleaser to the playlist.
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"Dark Out" - Frog
This funky little number comes from a band called Frog, which has touched a variety of sounds and genres in the last few years before landing on the vibe for their most recent album (Frog for Sale), which is "What if the guys from Steely Dan owned a MacBook Air?".
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"Your Cat" - Slaughter Beach, Dog
A return appearance for Philly-natives Slaughter Beach, Dog, who had a song in the February playlist, but stayed heavily in my everyday plays throughout March and into April. This one's a fun track.
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"When the Love Is New" - Shakey Graves
Shakey Graves is the kind of artist that puts out a song I like every two to three years. I've been slowly accumulating his work in my Spotify library since 2016 without ever sitting down to listen to a full album.
I corrected that with his new EP, which features this stompy number that feels like a shoo-in to be used in a Taylor Sheridan TV series.
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"Live Laugh Love" - Double Extra Large
If you're here to find music you don't already know, this one's almost certainly new to you. Double Extra Large (good band name) has just 350-or-so monthly listeners on Spotify and came to my attention via the very good music newsletter No Expectations by Josh Terry.
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"Everybody Wants To Be a Cowboy" - Kacey Musgraves ft. Billy Strings
I'll actually resist the urge to devote all of the word count I could blurt out about Kacey Musgraves and her new album and instead just quickly state how much I appreciate what she has been steadily producing for the last decade or so.
Musgraves is really the only artist that I can think of that consistently produces music that is both country music and pop music but is NOT Pop Country music. Again, maybe Taylor Swift is the closest approximation, but in a world where Taylor Swift never left Nashville.
Musgraves' new album is not my favorite of her works (that'd be 2018's Golden Hour, which won Album of the Year at the Grammys), but it's an interesting listen, with equal parts low-fi pop music and Mexican-inspired Southwestern spice.
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"You Ask Me To" - Waylon Jennings
Made the list exclusively because I caught the first half of the movie Hell or High Water this month and the scene where Ben Foster sings this song to Chris Pine is awesome. That whole movie is awesome.
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"Gold Star" - Truman Sinclair
Yep, we're going back to the well for this one. Same artist and album as the playlist's opening track, but Sinclair's truly been a constant for me this month and deserved to be reflected as such.
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"Utzp" - Angine de Poitrine
A reader (Co-Worker Stephen again) recommended this band, with the caveat that they're work is both unconventional and, in his words, "unlistenable". The duo also performs their (mostly) instrumental jams in weird costumes.
I'll say this: it's not unlistenable but boy does it take a little while to hit its stride. Once it does, it sticks in your brain a little bit. That sentiment is echoed in the comments section of Angine de Poitrine's most viewed performance. The comments had me absolutely in tears laughing with gems like "I was confused, then I was happy, and now I'm triangle."
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That's all for this playlist. I hope you found a few songs you like. Let me know if there's an artist or song you think I'd like.
See you next month,
Shane
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