Morgan Wallen’s long awaited new album is here… Other than the person who was mistakenly sent a CD copy of I’m The Problem two days before its release, fans were locked and loaded to stream Morgan Wallen’s new album as soon as it dropped at midnight. Admittedly, I haven’t given it a listen yet and while I’ll get around to it, I have to say it’s a pretty daunting task… There’s 37 songs. That’s a lot of songs. Way too many if you ask me, but hey, there’s a reason he’s the biggest name in the genre, right? The tracks I’ve heard the most about at this point are “I Got Better” (which Wallen called his most personal on the project), “The Dealer (feat Ernest)” (which our girl Casey says is the most country on the album), and “Kiss Her In Front Of You,” which has gotten the Future meme treatment online… How Morgan Wallen felt writing Kiss Her In Front of You pic.twitter.com/qcQ0BO4rbO — Hoop ✰ (@HoopWrld) May 16, 2025 We all knew there was going to be a lot of cowrites on this project but even I wasn’t prepared for the sheer volume of it all. Using Spotify as the source, I added it all up and phew buddy, it took awhile. A total of 52 people are credited with writing some of these songs (including the original writers of “Miami, My Amy” on his Keith Whitley cover thing). “The Dealer” is the only solo write (by Blake Pendergrass) and there’s a lot of overlap in the names who contributed. Ryan Vojtesak leads the pack with 23 credits, followed by Wallen with 22, Pendergrass with 15, John Byron with 12, and Ernest with 10. The song with the most co-writers is “Love Somebody” with a whopping 11. Yes, eleven… On average, each song has 4.89 cowriters and 12 have 6 or more. Why do I point this out? Well, on one hand just to annoy the Wallen fans who will fiercely defend every decision he makes and tell me that it was obviously the correct decision because look at how well the songs and album chart. This is clearly going to be another enormous commercial success and the fans will be quick to point out that Wallen has much more money than I have or ever will have and that I should shut my mouth and eat what he’s serving. Half the fun is getting those people fired up… But also it just has to be recognized what’s going on here. Wallen figured out how to game the streaming system to maximize his money and get the most streams. If that’s the goal of music these days than so be it but I believe music should be about more. Morgan also mentioned that his fans want  a lot of music from him so wants to do his best to try and meet that demand. Which is fair, but it’s just not for me. Albums should be a cohesive body of work that showcases where the artist is at that period of their life. No, that doesn’t mean everything has to be autobiographical, but there should be some tethering to reality and come together to form more than a sum of its parts. This album probably doesn’t do that just based on sheer size. And if it does come together in a cohesive manner, does it really count if you recruit a literally football team’s worth of writers to craft the message for you? It’s like when a celebrity hires someone to write their memoir; who are we really hearing from in that case other than a corporate pen for hire who will put anything down on paper for a payday? Finally, about the commercial success, do we agree that McDonald’s is the best burger place on Earth just because they sell the most burgers? It’s a worn out cliche but still does ring true. Quantity just does not equal quality and putting constraints on creative output only serve to increase the standard because it forces the artist to think more deeply and critically about what should be included and what should be left out. Bring on the Wallen fans who will say I’m an idiot. It’s fine, used to it at this point. I’m not even saying there aren’t good songs on this album because I’m sure there are. But recruiting an army of people to tell your story just shouldn’t be how music is made… and I’ll die on that hill. The post There’s More Than 50 Different Songwriters On Morgan Wallen’s ‘I’m The Problem’ Album first appeared on Whiskey Riff.