STACK #257 March 2026

MUSIC FEATURE

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COOL HAND LUKE

Success hasn’t spoiled superstar Luke Combs.

FUN FACT

L uke Combs calls his new album a love letter to his roots. It’s been a remarkable ride for the country act who took a Fast Car to the top of the charts, going from bouncer in a bar to superstar. But the artist, who grew up in North Carolina, is adamant that stardom hasn’t changed him. His new album, The Way I Am , is all about how he balances fame, family, and fatherhood. The 22-track collection includes the high energy Back in the Saddle , which explains how the singer was itching to get back into the studio. “I’ve been gone for a little too long,” he sings. “I’ve been waitin’ on a drummer to kick off a comeback song. I’ve been waitin’ in the wings like a dog on a chain. I can feel this fire buildin’ up.”

Then there’s Sleepless in a Hotel Room , a heartfelt and passionate ode to his wife Nicole Hocking, the mother of their three children. “The morning light can’t come too soon, lyin’ here, not next to you,” Luke laments. “Wide awake, I dream of you, sleepless in a hotel room.” Luke and Nicole have been together for a decade, and he calls her his “saving grace”. The album also includes My Kinda Saturday Night, which is also the title of Luke Combs’ world tour. The album delivers songs for every mood – and day of the week. Jeff Jenkins

Luke Combs was rejected by The Voice . The producers told him he wasn’t “interesting enough” for TV.

CHART FACT

Luke Combs has had five Top 10 albums in Australia, including the 2019 chart-topper W hat You See Is What You Get. His cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car has been his biggest single in Australia, rising to number two.

The Way

I Am is out Mar 20 via Sony

Luke Combs

LO-FI WAY Courtney Barnett reveals she’s a Creature of Habit on her cracking new album.

Courtney has won six ARIA Awards. She was also nominated for ‘Best New Artist’ at the Grammy Awards (the trophy went to Meghan Trainor). AWARD WATCH

T here’s a great scene in Wayne’s World where Wayne’s best buddy Garth is asked how he feels about a suggested change to the show.

Courtney has always had a DIY approach to making music. She pestered her parents to buy her a guitar, and they finally relented when she was ten, gifting an old nylon string guitar which they restrung to enable the left-handed Courtney to play it. She would sit in her room, playing the same song over and over until she

figured it out. “It took a lot of work and a lot of patience,” she says. “And a lot of family patience – listening to me.” She became an international star with her debut album, 2015’s Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit , which was acclaimed for its wry, every day observations.

He replies: “We fear change.” Courtney Barnett can relate.

The Aussie star, who grew up in Sydney and then Hobart, called her new album Creature of Habit because she finds safety in routine as she struggles with change. But she added that the songs reflect “the fine line between a comforting routine and a total rut”. The album – Courtney’s fourth studio offering – has been hailed as a return to the artist’s “DIY, lo-fi roots”. She made most of the album in her home studio in Melbourne, and she calls the sound “shambolic and fuzzy”. Courtney’s first three studio albums have all hit the Top 5 in Australia. The first two albums – Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit and 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel – both hit the Top 40 in the US and UK. CHART FACT

Asked to describe herself as a guitar player, Courtney pauses before saying: “I like to embrace mistakes. I love learning more skills and technical things, but I also think there’s something really magical in

not knowing what you’re

doing all the time

Creature

and seeing where that takes you.” Jeff Jenkins

of Habit is out Mar 27 via Inertia

38 MARCH 2026

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