Hunter Hayes’ Wild Blue (Part I) Available Now

Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, PEOPLE, Rolling Stone, USA Today
Cover Hayes’ New Album, Surprise Announced on TODAY Show on 8/14

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – It’s been 48 hours since singer/songwriter/producer/engineer and multi-instrumentalist Hunter Hayes revealed his new album Wild Blue would be released immediately to the fans months earlier than expected, and now it’s finally here. Released on longtime label Warner Music Nashville, his brand new 10-song album, Wild Blue, featuring the current single “Heartbreak,” is available on digital platforms everywhere and is already number one on the iTunes Country Chart.

Rolling Stone notes Hayes builds the album’s title track “around a percussive groove, singing over subtle piano about how the 27-year-old songwriter is undergoing a personal sea change. Funny how you don’t know you can fly until you finally catch the wind, he sings. You think you know the part you play until somebody goes and rewrites the script. And then it all explodes, with Hayes delivering a soaring, cathartic guitar solo before the song returns to its subdued piano origin,” going on to note, “it’s equal parts Ed Sheeran and John Mayer and points to a new self-aware direction for Hayes.”

Billboard adds, “The results are by turns deeply contemplative (“Dear God”), adventurous (“Wild Blue”), resigned. (“One Good Reason”) and, ultimately, uplifting (“Heartbreak,” “Madness”).”

“I wanted Wild Blue to be a place for people to go, not just a series of songs but a world to dive into, but not so specific that you cannot finish the story yourself,” Hayes revealed to USA Today. “I knew that I wanted it to be about flying, or simply the feeling of flying, turbulence included…I was going through a lot of shifts in my life and I knew that the letting go of those things was the only way that I was going to grow and learn how to be human again.”

Hayes wrote/co-wrote all 10 songs on the album, playing multiple instruments on every track. “To me, just having this album tracklisting be all over the map, it’s an introduction to a person versus just an album,” Hayes told PEOPLE Magazine. “I feel like that’s what I dreamed about. That’s what I wanted.”

Listen to Wild Blue (Part I) HERE.

Wild Blue Track Listing and Songwriters are as follows:
1. Madness (Hunter Hayes, Sam Ellis, Sara Haze)
2. Wild Blue (Hunter Hayes, Troy Verges, Gordie Sampson)
3. Heartbreak (Hunter Hayes, Thomas “Tawgs” Salter, Gordie Sampson, Simon Wilcox)
4. One Good Reason (Hunter Hayes, Sam Ellis)
5. Dear God (Hunter Hayes, Andy Grammer, Dave Spencer)*
6. Loving You (Hunter Hayes, Jordan Reynolds, Dave Barnes)
7. My Song Too (Hunter Hayes, Jordan Reynolds, Dave Barnes)
8. One Shot (Hunter Hayes)**
9. Night and Day (Hunter Hayes, Derrick Southerland, Sam Ellis)
10. Still (Hunter Hayes, Troy Verges, Tommee Profitt)^
Produced by Hunter Hayes and Sam Ellis
* Produced by Hunter Hayes and Dave Spencer
** Produced by Hunter Hayes
^ Produced and Engineered by Hunter Hayes