Peytan Porter: Country’s Next Woman Up.
Sometimes in music you see an up-and-coming artist you believe in, whether it’s good songwriting, a great voice, or just the feel of potential star-power, you just know they’re gonna be something. Peytan Porter has all three of those qualities and more.
The 23 year-old out of the tiny town of, Dawsonville, Georgia has been a songwriter since the very beginning of her teenage years. Taking that passion further by heading to Lipscomb University in Nashville in 2016 to get a degree in public relations, and quickly ended up getting herself into the songwriter scene in Music City. She began working with other young artists to really establish a network for herself.
She eventually ended up earning an internship at Sea Gayle Music, a very prestigious publishing company, with nearly 60 number one hit singles under their belt, and an very impressive line-up of writers, former and current. Acts like Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker, and Eric Church have all had number ones written by the people at Sea Gayle. Brad Paisley was actually a co-founder of the company back in 1999 and had several of his first major hits touting the Sea Gayle name. Paisley still writes at Sea Gayle, as does one of the other co-founders, Chris DuBois. Former writers include Chris Stapleton, Brandy Clark, Wade Bowen, and Ingrid Andress, all of whom have went on to become great writers and artists of their own.
Porter’s work at Sea Gayle led her to working with Nina Jenkins in, creative publisher at Jody Williams Songs, and quickly gained massive respect from the founder of the company himself, Jody Williams. Williams had this to say for Music Row, “Peytan’s writing is so emotive and sophisticated structurally. The first time she performed for us in the office I was moved to tears, asking her to repeat a second verse just to take it in a bit longer. It’s exciting to have this opportunity to help someone with her natural talent realize her goals as a songwriter and artist. She definitely has the gift!” JWS signed Porter to an official publishing deal in early 2021.
On February 8th 2021 Peytan posted a tiktok video to her account captioned: “Episode 2 of Songs I Forgot I Wrote”. This video went super viral, amassing over 2.6 million views in just over a week. The tiktok features her in her car singing along to an awesome song she wrote about her friends boyfriend in high school. This wouldn’t be her only tiktok success however. She gained quite a few followers from that video alone, so she already had a small audience, but her next viral tiktok raised the follower count even more. Posted in May of 2021 for a contest to win free rent, was a video of her singing her song “Champagne Problems” in her car. This video wasn’t quite as big of a boom, but still easily reached 1 million views. The biggest one though was posted on October 22, 2021, and was again, her singing an original song in her car, this time it was a song called “Therapy” and has garnered nearly 4 million views in a little over a month.
“Therapy” was released as Porter’s debut single on November 5th, produced by Greg Bates and Evan Cline, as well as getting a music video on December 8th. This pop country fusion is extremely well written, and extremely catchy. It has a theme of self-care is about knowing when you need to cut someone out and just take time to heal. The sound is reminiscent of the other giants of pop country like Maren Morris, or Lauren Alaina, but Porter’s powerful, but smooth voice and the very well balanced production ensures that it stands out as it’s own thing. Peytan has said on tiktok that she is in fact recording a debut album, so I would imagine it would have the other two songs that went viral on it alongside “Therapy”. If I were to guess, I’d say be on the lookout for “Champagne Problems” to be the next single.
I truly believe Peytan Porter has what it takes to be the next big thing. The way she got her start is very similar to many of country’s big acts, paired with her dynamic voice and clever songwriting ability, I think it’s just a matter of time until she has a number one single. Her publisher, JWS, has already had success making a star out of a great female songwriter in Ashley McBryde. I can easily see Porter bursting onto the scene similar to how Gabby Barrett made waves in 2020. Whether you’re a fan of the pop country sound or not, it’s what is topping charts right now, and frankly I enjoy what I’ve heard from Porter more than most other’s in the subgenre. 2022 is going to be the year of Peytan Porter.
