Best Country Albums of 2024

The best representation of country music’s broad scope in 2024 wasn’t a streaming playlist but this official soundtrack to a summer blockbuster about tornadoes. Twisters featured 29 new songs from mainstream radio stars like Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson, Thomas Rhett, and Kane Brown, along with rising stars on the red hot Texas and Oklahoma scenes, including Wyatt Flores, Dylan Gossett, Wilderado, and Flatland Cavalry. That’s in addition to singer-songwriter fare from Tyler Childers and Nolan Taylor, stoner country from Tyler Halverson, and the return of “yodeling kid” Mason Ramsey. Throw in the Southern gothic of Red Clay Strays and a superstar appearance by Shania Twain with Breland, and Twisters blew us away. —Joseph Hudak

Wyatt Flores capped a year of introspection, self-searching, and a mental-health break to grapple with his rapid rise in country music with the Beau Bedford-produced full-length Welcome to the Plains. “The reason I did this album was to show people who I am. It’s the full scope,” the native Oklahoman says of the record, which mixes the angst and emotion he wears on his sleeve (“The Only Thing Missing Is You”) with the Red Dirt rock in his heart (“Don’t Wanna Say Goodnight”). The instantly timeless “Oh, Susannah” is a call for his fanbase to understand that their hero is human and give him space to grow into the spotlight he’s suddenly found himself in. —Josh Crutchmer

More than three decades into a career, Keith Urban somehow continues to find new ways to elevate country music. High is an invigorating mix of what the Australian guitarslinger does best: Age-appropriate songs about love and life, melodies for days, and lots of inventive guitar solos. “Chuck Taylors” is a galloping blast of indie-rock country using the titular sneakers as a metaphor for perseverance. “Dodge in a Silverado” is a piano ballad about the one that got away — in a Chevy pickup. And “Break the Chain” is Urban at his most vulnerable, addressing the problems with alcohol that he and his father faced and reminding listeners that it’s “never too late to break the chain.” Album opener “Straight Line,” meanwhile, is as familiar as Urban gets, bursting out of the gate with synths and his trademark “hm-hm” ad libs. Sometimes, it’s great to know exactly what you’re getting. —J.H.

Charley Crockett has been at it for a decade, longer if you count his busking days, but he’s never sounded as sure of himself as he does here. The lyrics on his 13th album, $10 Cowboy, are a mix of honky-tonk hooks, phrases from drifters and gas-station clerks, and stories written in the back of his bus as he went across the country. “America, have I told ya, how I labor in your fields?” he asks. Like the country he’s looking at, the album is a whole made of disparate parts: soul, country, blues, Americana, and more. —Benjamin Stallings

The Texas country band known as Mike and the Moonpies rebranded as Silverada this year and pressed CTRL+ALT+DEL with the self-titled Silverada in June, a blast of alt-country and indie-rock that at times has more in common with Wilco or Fastball than George Strait. While all of the hallmarks that made the Moonpies such a celebrated live act remain — Zachary Moulton’s elegantly loopy steel, the twang-and-grit of Catlin Rutherford’s Telecaster, singer Mike Harmeier’s distinctly country voice — the LP’s studio production and songwriting eclipse the barroom fare and vibe that defined some of the group’s earlier records. The peak is “Eagle Rare,” a hypnotic five-minute opus named after a bottle of bourbon, which finds Harmeier bewildered by a younger generation who “all dance like Davy Crockett.” —J.H.

After the rest of country music wised up to Midland’s hard-country honky-tonk vibes, the Texas troubadours — with producer Dave Cobb — recorded Barely Blue, their most mature record to date, and put a fresh spin on an old-school sound. The title track starts off as a classic lost-love tune before adding the twist of “Under these neon lights, I’m barely blue,” to signal everything just may be alright. The album showcases Midland’s range, too. “Vegas” is a classic country lament, while “Halfway to Heaven” adds swing and “Old Fashioned Feeling” brings a soulful beat. The capper is “Lone Star State of Mind,” the band’s love letter to home after a decade of traveling the world. —J.C.

Shaboozey’s second album Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going — featuring his record-tying hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” — melds hip-hop and country in a way that is deep and rich and never a novelty act. When he sings on the LP, which is often, Shaboozey reveals a weary baritone imbued with Nashville heartache, and his songs effortlessly blend the deep-bottom sonics (and occasional sense of dread) of hip-hop records with the beefy choruses of post-Shania country pop. Most importantly, tracks like the brooding “Highway” and the rhythmic “Annabelle” prove that Shaboozey — who had a pair of big-time cameos on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter — is way more than just that bar song. —David Browne

Lambert’s ninth album Postcards From Texas is a straightforward, happily down-home record, proudly in love with tradition, and every bit as fun and heartfelt as you’d expect from one of country’s freest spirits. From the playful “Bitch on the Sauce,” to the soft Seventies country-rock of the lovely “Way Too Good at Breaking My Heart,” to the dusky acoustic ballad “No Man’s Land,” the LP is full of high points, but the most memorable moments are vintage bird-flipping, trash-talking Lambert bangers. Check out “Alimony,” one of her funniest songs ever, and “Damnit Randy,” a carefully detailed dressing-down of an appreciative ex. —Jon Dolan

“I’m tired out here on the road,” sings Morgan Wade on “Total Control,” the opening track of her fourth album Obsessed. It’s hard to blame her, because Wade’s been through it: unrelenting tabloid scrutiny, a health crisis, and a hard-fought journey to sobriety. But for an album built out of turmoil, Obsessed is Wade at her most raw and tender, with every song entirely self-written and primarily performed acoustically, her thick twang at the center. Stunners like “Juliet” imagines Shakespeare’s heroine ditching Romeo and running off with a woman, while “Moth to a Flame” is as tender as it gets. Full of pining hearts and love both found and unrequited, Obsessed is a study in what happens if we give ourselves over completely to something — be it another person, or, for Wade, the craft of songwriting itself. —Marissa R. Moss

Country has always been part of Swamp Dogg’s musical DNA: Johnny Paycheck turned one of his songs into a country hit over 50 years ago. But Blackgrass is the first full-on country-roots collection of the 82-year-old iconoclast’s career. The album finds Swamp Dogg putting his own unique blend on bluegrass, via off-kilter, humorous originals like “Ugly Man’s Wife,” and old-fashioned country, with weepers like “Gotta Have My Baby Back.” The result is one of this year’s most inventive and forward-thinking veteran roots records. The high point? Jenny Lewis and Dogg’s rootsy cover of the obscure Sixties R&B hit “Count the Days.” —J. Bernstein

Alabama native Ella Langley broke through this year with the hit single “You Look Like You Love Me,” her playful duet featuring Riley Green. But that chart-topper is just one chapter of her story: Langley’s full-length Hungover showed the full range of her country powers and made for one of the best debuts this year. She excels at twangy trad-country on songs like “Nicotine” and “I Blame the Bar,” and proves she’s just as comfortable with contemporary vibes on “Paint the Town Blue” and “Monsters.” An expanded edition, Still Hungover, is also worth a listen, especially the won’t-be-tied-down anthem “Weren’t for the Wind.” —J.H.

The third album from the California-to-Nashville country singer is the most exciting hard-nosed honky-tonk record of the year. Nenni jumps leaps and bounds in her writing, from the rambling tale of “Lay of the Land” to the title track, where the protagonist tries to flee their heartbreak by jumping behind the wheel, to no avail: “I’m overdue for a tire rotation and bloodshot eyes,” Nenni sings. But, as the rollicking, album-closing cover of Terry Allen’s “Amarillo Highway” shows, the best part of Drive & Cry is its unabashed commitment to having a good time. —J. Bernstein

While the Red Clay Strays have been mostly associated with country or roots music since the release of their 2022 album, Moment of Truth, Made By These Moments veers more toward the hard blues-rock of Los Angeles in the late Eighties and early Nineties than anything coming out of Nashville today. Tracks like the ominous “Disaster” and the roadhouse boogie of “Ramblin’” evoke Nineties bands the Four Horsemen and Junkyard — two L.A. groups that, while lumped into the fading MTV metal genre, were distinctly Southern rock in their sounds and influences. But there are elements of country here too, often conveyed through the Strays’ lyrics, which actually say something. “Devil in My Ear” rails against temptation, anxiety and self-doubt; “Wasting Time” eviscerates the vultures that are out for both their money and their soul; and the single “Wanna Be Loved” lays bare humanity’s desire for someone to deem them worthy enough. —J.H.

The feat of The Great American Bar Scene, Zach Bryan’s fifth record, his “magic trick” — to quote one of its many featured guests, Bruce Springsteen — is to make it seem like the life he sings about is still the one he’s living. Since Bryan is such a preternaturally gifted songwriter, the album’s premise is as convincing as it is absurd: That America’s most iron-hot rock star spends his time not on airplanes and in hockey-arena green rooms but traversing dirty dives with the boys, losing money to sketchy Philly bookies, and staying up for sunrises on friends’ apartment roofs. —J. Bernstein

The Knoxville, Tennessee, native’s Patterns is a varied collection that finds Ballerini looking inward with honesty and resolve — and staying strong without sounding too heavy about it. The album shifts the sonic lens in ways that feel natural and welcome, resulting in Ballerini’s freshest LP yet. The somber “Sorry Mom” and the spunky highlight “Baggage” look at life’s turmoil with good-natured resignation, while the breezy “Wait,” the ballad “Deep,” and “We Broke Up,” in which the recent divorcée takes a “hey, whatever” attitude to relationship travails, blur country-pop with R&B-leaning influences. There’s even a cameo by folk-pop superstar Noah Kahan who big-ups male vulnerability on the duet “Cowboys Cry Too.” —J.D.

Brittney Spencer spent the bulk of her first decade in Nashville paying dues: My Stupid Life is a debut that cements her place in the genre. The album takes a few songs to find its footing, but once it does, it lifts off and soars. It’s hard to think of a stronger run on a country LP in recent memory than the five-song stretch beginning with the self-reclamation ballad “The Last Time” and ending with the tender heartbreak of “If You Say So.” —J. Bernstein

Elvie Shane’s Damascus bravely tackled serious, real-life issues more so than any other mainstream country album released this year. Over 13 tracks, he sang about the dehumanization of the prison system (“215634”), the rural drug epidemic (“Appalachian Alchemy,” “Pill”), and what it’s like to not fit in (“Outside Dog”). “Forgotten Man” is a passionate indictment of the unattainable American dream that plays like Merle Haggard’s “Workin’ Man Blues” for the modern age. In “First Place,” featuring Little Big Town, he asks the bartender to go light on the ice so he can get his money’s worth of whiskey. Some country singers who fly around in PJs pretend they’re the same as their audience — Shane actually is. —J.H.

Top, who grew up on a ranch in Washington state and played in a bluegrass band with his siblings, broke out in 2024 with a pristine time-warp sound that recalls Eighties and Nineties Nashville hitmakers like Alan Jackson or Keith Whitley. That kind of throwback move could feel shallow, but here’s the thing: Top’s got the songs. He sings the hell out of a heartbreak anthem like his hit “I Never Lie,” in which he in fact lies his ass off while talking to an ex. With help from Carson Chamberlain, who worked with Whitley and Jackson and co-wrote 11 of these songs, Top deftly switches between upbeat honky-tonk and slow ones like “Use Me,” a slow-mo, big-chorused sketch of two lonely people coming together to ease each other’s pain, if only for a moment. —Christian Hoard

Scotty McCreery, the fresh-faced kid who won American Idol back when he was 17, is all grown up on Rise & Fall, a record that leaves little doubt about the North Carolina native’s country bona fides. Over 13 tracks, the 30-year-old sings about the cruel passing of time, crises of conscience and faith, and drinking a whole lot of beer. It’s a country album every bit as legit as Jamey Johnson’s That Lonesome Song — McCreery’s favorite — and one that fans of “real country” need to hear. Start with the Garth Brooks-inspired rave-up “Can’t Pass the Bar” or the brooding “No Country for Old Men,” which finds a jaded narrator longing for a bygone era in country music: “Those days are gone/and they ain’t comin’ back again.” McCreery is here to prove him wrong. —J.H.

Megan Moroney is deep in her feels on Am I Okay?, the follow-up to her breakthrough debut, Lucky. Moroney has been describing herself as the “Emo Cowgirl,” lassoing a musical trend that’s been picking up steam over the past year or so. This is an album full of references to therapy (“No Caller ID”), fears of dying alone (“Third Time’s the Charm”), and blasé resignation (“Indifferent”). There’s even a mournful goodbye ballad — the devastating “Heaven by Noon.” But despite its heavy heart, Am I Okay? isn’t a dour project. Moroney’s deft way around a lyric and producer Kristian Bush’s radio-ready touch combine to make this one of the most enjoyable listening experiences of the year. —J.H.

After years spent struggling to make it as a mainstream country artist, Maggie Rose pursued the sounds that spoke to her — R&B, country-funk, and even jam — on her last two albums. No One Gets Out Alive cements her reinvention as one of the most successful in Nashville history. The album evokes vintage Carole King and Joni Mitchell, the Laurel Canyon scene, and hints of Eighties Sade. Rose is at her controlled best on ballads like “Too Young” and “Vanish,” but she allows herself to rock with abandon (the vicious “Underestimate Me”). Rose has evolved into the quintessential Americana artist. Even the Grammys took note: No One Gets Out Alive is nominated for Best Americana Album. —J.H.

The follow-up to the country-folkie’s 2022 breakthrough, White Trash Revelry, is a soul-deep meditation on aging, faded dreams, and global dystopia that expands and brightens the East Tennessee songwriter’s scope and sound. There’s Tom Petty country, bluesy New Orleans dirges, and fingerpicked folk. Most importantly, there are Adeem’s stories, which are equally moving and convincing in their confrontation of American violence and racial hatred and their intimate chronicling of parenthood and falling in love. —J.B.

Lainey Wilson has been steadily releasing catchy, punchy albums that mash up Southern rock, soul, and classic Nashville ideals into a genre that she’s dubbed “bell-bottom country.” On Whirlwind, her finely tuned lyrics and immediate hooks make the feelings she’s singing about seem massive and ready to bring in any listeners for comfort, particularly on the arena-ready drinking lament “Bar in Baton Rouge” and the keep-your-head-up ballad “Middle of It.” While Whirlwind has its more playful moments, it’s at its best when Wilson is in full-on power-ballad mode. —Maura Johnston

Everyone loves a redemption arc — especially when that arc involves transforming from one of the genre’s most notorious bros into the architect of one of the most surprising records of the year. As a writer behind Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise,” Chase Rice spent the first leg of his career trying to relive the success — and rehash the sound — that came along with that megahit. Spoiler alert: It rarely worked. With Go Down Singin‘, Rice had a crisis of conscience, focusing on the evergreen basics instead of the everlasting party, and the result is a sophisticated album that doesn’t feel like some transparent attempt at critical acclaim. Instead, it’s part study in storytelling (the stirring “Haw River”) and part personal journey to reconnect with what he’s lost, be it his late father (“You in ‘85”) or the abilities he didn’t know he had to begin with. It only goes up from here. —M.M.

There’s always been a spine-tingling profundity and a solemn intensity to the universe of sound created by Nashville duo David Rawlings and Gillian Welch. Woodland marks a merging of all the various monikers and configurations of their artistic partnership: There’s gentle soft rock, there are newly written American epics that sound hundreds of years old (“The Day the Mississippi Died”), there are songs that feel like whispers (“The Bells and the Birds”), and there are songs that conjure chilly alienation and displacement (“North Country”) in only the way that Welch and Rawlings can. —J. Bernstein

Koe Wetzel has been a Texas country anti-hero for a decade now, but 9 Lives — overseen by Noah Kahan producer Gabe Simons — finally helped introduce the singer-songwriter and his rough and rowdy ways to an audience outside the Lone Star State. Songs like “9 Lives (Black Cat)” are full of fuck-around-and-find-out energy, and “Damn Near Normal” both celebrates and laments a life on the road fueled by “a little melatonin and a bag of weed.” Fortunately, “Casamigos” is there to lighten the mood: It’s the catchiest song written about agave since John Anderson’s “Straight Tequila Night.” —J.H.

In less capable hands, a 17-song country album inspired by the musical Oklahoma! could end up as a pretentious (or, worse, boring) misfire. Luckily, not only did Kaitlin Butts hit the target on Roadrunner!, she created something sincere, moving, and often downright hilarious. Both a honky-tonk veteran and reformed theater kid, Butts doesn’t require anyone to know the story of Oklahoma! to have some fun with songs like the innocently racy Vince Gill collab “Come Rest Your Head on My Pillow,” or the spicy cover of Kesha’s “Hunt You Down.” “There’s so much shared between country and musical theater,” Butts told Rolling Stone, who makes them seem like forever bedfellows. Roadrunner! is an epic redo of an American classic that works brilliantly as a front-to-back listen, but is just as enjoyable one song at a time. Oh what a beautiful morning, indeed. —M.M.

Cowboy Carter is a college dissertation of an album: richly researched and meticulously constructed. Opening epic “Ameriican Requiem” is part gospel, part-Queen, part-Buffalo Springfield as Beyoncé lays out both her intentions and lineage. And while she has something to prove to a whole musical community, it’s more of a love letter to her Southern roots than strictly a honky-tonkin’ romp. Beyoncé’s point is made crystal clear by the time she reaches “Amen”: She is country and has always been country. There’s no doubting that fact, gatekeepers be damned. She makes her case from track to track. —Brittany Spanos

After a trio of bluegrass records and his underrated scuzz-rock opus Sound and Fury, Sturgill Simpson has returned to, and expanded upon, the metamodern country sounds that made him an outsider Nashville star in the early 2010s — even if he does so under a new name. Lyrically, Passage Du Desir is heavy with heartache, burdened by past mistakes, adrift in impossible dreams, and desperate for relief, or at least some kind of escape. The despair runs deep, and Simpson delivers it with some of the most intriguing vocal performances of his career: “Jupiter’s Faerie” will tear your heart out. —J. Blistein 

After spending the past several years growing her reputation around Nashville, 2024 was Sierra Ferrell’s to own. All of that attention — the high-profile duets (from Post Malone to the Mavericks), the big tours, the Grammy nomination — is thanks to her barnburner second LP. Ferrell’s Trail of Flowers is a record that blends and highlights flourishes of bluegrass, folk, rootsy country-pop, honky-tonk, and mountain music. It mixes obscure pre-World War II covers (“Chittlin’ Cookin’ Time in Cheatham County”) and socially-minded pointed laments (“American Dreaming”) with exuberant fiddle stomps (“Fox Hunt”) and some of the catchiest country-roots melodicism in years (“I Could Drive You Crazy”). It’s the sound of a still-rising talent catching fire in real time: “My old wheels keep spinnin’,” Ferrell sings. “And I cannot make them stop.” —J. Bernstein