20 Greatest Country Albums EVER

Country music is currently enjoying a high mainstream revival right now. I’m sure you’ve noticed this! Lots of country stars are filling up arenas around the world, and even non-country musicians are adopting the fashions, stylistic tropes and aesthetic of country in their own careers.

This is all good, healthy stuff, but country music has always had a huge following, let’s not forget! That following was based, more than any other factor, on great songs. Quality writing, sung with honesty and produced well. ‘Country’ as a concept has branched off into a great many things - more than I have scope for here - but today, I want to draw together the greatest ever country albums, from over 60 years’ worth of music. We’re going in ascending order, ending proceedings with the number one choice, so stick around to the end! You find classic artists, new stars and some forgotten heroes in today’s list, so why don’t you kick back and relax for a while, with the 20 Greatest Country Albums ever!

Singer-songwriter and actor Dwight Yoakam has enjoyed a long and interesting career. His sound is accessible whilst still slightly pushing against the accepted mainstream sound of high-gloss Nashville country.

This was very much the case on 1993’s This Time. Hammond organs and doo-wop influences added colour to the grit, in ways that seemed natural whilst also being quite unusual for the genre. Yoakam made his name doing this, and This Time could be the best example. Dwight is also a bit of a killer guitarist, if you needed further incentive to investigate!

The title sums it up nicely. Sturgill Simpson is endlessly pushing what’s ‘acceptable’ within the parameters of country music, without ever having it stray into ‘Americana’ territory. Some may disagree about that, but I feel like he’s doing a ‘Waylon Jennings’ for the 21st century: he’s keeping it traditional, and also making it feel new and fresh. No mean feat, particularly when the actual songs themselves are as strong as his!

Louisiana native Lucinda Williams is a cult country megastar. Her sound is often described in terms of ‘Americana’, and that certainly holds, but there’s more than enough pure country music here to merit her inclusion.

1998’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road brought her to a wide audience, and included genre luminaries such as Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle. It’s all about Deep South living, heartbreak and crushed hope, the abiding concerns of country music!

Before he was a celebrated writer and personality, Kris Kristofferson was a songwriter of the classic mould. His sympathetic world view and good ear for melody made him a great collaborator too, but it’s on this self-titled record that he made his name as a country music legend. Several tracks on this record - I’m thinking of Me and Bobby McGee, Sunday Morning Coming Down and To Beat the Devil - are nowadays thought of as country music standards, which speaks to his calibre as a writer.

Brad Paisley is one of the current giants of the super-slick Nashville scene, regularly filling stadiums across the US and arenas around the rest of the world. His success is obvious: he writes catchy, singalong anthems that speak to a wide selection of backgrounds, and he keeps the songs coming. He also just happens to be an astonishing guitarist too, which doesn’t hurt! Play is his most fretboard-friendly record, but it’s also his hookiest and most memorable for the vocal melodies, too. There’s only 5 vocals tracks (it’s known as his guitar album) but those 5 include duets with BB King, Buck Owens and Keith Urban!

John Prine is the writer that other top writers aspire to. A huge father figure to the alternative country scene, Prine’s honesty and wit are what made people fall in love with him. He certainly had a folky edge to his music (what country music doesn’t, I suppose?) and this first album had songs so good, Kris Kristofferson joked that he’d have to ‘break his thumbs’ to cancel out the competition!

Gifted with one of the world’s most beautiful singing voices, Emmylou Harris is known as a pioneer of the country rock sound. From Birmingham, Alabama, Harris initially got going in the 60s New York scene, but her roots were always more country than anything else.

Later-period albums like Wrecking Ball found a large audience, but most would agree that 1976’s Luxury Liner is perhaps the ‘deep cut’ pick of the bunch. Guitarists are in for a treat here, since Albert Lee appears on a number of tracks!

The definitive outlaw country artist is on the list! Waylon Jennings turned iconoclastic behaviour into a marketable style of its own, but before that, he was a great friend of Buddy Holly’s. In fact, after being taken under his wing, Holly advised him on his career and his fashion sense. Waylon was actually booked to be on that fateful flight - you know the one - but last minute jitters saved his life.

Honky Tonk Heroes was Jennings’ second album release in 1973, and his 19th studio album after all. The songs were mostly co-written with Joe Shaver, and the album is considered a defining example of the outlaw country genre.

The Gambler is a great pathway into the music of Kenny Rogers. It’s his best-selling album, and contains co-writes from a number of non-country songwriters, which broadens out the sound significantly. The title song was also recorded by Johnny Cash (amongst others), but Rogers’ came out first and is the one people associate with the most. In fact, Rogers only wrote one of the songs himself (the final track, Morgana) but hey, a great record’s a great record!

Every so often, an artist comes along and is like a lightning strike in the sky: they make a bright mark in the sky and everyone takes heed of it. Such a moment occurred for Kasey Musgraves in 2018 when she released Golden Hour. Winning a GRAMMY award for it, she also redefined the sound, attitude and identity of modern country music. This needs to happen in order to keep the form fresh and relevant, and Musgraves most certainly provided that with this superlative record.

Don’t even pretend to not love this album! It’s the biggest-selling country album ever (of course it is!) and it brought more people to the sound of modern country than any other record of its time. Flash, slick, full of hooklines and singlalongs, it’s as much an empowering party record as it is a legit country bestseller.

The man with the Bakersfield Sound! Merle Haggard was another towering figure in the early country scene, adding rock ‘n’ roll elements to his music without removing any of the country-isms. Haggard had the correct credentials for a country singer - a troubled background, a little jail time - and used those worldly experiences to add authority to his music.

Mama Tried was Haggard’s eighth record, and the excellent front cover - he’s in jail, basically - is expanded upon within the song narratives within.

Everybody knows Patsy Cline’s classic song Crazy (originally written and recorded by Willie Nelson), and the album it came from is of a similar vibe: timeless, heartbroken pop. This is the type of album that would be effective anywhere in the world, because it nails those sad emotions so clearly and succinctly.

I don’t know if it’s a retrospective thing, but knowing that she only lived to be 30 years old adds extra heartache to this album for me.

Garth Brooks was the world-dominating face of 90s country music. Brooks was the guy who sold millions of records whilst not touring, through a special deal with Walmart. He’s the guy who did the Las Vegas residencies, the concept albums as made-up persona Chris Gaines,  and also this crazy fact: he has sold more records than ELVIS. 

Anyway, No Fences is the record to go for if you haven’t delved into the ‘Brooksphere’ before. No Fences, his second record from back in 1990, has plenty of hits (‘Friends in Low Places’ for one) and has a cohesion and blend of styles (neotraditional to pop) that wins every time.

George Strait is a HUGE artist. As in, one of the biggest selling artists ever. Strait was a prime force in a return to more traditional country music in the 1980s, bringing the old school style back to a scene that was either Nashville gloss or Outlaw Country rebellion. They call him the King of Country Music, and who am I to disagree?

Pure Country is a statement of intent as much as it is an album of songs. It’s actually a soundtrack album for a movie of the same name starring Strait. The film came and went, but the album is his best-selling, and it’s a classic, well-produced country record that features the cream of the session crop (Randy Scruggs, Brent Mason etc) performing throughout.

Loretta Lynn won more awards than any other female artist, including three GRAMMY awards. She toured until her mid-80s, when she finally had to accept that she was getting a little older.

Obviously a legend, Lynn’s track record is high, but I’d single out The Coal Miner’s Daughter as a particularly great album. The Coal Miner’s Daughter is actually a song, an album and a film, all based on Lynn’s own life story.

Willie Nelson is a true north star for country music. He’s written some of the most famous country songs ever, many of which were made into hits by other singers. Still, his own vocals are one of the best in country: cracked, dry and full of experience. 1975’s Red Headed Stranger saw Nelson pitching his flag as the eternal outsider, in the guise of a fictional alter ego on the run for committing murder. The sparse songs (which are very ‘un-Nashville’) are masterpieces to a piece, and the whole record flows perfectly.

It was a coin toss between Jolene and Coat of Many Colours, and there really isn’t a wrong choice between them. Country powerhouse Dolly Parton is a magnificent songwriter first and foremost, and her work in this period is oft-imitated by those seeking her heartrending connection to the audience.

Jolene, from 1974, was Parton’s 13th solo record. It contained two enormously successful songs: the title track Jolene and I Will Always Love You, which was a hit for her and then again for Whitney Houston almost two decades later. Amazingly, both of these hits were written on the same day! On this record you’ll find some of the best country songs ever, basically.

We’re at the number two spot now, and the second greatest country album ever is Moanin’ The Blues by Hank Williams. This is the prime example of early country music. It was released in 1952 and is pretty jam-packed with hit songs: Lovesick Blues, Long Good Lonesome Blues and Honky Tonk Blues were all number 1 singles.

Don’t let the titles fool you: this is pure country music at its finest, performed by one of the legendary greats.

This is the greatest country album ever. Yes it is, and here’s why. It’s an iconic artist, performing at the top of his game, captured perfectly as a live recording, and featuring music that speaks to the very soul of country music itself. 

Playing to an audience of convicts (this was a year after the Folsom Prison record), Cash delivered a career-best performance, and also got himself an iconic image: the classic angry ‘middle finger’ pic is from this show! Cash was annoyed at the film crew, whom he felt weren’t cooperating with him during the performance. It’s electrifying stuff, particularly the song San Quentin itself: just listen to the passionate roars from the inmates!

For all of these reasons, and many others, Johnny Cash At San Quentin is the greatest country album of them all.

What did you think of my choices? There will be some artists who belong here that didn’t get included, and others you might question in terms of their country credentials. I think I’ve struck a decent balance, and kept as straight an arrow through ‘pure country’ as I could.

One thing that I noticed? So, so many of these great songwriters were also actors! It seems to be a normal thing for the country music ‘engine’ to be cranking out the business in many directions, and it’s not something I see quite as much of in other genres.

Still, country is its own behemoth, and within its vast confines lie some wonderful songs and artists. I hope this is reflected in today’s list!