Ranking the 50 best country music albums ever made

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Take it with a grain of salt, or a truckload, if that's what's needed.

SPOTLIGHT AP

Ranking the 50 best country music albums ever made

Michele Zipkin, Stacker Aug 29, 2021

Here's a look at the best country albums of all time, according to Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Country Albums list.

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If baseball is America’s favorite pastime, country music may well be America’s favorite music genre. Country music has deep roots in America, and different country artists have taken the genre to new stylistic directions.

Ray Price messed around with rhythm, Willie Nelson veered into jazzy realms, and modern country artists such as Eric Church and Sam Hunt meld rock and R&B with country flavors. The genre has continued to expand to feature new subgenres such as "country trap"—perhaps the most well-known song to fit into this genre is Lil Nas X's “Old Town Road." Country has gone by several different names. Country musician Harlan Howard pegged it as "three chords and the truth," while others have described it as the music of heartache or line dancing. Besides having various names, country music is also a genre that welcomes the reinventing of existing songs as much as it embraces the writing of new ones.

Stacker compiled a list of the best country albums of all time as per Billboard’s Greatest of All-Time Country Albums list. These ratings are based on albums’ weekly performance on the Top Country Albums chart from January 1996 to June 2016. The albums are ranked by an inverse point system, meaning those that placed higher on the charts and spent more weeks in the top spots received higher rankings.

Read on for the best country music albums of all time.

You may also like: Country music history from the year you were born

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The year I was born? People were still pounding rocks against animal skins outside the entrance to the cave.

[hlthe2b]

1. "greatest of all time," yet limited to 1996-2016. Really? Really? How worthless is that?

No offense to the OP, but that is ridiculous.

[The Polack MSgt]

2. Florida Georgia line 30 places higher than Johnny Cash

Gretchen Wilson 15 places higher than Willie Nelson.

All these lists are argument bait to be honest, but this one has a definite recency bias.

[argyl]

3. No Emmylou,Dolly, Patsy,Lucinda?

And three Taylor Swifts, three Shania Twains. At least they had the guts to put the Chicks there twice. And three Faith Hills, one with her hubby.

No Steve Earle, Gram Parsons,Merle Haggard,Hank Sr.,or Buck Owens?
But one each for Georgia Florida Line, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Toby Keith?
And Kenny Chesney got two? I think Tim McGraw got three along with the one he shared with his wife.

And Randy Travis won enough to gag a horse with.Same with Garth Brooks.

At least Willie was well well represented and Waylon got one.