Rolling Stone's 40 Best Country Albums of 2016

When Maren Morris moved to Nashville, the now megastar had modest dreams of making a living as a writer for hire on Music Row. After finding her footing in town (as well as connecting with a top-notch cadre of cowriters), Morris wrote a song that would forever change her life: “My Church.” “I didn\'t have the interest to just be back onstage again for probably four or five years,” she tells Apple Music. “Then I wrote ‘My Church’ and it just kind of rekindled this flame in me of wanting to be the one on the microphone, because I just couldn\'t hear someone else singing that song.” The Grammy-winning single is only one of several hits on her fourth album *Hero*, which was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Album and led to Morris’ 2016 CMA Award win for New Artist of the Year. The breezy, carefree pop of “80s Mercedes” foreshadowed Morris’s genre agnosticism, while “Rich,” with its irreverent lyrics and earworm of a chorus, showed her versatility. Morris scored her first No. 1 hit at radio with the wistful ballad “I Could Use a Love Song,” an accomplishment that cut through the glut of men clogging country radio charts. “At the time, I don\'t think people remember how unheard of it was for a female with a ballad to go all the way to the top,” she tells Apple Music. Morris coproduced *Hero* alongside the late producer and songwriter busbee, who served as an integral collaborator for Morris until his death at 43 in 2019. “He’s just so embedded in every tom sound, every kick drum,” she tells Apple Music. “Every bass note is him playing. It’s still such a timeless record, to me, because of him.” *Hero* would soon catapult Morris to new heights, including featuring prominently on Zedd’s massive, paradigm-shifting pop hit “The Middle,” a move that would make her a household name just in time for the release of *Hero*’s follow-up, 2019’s *GIRL*.

It\'s tempting to view *The Weight of These Wings* as Lambert\'s \"divorce album\" following her split from Blake Shelton, and songs like the acoustic, regret-laden \"Pushin\' Time\" certainly lend credence to that notion. But this ambitious, double-length LP illustrates the full range of her talents. A roadhouse-rockin\' cover of Danny O\'Keefe\'s 1971 tune \"Covered Wagon,\" the throbbing indie-pop beat of \"Six Degrees of Separation,\" and the funky slow-burn of \"Pink Sunglasses\" only hint at the wide terrain traversed here.

Clark applies her writerly touch to songs that are bold, relatable, and rich in detail. *Big Day in a Small Town* finds the GRAMMY®-nominated singer/songwriter following up her acclaimed solo debut—2012’s *12 Stories*—with a set of big, beautifully realized country narratives that includes shimmering, hair salon melodrama (“Soap Opera”), brash but subversive rock (“Broke,” “Girl Next Door”), Patsy Cline-like honky-tonky (“Drinkin’, Smokin’, Cheatin’”), and haunting ballads (“Since You’ve Gone to Heaven,” inspired by her father’s death in a logging accident.)

Charming, savvy, and a little bit rugged, Brothers Osborne’s debut boasts a perfect blend of country roots and pop appeal. Co-produced by Eric Church’s right-hand man, Jay Joyce, *Pawn Shop* is a wide swing through low times (“Pawn Shop,” “Dirt Rich”) and high times (“Down Home”), the comforts of home and the freedom of the open road (“Greener Pastures”). It’s topped by the GRAMMY®-nominated highlight “Stay a Little Longer,” co-written by Sam Hunt and Kacey Musgraves collaborator Shane McAnally.

Rowdy, throwback country tunes with a little edge and a lot of fiddle, Jon Pardi’s sophomore album is a bid to bring the genre back to its tough and twangy roots. After hitting a string of wild Texas dance halls, the California native was determined to capture the boisterous energy of a live show without resigning to EDM trends. So he recorded with a seven-piece band that included a fiddle, hand claps, a tambourine, and a steel guitar to give each song extra punch. “Dirt on My Boots,” a howling ode to letting loose, was designed to lure listeners off their stools and onto the floor. “Might have a little dirt on my boots,\" he sings, \"but we’re gonna dance the dust right off them tonight.”

Austin singer/songwriter Carrie Rodriguez digs into her roots more deeply than ever before here. The album—mostly originals plus some classic ranchera covers—was inspired by the alt-country artist’s San Antonian great aunt, Tex-Mex singer Eva Garza. Rodriguez slips back and forth between Spanish and English throughout, as she paints a powerful tale of Mexican immigrants in Texas (“Llano Estacado”), gives her all on a reverent cover of ranchera tune “Si No Te Vas,” and offers up a sassy, autobiographical country-rocker about asserting her identity (“Z”).

These Texas Red Dirt scene stalwarts stick to their guns here, delivering the organic but carefully crafted feel they’re famous for while still managing to achieve a broader range than before. The tracks featuring guest artists exemplify that range: Jerry Jeff Walker accompanies them on good-time country rocker “Takin’ It as It Comes,” while Jamey Johnson boosts the Waylon-style outlaw country tune “Actin’ Crazy” and Alison Krauss softens the poignant melodic ballad “Look out Yonder.” Rogers’ whiskey-and-leather tones tie it all together.

Neko Case, k.d. lang, and Laura Veirs are a bewitchingly lovely folk-rock supergroup. On their debut album as case/lang/veirs, the singer/songwriter titans combine their distinctive vocals and beguiling melodies. The songs on which Case takes lead (like the gorgeous opening track “Atomic Number”) are girded with poignant melancholy, while lang’s tracks (the yearning “Blue Fires” is one such highlight) are as smooth and seductive as her legendary croon. Veirs brings a clever indie-rock sensibility to the warm, wonderful “Best Kept Secret.” With its luminous harmonies and lush arrangements, *case / lang / veirs* is a thing of beauty.

Robert Ellis has named his new album after himself and the reason is clear. The album is both his most personal statement yet and a summation of his career thus far. Robert Ellis opens with “Perfect Strangers,” a meditation on what brings people together (and how tenuous that connection can be), and ends with “It's Not OK,” a raw look at emotional compromise. Between those two powerful bookends are nine other songs that set Ellis's soaring vocals and knowing melodies against his sharp, dark observations, and that show him in full command of a vibrant set of songwriting skills—irony, distance, character, narrative, a thoughtful relationship between sound and sense. Ellis was born and raised in Lake Jackson, a town about an hour from Houston whose other famous residents have included the Pauls (Ron and Rand) and Selena (the original Queen of Tejano, not the current pop sensation). From an early age, he escaped small-town boredom through music. At first, his tastes ran toward traditional hits. “I remember having a bunch of pop records when I was really young: No Doubt and Michael Jackson and Garth Brooks. That was when I was pretty passive as a listener—I liked them, but maybe I got to them because my mom or one of my sisters had them. The first I really got obsessed with was a Doc Watson collection. I was already starting to play guitar, and my uncle told my mom to get it for me. He was my first guitar hero.” As he developed as a writer, though, he found himself drawn toward the smartest and sharpest of the class of songwriters who developed in the 1970s: artists like Paul Simon, John Prine, and Randy Newman. And he didn’t just listen to them. He learned from them. Specifically, he learned the finer points of songcraft. “I've been a big fan of Paul Simon for a long time,” he says. “He has this capacity to surprise you with his music and his lyrics. With John Prine's songs, I grew from believing that they happened to him to understanding that it didn’t matter if they really happened to him. And Randy Newman? Wow. I especially love a record like Trouble in Paradise, when there are all these artificial 1980s production techniques, but they’re being used in the service of this master composer.”

After years of pushing his back-to-the-roots agenda in the underground, Cody Jinks broke through to the country mainstream with *I’m Not the Devil*, but he remains as unapologetically old-school as ever. His raw, roadhouse sound and cavernous baritone put him on a par with Jamey Johnson, but his cover of Merle Haggard’s “The Way I Am” shows where his roots lie. And hard-charging honky-tonkers like “Chase That Song” make it clear that the Texan who once fronted a thrash-metal band remains a fire-breather at heart.

After 50 years of marriage, she’s more than ready to tell the truth about love. She recently renewed vows with Carl Dean—her husband since 1966—and now Dolly\'s celebrating with a set of songs that examine the subject of love in all its colors and complications. The understated acoustic arrangements only strengthen the Smoky Mountain Songbird’s underlying authenticity. With nothing left to prove, she’s one of the last country stars who handles a well-traveled theme with nothing but hard-earned wisdom and unburdened honesty.

Bluegrass greats join Dwight Yoakam for this rip-roaring take on his back catalog.The renditions of “Guitars, Cadillacs” and “What I Don’t Know” are done with grit, spit, and swing, while a stunningly convincing rendition of “Purple Rain” turns Prince’s showstopper into a gliding bluegrass ballad.