Rolling Stone's 40 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2018

*“Excited for you to sit back and experience *Golden Hour* in a whole new, sonically revolutionized way,” Kacey Musgraves tells Apple Music. “You’re going to hear how I wanted you to hear it in my head. Every layer. Every nuance. Surrounding you.”* Since emerging in 2013 as a slyly progressive lyricist, Kacey Musgraves has slipped radical ideas into traditional arrangements palatable enough for Nashville\'s old guard and prudently changed country music\'s narrative. On *Golden Hour*, she continues to broaden the genre\'s horizons by deftly incorporating unfamiliar sounds—Bee Gees-inspired disco flourish (“High Horse”), pulsating drums, and synth-pop shimmer (“Velvet Elvis”)—into songs that could still shine on country radio. Those details are taken to a whole new level in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos. Most endearing, perhaps, is “Oh, What a World,” her free-spirited ode to the magic of humankind that was written in the glow of an acid trip. It’s all so graceful and low-key that even the toughest country purists will find themselves swaying along.

After exhilarating dips into guitar rock and country, Carlile returns to her sweet spot: tear-jerking Americana that shows off her crackling croon. It’s her sixth album and her most moving, with vulnerable outsider anthems rooted in healing and hope. There are ballads about addiction (“Sugartooth”), suicide (“Fulton County Jane Doe”), heartbreak (“Every Time I Hear That Song”), and starting over (“Harder to Forgive”), but underneath the hard truths is plenty of optimism. In “The Joke,” a song for kids who don’t fit traditional roles, she offers a light at the end of the tunnel: “I’ve been to the movies/I’ve seen how it ends/And the joke’s on them.”

You can do a lot of living in 70-plus years, and fortunately, country-folk great John Prine has been documenting what he sees for over 50 of them. The album title is redolent of its mood, approaching the twilight years with a sense of wonder and humor. “Knocking on Your Screen Door” counts the blessings of being humble, and “Caravan of Fools” is a not-so-disguised jab at political incompetence. His well-sharpened wit cuts deep across these 10 songs. “Crazy Bone” reminds us all to stay weird, and “When I Get to Heaven” describes a rollicking afterlife after-party: “I’m gonna get a guitar and start a rock ‘n’ roll band/Check into a swell hotel/Ain’t the afterlife grand?”

Neko Case’s ‘Hell-On,’ an indelible collection of colorful, enigmatic storytelling that features some of her most daring, through-composed arrangements to date, is available now. Produced by Neko Case, ‘Hell-On’ is simultaneously her most accessible and most challenging album, in a rich and varied career that’s offered plenty of both. ‘Hell-On’ is rife with withering self-critique, muted reflection, anthemic affirmation and Neko’s unique poetic sensibility. Neko enlisted Bjorn Yttling of (Peter Bjorn & John) to co-produce 6 tracks with her in Stockholm, Sweden where she mixed the 12 track album with Lasse Martin. ‘Hell-On’ features performances by Beth Ditto, Mark Lanegan, k.d. Lang, AC Newman, Eric Bachmann, Kelly Hogan, Doug Gillard, Laura Veirs, Joey Burns and many more.

Nowhere on his sixth album does Eric Church directly address either of the two most tumultuous events that occurred during its making, but their presence is felt. Exasperation over the politicized aftermath of the shooting at the Church-headlined Route 91 festival imbues opener “The Snake,” casting the current national divide as intractable and poisonous. Bookending that is slow-burn closer “Drowning Man,” lamenting the dire prospects of an average American worker caught in the middle of that divide. In between, Church\'s life-affirming relief over successful emergency surgery to remove a deadly blood clot can be heard in the joyous survivor\'s boogie of “Hangin\' Around,” the opposites-attract waltz “Heart Like a Wheel,” and the “Sympathy for the Devil”-nudging title track (“Fortune teller told me/\'No more last chances, you got no future at all\'/Oh, but I ain\'t listenin\'”). No one would blame Church if he wanted to use either of these experiences to grandstand a little, but he is canny enough to understand the power of what isn\'t said.

Nashville-based singer-songwriter and violinist Amanda Shires’ take on Americana is heavy on poetry and introspection. With a breathy, earnest yowl that recalls a young Dolly Parton, Shires sounds commanding on the hurts-to-love-you opener “Parking Lot Pirouette” and the playful Southern rocker “Break Out the Champagne,” while producer David Cobb (Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton) shines up her more vulnerable side on “Mirror Mirror.” But the closer, “Wasn’t I Paying Attention?”, cuts the deepest: It’s a poignant song about addiction, made especially haunting by the fact that she helped her husband and collaborator Jason Isbell overcome his own related struggles.

Track Listing Parking Lot Pirouette Swimmer Leave It Alone Charms Eve's Daughter Break Out the Champagne Take on the Dark White Feather Mirror, Mirror Wasn't I Paying Attention?

Motivated by the words of a teacher who thought her dreams of making music were too fanciful, Ashley McBryde titled her debut album *Girl Going Nowhere*. Suggesting quite the opposite, the Arkansas singer/songwriter brings a rock edge to classic country, sharing the hard-won wisdom of a decade of singing in bars. Breakthrough track “A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega” is a tribute to the uplifting power of music in tough times, but occasionally the assured swagger in her voice gives way to vulnerability and reflection, most stirringly on “Andy,” a tale of enduring love.

Listing their priorities on breezy road-trip jam “Weed, Whiskey and Willie,” the Nashville-based brothers make it clear they have few troubles. “Don’t take my smoke, my jug of brown liquor or my country music,” they plead, casually. It’s a vibe that surrounds each hazy track on a positively horizontal second album. You’ll hum in time to the billowing choruses of “Shoot Me Straight,” toe-tap to twin guitars on “Tequila Again,” and sway gently to “A Little Bit Trouble.”

If the recipe for the singer-songwriter tradition has started to feel staid—one part confession, two parts guitar—Nashville-based Ruston Kelly instead mixes a much more complex cocktail on *Dying Star*, detailing not just his scars, but the ugly ways he got them: “Blackout” confesses his penchant for over-imbibing, while the vocoder-heavy “Son of a Highway Daughter” details his ladykiller ways. Those subjects have been well covered by other country singers, but Kelly’s weathered voice and interest in electro-pop, punk, and even emo showcase a man wrestling with toxic masculinity so he can uncover what’s underneath that palimpsest.

"This album is going to bewitch and enlighten the nation."- Ann Powers, NPR Erin Rae, whose genre-fusing mix of traditional folk, indie-rock, and 1960s psych-rock production has landed her collaborations with artists like Margo Price and Andrew Combs – not to mention critical attention from the world’s top music media, including Rolling Stone, NPR, and the BBC -- is finally stepping out into the spotlight with Putting On Airs. A forthcoming NPR World Café session and a busy tour schedule, including spring support dates with the Mountain Goats and Margo Price, and an appearance at End Of The Road Festival in the UK, shows Erin Rae’s star is on the rise on both sides of the Atlantic.

2016’s radiant *Honest Life* was a breakthrough for Courtney Marie Andrews. Here, the Arizona singer/songwriter’s pockmarked country finds broader, more reflective inspiration. There’s a hymn-like solidity to the album’s 10 songs, all telling stories of struggling people, as Andrews describes, “chasing that bigger life.” But she isn’t just in the business of chronicling sadness. The delicate piano on “Rough Around the Edges” belies its message of rugged self-acceptance, while the hearty “Kindness of Strangers” lets the sun pour through.

After breaking through with a batch of restless, itinerant songs on Honest Life in 2016, Courtney Marie Andrews longs for something more permanent on the follow-up. The Seattle singer spends much of May Your Kindness Remain exploring ideas of home and what it means to have roots, on 10 new tunes that are lusher and more expansive while leaving plenty of room to showcase her astonishing voice. Andrews and her band recorded May Your Kindness Remain with producer Mark Howard, whose voluminous credits include albums by Lucinda Williams, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris. Howard’s understated aesthetic suits Andrews, who pushes herself toward bolder musical arrangements and a fuller, more soulful sound than the traveling-woman-with-guitar feel of Honest Life.- Eric R. Danton of Paste Magazine

On the surface, this feel-good full-length is a tribute to Colorado’s crisp mountain air: It was written and recorded in Telluride, where a team of Nashville songwriters took up in a sprawling, ranch-style studio. But these songs are more about reaching inward than gazing out. Inspired by fans he met on the road who shared stories of hope and grit, Bentley casts scaling mountains as a metaphor for persevering, bidding us to explore the great outdoors (“Son of the Sun”), find ourselves (“Burning Man\"), and keep on climbing no matter what (“You Can’t Bring Me Down”). “Only a mountain,” he sings on the uplifting title track. “It ain’t hard if you don’t stop.”

A warm, convivial album that ranges from peppy swing (“Don’t Tell Noah”) to sobering ballads (“Something You Get Through”), *Last Man Standing*—like 2017’s *God’s Problem Child*—finds Willie Nelson, a few ticks into his eighties, tackling mortality with grace and wit. He reckons with the fact that he’ll one day go, while laughing—in great, gleeful appreciation—that he hasn’t seen that day yet. “‘Halitosis’ is a word I never could spell,” he cracks on “Bad Breath.” “But bad breath is better than no breath at all.” May we all age so well.

Joshua Hedley is one of the latest country acts signed to Jack White\'s Third Man Records, after the quietly successful Margo Price. Like Price, Hedley seems to have been plucked out of an imaginary past, where countrypolitan sheen meets an outsider\'s edge. With *Mr. Jukebox*, his debut album for the label, he\'s just as convincing singing heartbroken honky-tonk on \"Counting All My Tears\" or venturing into borderline-psychedelic cowboy territory on \"Weird Thought Thinker.\" Tying it all together is a touching cover of the \'40s Disney standard \"When You Wish Upon a Star,\" which recalls Willie Nelson at his tenderest.

Kenny Chesney was born and raised in Tennessee, but the country giant has long called Saint John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, his second home. When it was devastated by Hurricane Irma in 2017, he felt moved to write. “I’ve spent the majority of my adult life walking those beaches and hanging out in those bars and writing songs,” he told *Billboard*. “All of a sudden, it was…very broken.” Contemplative and cathartic, *Songs for the Saints* features appearances by Jimmy Buffett, Ziggy Marley, and Lord Huron (with whom Chesney recuts “Ends of the Earth,” a wistful serenade that originally appeared on the band’s 2012 album, *Lonesome Dreams*). On the tearjerking ballad “Better Boat,” Chesney and Mindy Smith find strength in struggle: \"I ride the waves I can’t control/I’m learning how to build a better boat.”

In some ways, Donovan Woods leads a double life: The Ontario native records and tours as a soft-spoken, acoustic folk singer—his last album, *Hard Settle, Ain’t Troubled*, was long-listed for the 2016 Polaris Prize—while writing hits for arena-sized country acts like Tim McGraw and Lady Antebellum. His fifth album, which was partially recorded in Nashville, finally marries his two worlds. Marked by warm, electronic atmospheres (“Easy Street”), vibrant instrumentation (“I Live a Little Lie”), and progressive messaging (the video for “Burn That Bridge” traces the love story of a same-sex couple), Both Ways presents a bigger, bolder sound that blends Music City polish with outsider edge.

In the five years since McCreery’s last album, the *American Idol* champ moved out on his own, traveled the country, lost his grandfather, and proposed to his high-school sweetheart. Those stories and others are recounted here in *Seasons Change*, a twangy soundtrack to big life changes. It’s written so that listeners can retrace his steps: feel the bliss of starting a new chapter (“Move It On Out”), cherish the gift of finding your soul mate (“Still”), and remember the folks you grew up with (“Boys from Back Home”). With his booming baritone and extraordinary sense for catchy hooks that echo late \'90s country, it’s quite possible McCreery was born to do this.

Kentucky singer-songwriter Dillon Carmichael may be a newcomer by country music’s standards, but his voice tells a different story. His rich baritone feels worn, reaching back to traditions that situate Carmichael somewhere between Southern rock’s psychedelic guitar work and honky-tonk’s swaggering rhythms. It’s no wonder his voice has drawn comparisons to Randy Travis’ golden timbre and David Allan Coe’s lingering drawl, most effective in vulnerable moments like “Dancing Away With My Heart,” when it quakes with yearning. Produced by Nashville staple Dave Cobb, Carmichael’s debut album weaves together stories about the women he wants (“Country Women”), fears (“Natural Disaster”), and regrets (“Old Flame”), with impassioned pedal steel and crackling electric solos.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Saskatchewan-born singer-songwriter Colter Wall learned the feeling well after spending so much time on the road. “Wherever I wander, wherever I stray/The rustle of the wheat fields starts calling my name,” he sings on “Plain to See Plainsman,” his rich baritone echoing the song’s strolling bassline. His sophomore album spins that homesickness into tribute. Produced by Nashville’s Dave Cobb, and featuring harmonica from Willie Nelson’s longtime collaborator Mickey Raphael and pedal steel guitar from Lloyd Green, *Songs of the Plains* situates the Canadian troubadour alongside Southern brethren like Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, and Chris Stapleton. As Wall tells it, Western isn’t a direction so much as a state of mind.