Chris Stapleton’s 2015 LP Traveller reigns as the No. 1 country album on Billboard’s recap of the first 25 years of the 21st century, as it crowns Billboard’s Top Country Albums of the 21st Century chart. The 100-position ranking is based on performance on the weekly Top Country Albums chart from the start of 2000 through the end of 2024.
Since debuting in May 2015, Stapleton’s Traveller LP has spent a staggering 525 weeks on Top Country Albums (through the chart dated May 31, 2025). Only one other LP has rung up 500-plus weeks on the chart: Willie Nelson’s 1978 collection Stardust (551), dating to the list’s launch in 1964.
Traveller hit the Top Country Albums summit on Nov. 21, 2015, and has dominated for 29 total weeks. (It also topped the all-genre Billboard 200 for two weeks.) Among its hit songs: perennial streaming favorite “Tennessee Whiskey,” which ruled the Hot Country Songs chart for two weeks in 2015, and “Nobody to Blame,” Stapleton’s first of seven top 10s on Country Airplay.
Reflecting the biggest albums in country from Y2K to today, count down the top 10 titles below on Billboard’s Top Country Albums of the 21st Century retrospective, and check out the entire 100-position chart in Billboard’s Greatest of All Time charts menu.
The ranking follows the May 27 reveal of Billboard’s Top Country Artists of the 21st Century chart. Plus, check back Thursday (May 29) for Billboard’s Top Hot Country Songs of the 21st Century chart, with all coverage of Billboard’s 21st Century charts here.
Billboard’s Top Country Artists, Top Country Albums and Top Hot Country Songs of the 21st Century recaps reflect performance on weekly charts dated Jan. 1, 2000, through Dec. 28, 2024. The Top Country Artists category ranks the best-performing acts in that span based on activity on Top Country Albums and Hot Country Songs. (Titles released prior to mid-1999 are excluded, although such entries that appeared on Top Country Albums or Hot Country Songs in that span contribute to the calculation of the Top Country Artists chart.)
The set entered Top Country Albums at No. 1 in August 2013 and led for a career-best 13 weeks. It became Bryan’s first album to produce five leaders on the Country Airplay chart: the title track, “Drink a Beer,” “Play It Again,” “Roller Coaster” and “I See You.” The LP set the stage for the singer-songwriter from Leesburg, Ga., to top himself when his 2015 release Kill the Lights yielded six Country Airplay chart-toppers.
Swift’s 2008 sophomore studio set forged a 35-week command atop Top Country Albums, her longest to date. It’s also the second-best run atop the list by a female soloist in the history of the survey (after Shania Twain’s Come on Over dominated for 50 weeks beginning in November 1997). Among five top 10s, Fearless spun off two Hot Country Songs No. 1s that remain signature songs for Swift: “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me.”
The breakthrough 2012 LP by the duo of Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley ruled Top Country Albums for 10 weeks and produced four career-launching Country Airplay leaders: “Cruise,” “Get Your Shine On,” “Round Here” and “Stay.”
The only woman with two albums in this recap’s top 10, Swift debuted her first LP on Top Country Albums in November 2006 and it reached the penthouse in August 2007 for its first of 24 frames at No. 1. The set’s lead single, “Tim McGraw,” became her first of 36 Hot Country Songs top 10s. Third single “Our Song” awarded Swift, then 18, her first of nine No. 1s on the chart.
The Cedartown, Ga., native was a star quarterback in high school before playing college ball at Middle Tennessee State University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He then kicked off his chart career with his rookie set, Montevallo, which opened at the Top Country Albums apex in November 2014 and dominated for nine weeks. The collection generated four Country Airplay No. 1s: “Leave the Night On,” “Take Your Time,” “House Party” and “Make You Miss Me.”
The release soared in at No. 1 on Top Country Albums in November 2019, and became Combs’ first to top the all-genre Billboard 200. It controlled Top Country Albums for 37 weeks. Counting its original (five No. 1s) and deluxe versions (two), the set generated seven Country Airplay leaders, the most ever from a single album: “Beer Never Broke My Heart,” “Even Though I’m Leaving,” “Does to Me” (featuring Eric Church), “Lovin’ On You,” “Better Together,” “Forever After All” and “Cold as You.”
One of two titles in this retrospective’s top five for the Tennessee-born singer-songwriter, the LP became his first No. 1 on Top Country Albums. The 2018 set led at last in its 114th week on the chart, completing a record rise to the summit in August 2020. Along the way, it benefited from three No. 1 singles on Country Airplay: “Up Down,” featuring Florida Georgia Line, “Whiskey Glasses” and “Chasin’ You.”
Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album is the longest-ruling No. 1 ever on Top Country Albums: for 97 weeks, starting in January 2021. The collection, containing 30 songs in its original version, also became his first chart-topper on the all-genre Billboard 200. “This is absolutely insane,” Wallen beamed to Billboard upon its debut coronation. “When we decided to go for it with a double album, I knew we were taking a risk, but I believed in the music and hoped it would be something y’all loved.”
Combs’ first full-length bounded in at No. 1 on Top Country Albums in June 2017 and ran up 50 weeks on top. Between its original edition and rerelease (This One’s for You Too), the album produced Combs’ first five Country Airplay No. 1s: “Hurricane,” “When It Rains It Pours,” “One Number Away,” “She Got the Best of Me” and “Beautiful Crazy.”
Momentum for the singer-songwriter-guitarist, from eastern Kentucky, roared after his victorious night in Nashville at the Country Music Association Awards on Nov. 4, 2015. That evening, Stapleton won in all three categories in which he was nominated: new artist, male vocalist and album of the year. He also electrified the audience with a performance, with Justin Timberlake, of Traveller’s “Tennessee Whiskey” and Timberlake’s “Drink You Away,” helping to send the set to No. 1 for the first time on Top Country Albums.
“I lost my dad in October 2013 and did a little bit of soul-searching,” Stapleton told Billboard in 2015 of Traveller’s origin. “My wife was kind enough to buy me an old Jeep. We flew out to Phoenix and drove it all the way back to Nashville through the desert. Out of that, I wrote the song ‘Traveller’ driving down Interstate 40 through New Mexico. I thought a lot about music and my dad, and the things that he would have liked that I should be doing.”
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