DavesMusicDatabase.com is devoted to ranking, rating, and reviewing music of all genres and eras. The DMDB blog serves up album and song reviews, best-of lists, music history snapshots, and music-related essays.
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 | 2020-2029:Top 50 Albums |
These are the top albums from 2020-2029 according to Dave’s Music Database, which factors in sales, chart data, awards, album ratings, and appearances on best-of lists. Compilations, archival recordings, and reissues are not factored into this list. You can check out the top albums of all time or for other decades by clicking here.
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First posted 2/4/2026; last updated 5/20/2026. |
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Americana – |
Americana music is a celebration of roots-oriented musical forms that are heavily associated with the United States. It reaches back hundreds of years to traditional music, gospel, Negro spirituals, folk, blues, and country for its influence although it is framed in a more modern context. It really surfaced in the late ‘60s as an outgrown of the folk rock movement with artists like The Band and The Grateful Dead becoming some of the best known groups to incorporate it into their music. Check out the Dave’s Music Database list The Top 100 Americana Songs from the 20th Century. Americana, however, was not restricted to the 20th century. In the 21st century, Grammy wins for Album of the Year for the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand, and Mumford & Sons’ Babel made it clear that Americana was not just a throwback sound that had peaked in the 20th century. Therefore the list below is a celebration of New Americana, or Americana in the 21st century. Click here to see other genre-specific song lists.
1. Johnny Cash “Hurt” (2002)
11. Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow “Picture” (2001)
21. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit “If We Were Vampires” (2017)
31. Chris Stapleon “Broken Halos” (2017)
41. The Highwomen “Crowded Table” (2019)
51. Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats “You Worry Me” (2018)
61. Alabama Shakes “Don’t Wanna Fight” (2015)
71. Bon Iver “Holocene” (2011)
81. Hozier with Mavis Staples “Nina Cried Power” (2018)
91. Fleet Foxes “Helplessness Blues” (2011) Resources/Related Links:
First posted 11/22/2025. |
 | Country Music:Albums of the Year |
Since 1967, both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association have handed out awards for Album of the Year. The Grammys gave a country album award in 1965 and 1966, but then discontinued it until 1995. The American Music Awards have given out a Country Album of the Year award since 1974. Billboard magazine has acknowledged the country album of the year since 1990. Finally, Dave’s Music Database has acknowledged the best country album of the year since 1965. This page will show which albums won for any of the four awards each year. Check out other album of the year awards here.
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First posted 9/16/2020; last updated 2/2/2025. |
| First posted 1/8/2021. |
 | Dave’s Music Database:Top Albums of 2015 |
Based on a combination of year-end lists and overall status in Dave’s Music Database, these are the top 25 albums of 2015:
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Traveller |
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Released: May 5, 2015 Peak: 12 US, 129 CW, 67 UK, 4 CN, 47 AU, 11 DF Sales (in millions): 7.0 US, 0.1 UK, 7.50 world (includes US + UK) Genre: country |
Tracks:Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
Total Running Time: 63:04 |
Rating: 4.261 out of 5.00 (average of 24 ratings)
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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First a SongwriterChris Stapleton was born in Kentucky in 1978. He moved to Nashville in 1996 to study engineering at Vanderbilt University, but dropped out to pursue a music career. He signed a writing and publishing contract with Sea Gayle Music and found success as a songwriter writing #1 country hits for Luke Bryan (“Drin a Beer”), Kenny Chesney (“Never Wanted Nothing More”), George Strait (“Love’s Gonna Make It Alright”), and Josh Turner (“Your Man”). He also written for or with Adele, Dierks Bentley, Kelly Clarkson, Sheryl Crow, Peter Frampton, Vince Gill, Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker, Ed Sheeran, and Taylor Swift.Then a PerformerEven as he wrote for others, however, he fronted a bluegrass band, the Steeldrivers, and a rock band, the Jompson Brothers. PM’19 It meant that his eventual debut solo album, Traveller, “felt like a long time coming for most Nashville industry insiders, who had known Stapleton for years as the unsung hero behind many of radio’s biggest hits.” PM’19Still, no one was prepared for how successful he would be. The “big-bearded singer-songwriter” PM’19 helped “critical acclaim meet mainstream notoriety in a way that can’t help but raise the bar for years to come.” PM’19 AmericanaHighways.org’s Andrew Gulden called Stapleton “a once-in-a-generation voice.” AH “Traveller is about as far out of the Music Row machine as mainstream artists get: no beer/pickup/roadhouse machismo, because Stapleton’s focus is closer to the bone.” TZ He was celebrated as a return to old-school country, with a sound that was “something rougher and rowdier” AM than the more mainstream country hits he’d written – “an Eric Church without a metallic fixation or a Sturgill Simpson stripped of arty psychedelic affectations. Something closer to a Jamey Johnston, in other words, but where Johnston often seems weighed down by the mantle of a latter-day outlaw, Stapleton is rather lithe as he slides between all manners of southern styles.” AM Cross-Genre ArtistTraveller finds Stapleton “casually switching gears between bluegrass waltz, Southern rockers, crunching blues, soulful slow-burners, and swaggering outlaw anthems – every one of them belonging to a tradition, but none sounding musty due to Stapleton’s casualness. Never once does he belabor his range, nor does he emphasize the sharply sculpted songs. Everything flows naturally, and that ease is so alluring upon the first spin of Traveller that it’s not until repeated visits that the depth of the album becomes apparent.” AMHis embracement of old country was celebrated come awards season. He won the Grammy for Country Album and took home Album of the Year prizes from the Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association. It makes Traveller “a shoo-in recommendation for the newcomer to country” PM’19 but he’s also an excellent beginning point for those interested in Americana because of his ability to blend genres. Traveller spent 130 weeks atop the Billboard Americana chart, more than twice as long as the next biggest album, Mumford & Sons’ Sigh No More (61 weeks). The Songs“As the rare songwriter-for-hire who also has considerable performance chops, Stapleton is sensitive to the needs of an individual song.” AM This “is evident when he’s covering Tennessee Whiskey – a Dean Dillon & Linda Hargrove tune popularized by George Jones and David Allan Coe in the early ‘80s – lending the composition a welcome smolder.” AM The song proved a monstrous success, topping the country chart and amassing 14 million in sales.That song and Sometimes I Cry also “take advantage of his startling R&B chops.” TZ That ability to seamlessly blend genres earned him a reputation as “one of the best pure singers to emerge from country in many a moon.” TZ Stapleton also “brings the chapped vulnerability of Willie Nelson’s and Merle Haggard’s halcyon work to the stripped-down present in songs like Whiskey and You and Daddy Doesn’t Pray Anymore.” TZ Even when he’s partying on Might As Well Get Stoned, he can’t get his mind off who’s not with him – and it’s not who you’d expect.” TZ |
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First posted 8/1/2021; last updated 11/5/2025. |
