The culture wars that have defined country music in recent years seemed somewhat tamer this year. That doesn’t mean the issues that have divided households from Nashville to SoCal have been resolved. Far from it.
Political battles over content and artistic skirmishes over the exact meaning of a mandolin aren’t going away any time soon. Actually, they’re probably not ever going away. One of the most bewildering aspects of the recent agitation is that many believe this is somehow new. Country music is always engaged in an ongoing debate over what it actually is.
In the wake of all that, the pitched disputes seem a tiny bit diminished in 2025. That allows us to focus more on the music itself and not necessarily hear it as part of the battle writ large. Even so, there is plenty left to fight about.
The 12 best country albums of 2025
The following dozen albums reveal country music 2025 in all its glory. There is the old and the new, the big and the small. In terms of definitions, I cast a fairly wide net. An album that leans into rock or pop might still be country to my ears, though maybe not to yours. But amongst these twelve, I don’t think you’ll find anything that doesn’t sound country.
I toyed with the idea of not ranking them – just listing them in some non-judgmental order. But this is country music, and this is America. REM might insert a mandolin into some slice of pop rock, but other traditions – like ranking things – remain sacrosanct.
11 & 12: Lonesome Drifter and Dollar a Day – Charley Crockett
Charley Crockett is as good a country singer-songwriter as we have had in this century. He’s a hard-working musician, filling his calendar with high-octane live shows and sometimes putting out two different top-flight albums in the same year. He can rock out or add a healthy dose of soul. The blues are never far away.
But most of all, he is a classic country crooner who sings of life on the road and heartbreak with equal parts toughness and tenderness. If you need an official ranking for your records, I’m putting Dollar a Day slightly ahead because I find it about half a percent more cohesive than the very fine Lonesome Drifter.
10: Dark Horse – Tony Logue
Dark Horse would probably be on my list of best rock albums were I to write one. If you like the harder rocking side of Jason Isbell, be sure to check out Logue and his band, the 184. The guitars crank out killer riffs on the brooding “Dark Horse” or any number of tracks that sound like a hard country version of Tom Petty. He can even drift into a peppy brand of gospel in “Hammer.”
9. I’m the Problem – Morgan Wallen
Forget his position at the heart of the culture wars. Ignore the fact that this album was number 1 – not on the country chart but on the mainstream Billboard chart – for virtually the entire summer. Morgan Wallen, love him or hate him, has helped evolve early-century Bro-Country into a more nuanced, evolved art form. The big hooks are still there.
There is enough beer and whiskey to fill a swimming pool. The encroaching tides of pop and rock remain. If it weren’t for that Tennessee drawl, a lot of songs on I’m the Problem might not even sound country. But country it is. And a lot of it is very good. The biggest problem is that there is too much of it – 37 songs in almost two hours. Had he pared it down some with the help of a ruthless editor, this album might have been even higher.
I have this theory that Morgan Wallen and Taylor Swift are two sides of the same coin. Extraordinarily gifted and prolific writers who simply can’t stop confessing, mainly because confessing in public has made them both very rich.
Swift is farther along in her journey, but I suspect that Wallen is finding “country” music too confining, just as Taylor did, and he will continue to branch into other genres in the years to come. And that will create a new battle unto itself.
8. Hey Country Queen – Mackenzie Carpenter
She co-wrote some of Megan Moroney’s best songs. Who better than to claim the mantle of this year’s breakout country 20-something? Carpenter, recently graduated from Belmont University, makes her debut with a potent blend of country pop rock that highlights her sharp songwriting.
From the poignancy of “Jesus, I’m Jealous” to the aggressive twang of “Cowgirl Like Me,” Carpenter has an album full of hits. And since here in the USA we have traditionally frowned on anything that suggests monarchy, Hey Country Queen was so good that it kept Hailey Whitters’ top-flight Corn Queen off this list. One queen is all I can handle.
7. Winged Victory – Willi Carlisle
I’m not sure Willi Carlisle should be counted as country. But if he isn’t, I’m not sure where to put him. “Folk” seems even more generic. I have seen Carlisle serve as a one-man band, but fortunately, here, he assembles a first-rate collection of players.
His exuberance comes through every note, from the potent labor anthem “We Have Fed You All for 1000 Years,” which opens the album, to a surprisingly upbeat and effective “Beeswing,” which comes toward the end. Those are covers, and he tosses in a few other well-chosen titles, some of which I cannot repeat here.
But Carlisle is no slouch when he pens his own material, as on another gleeful populist lament, “Work is Work.” In the finest tradition of country music, Willi Carlisle sings about somber and serious matters while never losing a carnival barker’s sense of pure entertainment.
6. El Cabron – Pug Johnson
It starts with a train song filled with every type of country instrument, including the twangiest of voices from Beaumont’s Pug Johnson. Growing up between Houston and New Orleans, Johnson learned to blend Texan and Cajun traditions, and then went out looking for more.
There are horns from Memphis, and Mexico is right there in the title. The whole thing adds up to an intense musical journey through the fertile south, elevating country’s traditional accents to the starring role on a series of great tunes.
5. Hear My Call – Cristina Vane
Vane plays a song with Molly Tuttle on her 2025 release – the swampy, utterly hypnotic title track. It features Vane’s moody banjo along with some tight guitar and fiddle, and it sounds for all the world like what Tuttle’s albums once sounded like. For those listeners who were unhappy with Tuttle’s lurch toward pop on So Long Little Miss Sunshine, here’s an antidote.
That is not to say that Vane can’t try out some blues or some pop songs along the way. It just means that when she does it in a sweet heartbreak song like “Getting High in Hotel Rooms,” it works better than some of Tuttle’s excursions. And there may not be a better rockabilly number in 2025 than “Shake It Babe.”
4. The Price of Admission – Turnpike Troubadours
The Troubadours' sixth album is getting justified raves. Frontman Evan Felker enlisted a lot of first-rate songwriters to help out, and he penned plenty of strong material himself.
Felker and his bandmates have been pushing country music into folk, rock, rockabilly, and a bit of pop for a long time now and are recognized as one of the most important country groups in the genre’s modern landscape. But don’t take my word for it. Consider this…
“Volunteering to give up my nomination with the Recording Academy to the Turnpike Troubadours, who not only earned it with The Price of Admission, but for which, without Evan Felker, I might not have ever even shown up on the map to be nominated in the first place. And besides, Evan Felker’s the best damn songwriter of all of us.”
That’s from Charley Crockett, whose Dollar a Day album was nominated for the first-ever Best Traditional Country Album Grammy.
3. Southern Belle Raising Hell – Willow Avalon
Willow Avalon has the most distinctive voice in country music. Her ever-present quaver adds an otherworldly lushness to anything she puts her vocal cords to. Fortunately, on her sophomore album, she is applying that voice to a series of excellent songs.
A cowboy song has never been as erotic as “Something We Regret.” “Homewrecker” is a classic rocker sung from the other side of Fist City. “Getting Rich, Goin’ Broke” may go down as a seminal song of America in the mid-‘20s.
2. Hard Headed Woman – Margo Price
I agree with Charley Crockett about Turnpike Troubadours deserving a nomination for the Traditional Album Grammy. But they shouldn’t win. That trophy should go to Margo Price, who has managed to create an album dripping in old school country ideas and sounds while still sounding brand spanking new.
From the anthemic “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down” to the country funk of “Don’t Wake Me Up” (with vocal support from Jesse Welles), Price offers winner after winner. She also slathers the funk onto George Jones’ “I Just Don’t Give a Damn” to great effect.
Toward the end, she does a beautiful old-fashioned country love song, “Love Me Like You Used To,” a duet she sings with Tyler Childers. And speaking of Tyler Childers…
1. Snipe Hunter – Tyler Childers
I suppose pairing one of the most innovative performers in modern country with the most eclectic of all iconic producers might not have worked. But when Tyler Childers got together with Rick Rubin, they created something pretty damn special. It throbs with blues-rock energy and offers the familiar embrace of trad country.
There are elements of bluegrass and gospel, alongside soul and a smidgen of funk. And a killer rockabilly closer. Two musical geniuses working to the max. I guess it’s no surprise they created the finest country album of the year.