Twelve standout country albums that turn 30 this year

If you think the culture wars that are raging across the American country music landscape in 2024 are new, you haven’t been paying attention to country music. Tensions have simmered about what is and what isn’t country music for decades.

What’s different today is just how evenly split the two opposing camps appear to be, but that is very much in keeping with country music’s traditional position at the heart of many cultural divides in the USA. The country is split over much more than just country music, and country music remains a bellwether on such matters.

In the 1970s, it was the outlaws rebelling against their Nashville overlords. In the ‘90s, inclusion came into question, with fans beginning to question whether you could have a role in country music if you were not male and if you were not white. A decade later, patriotism was at the core of the latest controversy. Another decade on and the act of performing at a political party’s convention could split the country community in two.

The best country music had to offer in 1994

I suspect we will forever be debating what constitutes “authentic” country music, in addition to arguing what constitutes good country music. But country music is nothing if not resilient and even if the squabbling gets messy, it has so far proved a big enough tent to cover both Jason Aldean and Adeem the Artist. I am a big fan of one and don’t care much for the other, but I hope there will always be room for both as the nation and the genre fumble through their differences.

We’re going to count down the 12 best country albums that are turning 30 this year. 1994 was dominated by a single album to an unusual degree, and it owes at least part of its success to that very struggle over identity that always seems to linger around country music.

Tim McGraw’s sophomore release, Not a Moment Too Soon, was the number one country album for more than half the year. It was number 1 on Easter. It was number 1 on Christmas. The run was not continuous – other albums would knock it off the top spot for a bit, but when you looked back at the year, Tim McGraw had the number 1 country album in the land for more than half the weeks in 1994.

I don’t think the album is particularly special. It had some nice hooky, country-pop tunes and some generic lyrics. It rode a wave of anti-woke sentiment before any of us knew what that was. I don’t think it’s a bad album, but it doesn’t even come close to cracking my own personal top dozen.

Instead, I am going with a blend of old and new. Some of the entries on this list are about as traditional as you can get while others are drawn from the alt-country well, which was expanding the definition of country music. Alt-country was an exciting development, but it wasn’t necessarily better than what had come before. It just opened up the sound and subject matter, and that’s generally a good thing. But the bottom line remains – if it’s good, it’s good, and the sub-genre designation doesn’t matter.

These are the best country music had to offer in 1994.