Traveller by Chris Stapleton

Traveller, Chris Stapleton's debut album, came out on Mercury Nashville on May 5, 2015, and it's the sound of a songwriter who had spent years handing hits to other people finally keeping one for himself. The Kentucky native, once the singer of the bluegrass band the SteelDrivers, produced it with Dave Cobb, and they kept it raw: old-school country with a Southern rock growl, lean arrangements and that huge, soulful, sandpaper voice out front.

It swept the country awards: CMA Album of the Year in 2015, the Grammy for Best Country Album, and the ACM Album of the Year in 2016, with "Nobody to Blame" named Song of the Year. After his CMA duet with Justin Timberlake, it shot to number one on the Billboard 200, and his take on "Tennessee Whiskey", never a radio single, became a smoldering slow-dance standard that topped the Hot Country Songs chart. It went on to be named the decade's top-selling country album.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.