Wide Open Spaces by The Chicks

Wide Open Spaces, released on Monument on January 15, 1998, was the Dixie Chicks' fourth album but their first for a major label, and the first with Natalie Maines out front. Sisters Martie and Emily had spent years working the bluegrass festival circuit since founding the Dallas group in 1989; Maines brought a voice with a Texas-sized kick, and Blake Chancey's production lets the sisters' fiddle, banjo and Dobro sparkle around it.

The title track went all the way to number one on the country chart, and the album was their breakthrough: 13 million copies shipped worldwide, diamond in the US by 2003, and more than six years in Australia's country Top 20. In 2024 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry.

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