Staff Picks: 10 Best Country Albums of 2024 

This year, country music was at the forefront of popular music, thanks to country and country-influenced music from artists including Beyoncé, Post Malone, Morgan Wallen and Shaboozey topping multiple charts. Both Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion and Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter topped the Billboard 200, while Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” spent 19 weeks at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, and the Post Malone/Wallen collab “I Had Some Help” ruled on the chart for six weeks.

Even beyond all-genre chart successes, this year saw a surge of artists flexing their singular artistic visions for their albums — artists who were unapologetic in making music that speaks to their audiences, and in crafting songs that offer deep looks into the artists’ lives and perspectives.

In 2024, those artists released a slate of country albums that ran the gamut sonically, with some issuing projects inspired by rock, gospel and hip-hop, and others leaning on country’s more traditional sounds (with a particular emphasis on the ’80s and ’90s). Some released tightly constructed, largely concept-driven albums, while others opted for sprawling projects that allowed them to weave through a range of styles. Each of the albums here highlights not only the talents of artists within the country space, but also songwriters’ work in constructing music that has resonated with fans this year.

Here are the Billboard editorial staff‘s picks for our 10 favorite country albums from 2024 — with honorable mention going to Shaboozey’s Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, Megan Moroney’s Am I Okay?, Don Louis’ Liquor Talkin’, Scotty McCreery’s Rise and Fall, Wyatt Flores’s Welcome to the Plains, and the various artists compilation Twisters: The Album.