Chris Stapleton’s ‘Traveller’ for Album of the Year

Keely Chisholm ’17 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

To most, the name Chris Stapleton is fairly new. The year 2015 was his breakout year—he won Country Music Association Awards for New Artist of the Year, Best Male Vocalist, and Best New Album, for his debut album, Traveller. Traveller is now up for the coveted Album of the Year Grammy. Though this is Stapleton’s debut album, he’s been writing songs in Nashville for over a decade. Country music fans might have heard some of his music on the radio, sung by other artists: he helped pen hits like Luke Bryan’s “Drink A Beer,”, Kenny Chesney’s “Never Wanted Nothing More,”, and Darius Rucker’s “Come Back Song,”.

Now his own music is in the spotlight, and for good reason. The strength of the album lies in Stapleton’s songwriting. The listener goes on a journey with Stapleton, a journey that encompasses those omnipresent themes of life, love, and especially loss. It’s a generalization to say that country music is dull and tragic, but there’s no escaping the fact that loss is universal. Whether it’s loss of a lover, of a family member, or of yourself—all facets that Traveller addresses—people of all ages, races, genders, and classes can relate to these feelings.

Though the popular music landscape is shifting toward more EDM and rhythm & blues styles, and lyrics with social messages, there is something about the timeless themes seen in Traveller, and it would be hasty to say the album is merely superficial. Stapleton takes this album to reflect on the situations he sings about. He does more than just lament, which makes this more than just another country album.

Traveller faces tough competition at this year’s Grammys, going up against Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, Alabama Shakes’s Sound and Color, Taylor Swift’s 1989, and The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness. A country album hasn’t won since Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s Raising Sand took the award in 2009. Perhaps that will change this year.