Rank a Discography: Blake Shelton
Blake Shelton arrived in a big way back in 2001, with debut single “Austin” topping the charts for five straight weeks. Since then, he has sometimes struggled to keep the ball rolling, usually suffering one or two lower-charting singles in between bona fide hits. His two most recent singles gave him his first ever consecutive #1s. While we wait to see if “I’ll Just Hold On” will be lucky number three or a deal-breaker, here’s a ranked look at his output so far. Feel free to give your own rankings (of as many albums as you have) in the comments.
1. Barn & Grill (2004)
Shelton’s third album is his best to date, a well-balanced collection of traditional-flavored contemporary fare. With a renewed passion and songs from the likes of Paul Overstreet, Shawn Camp, Roger Murrah, Jim Lauderdale, Leslie Satcher, and Mary Gauthier, Shelton improved by leaps and bounds over the sophomore album released just the previous year. The cover of Conway Twitty’s “Goodbye Time” was a watershed moment for him artistically, his coming-out party as a great balladeer. It came at just the right time, as Shelton was due to either reveal something new about himself or pack up and go home. When this album produced three consecutive top ten hits (his longest string of successes to date), it was clear that he was here to stay.
2. Startin’ Fires (2008)
On his most recent album, Shelton finally seems to have a strong sense of the sound and material that works best for him, but takes so few chances that songs tend to bleed together as a result. This is the first album that seems like a fully-realized artistic statement, with Shelton fully and confidently inhabiting his place as one of the most convincing modern country crooners. But he’s at another one of those junctures where he needs to find new ways of stretching out and challenging himself artistically, as this album is consistency bordering on stagnation. One of the only songs that leaves any sort of lasting impression is the duet with Miranda Lambert on “Bare Skin Rug,” which is also the only song that doesn’t sound aimed directly at the country charts.
3. Pure BS (2007)
There are a few uptempo songs to balance things out (“The More I Drink” being the most memorable), but this feels like Shelton’s ballad album, an outgrowth of the credibility gained by way of “Goodbye Time” on the previous album. Sadly, there isn’t much here to match the quality of that earlier single. Aside from a Chris Knight cover, these are mostly middling contemporary songs penned by the usual suspects; sell them as he might, Shelton inevitably falls short of the high mark set by Barn & Grill. Nevertheless, a pretty listenable collection.
4. Blake Shelton (2001)
Shelton’s debut was a likable (if somewhat scrawny) traditional effort. Although it showed a great deal of energy and promise, there wasn’t much about it to suggest that the artist would still be a relevant market force a couple years down the road, much less nearly a decade later. Shelton’s most surprising trait has been his willingness to grow artistically, so it should be little surprise that his first effort was just that: a beginning. Not one of his better albums, but worth checking out for career highlights like “Austin” and “Ol’ Red.”
5. The Dreamer (2003)
Shelton’s sophomore effort founding him digging deeper into the southern rock side of things to very mixed effect. There are some good songs here, but they’re buried beneath overproduced pap like “Heavy Liftin’” that makes the album as a whole an almost unbearable listen.
In Summary
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I’ve always meant to get one of his albums, but I’ve never gotten around to it. I was going to get Startin’ Fires, but we’ll see…
Personally I really like this feature- it’s interesting to really compare these discographies.
I like this feature too, though you might not know it based on the 3+ month gap since the last one. I’m going to try to remember to run them more often… emphasis on the try, as fans of editorials and Sanity Series can certainly attest. Too many balls in the air sometimes!
I think Barn & Grill is better, but I can see wanting to start with his most recent album too.
1. Blake Shelton’s Barn & Grill – I agree with you on this one, definitely his most consistent work.
2. Blake Shelton – a bit patchy, but it has some of my favorites of his recordings.
3. The Dreamer – also patchy, but there are some tracks I’m rather fond of (The Baby, Playboys of the Southwestern World, the cover of Georgia in A Jug).
4. Pure BS – mixed again, but the song quality is just a little lower overall; I love The Last Country Song, though.
5. Startin’ Fires – I’m afraid I was very disappointed in this and thught it was a step backwards. Most of the songs are OK at best, with a number of very boring cuts. The only tracks I really like are the duet with Miranda, and I Don’t Care which was on his previous album.
That’s weird. We agree on the top spot but the rest are almost exactly reversed.
I can’t argue with the order you’ve got ‘em in. Blake’s voice is probably my favorite current commercial country male voice – he just needs some more consistency in his song choosing. On another note, Austin is a terrible,horrible song. It’s the kind of tune I’d severely make fun of on my blog were it to come out today. Maybe I’ll make fun of it anyway.
I only have 2 of his albums, and those are Barn and Grill and Starting Fires, with the former being superior.
Can I request the rankage of Trisha Yearwood’s discography?
You can (I think you might have in the past, in fact), but I’m afraid I’m not the guy for the job. I like her, but can count the number of albums I have on one hand.
If some Trisha connoisseur reads this and feels up to the task of ranking her discography, let me know and we’ll set you up with a guest spot. I could learn from that feature, too.
“Barn & Grill” is the only Blake Shelton album I own and its likely to stay that way. I bought it primarily for “Some Beach” and was pleasantly surprised at how strong the album was over all. I thought it was crazy that Blake’s label didn’t release “Cotton Pickin’ Time” as a radio single.
I have a question for you Blake fans. I purchased a radio DJ oriented CDX CD that had a version of “Austin” where its just Blake’s voice and a single acoustic guitar backing him up as opposed to the multi-layered and over produced version I hear on country radio on occasion. Which version was on Blake’s debut album?
It’s the regular (non-acoustic) radio version on the album, Rick.
Is ‘Austin’ the Jason McCoy song?
I have all of his albums, but can only rank two of them. Barn and Grill at the top and Startin’ Fires at the bottom, with the other three being interchangeable in the middle.
Ranking an artist’s discography when the artist has issued only five albums is one thing – to try it for an artist with 50+ (Hag, Willie, Reba ) is quite another ..
I’ve been trying to put one together for WIllie and I’m just overwhelmed by the process !
It’s no coincidence that all the artists featured so far have released only a handful of albums. I value my sanity too highly (and don’t know enough) to attempt the huge ones.
Ranking Willie’s discography is a monumental task, but I’ll bet you’re the guy for the job.