Morgan Wallen

Morgan Wallen ranks among the most prominent country performers to emerge during the present century, pairing longstanding subjects such as faith, drinking, and romance with sonic elements borrowed from R&B, pop, and rock to generate repeated multi-platinum outcomes. The 2018 debut album If I Know Me established multiple benchmarks through its extended run on the U.S. Top Country Albums chart, while its individual tracks dominated country airplay and registered significant placements on the U.S. Hot 100 Singles chart, patterns that persisted across subsequent releases. With the 2021 release Dangerous: The Double Album, Wallen pursued an even more open-ended style that encompassed the Lil Durk collaboration "Broadway Girls" and carried into 2023’s One Thing at a Time, which incorporated alternative rock textures and set new benchmarks for its prolonged residency at the summit of the Billboard 200 Albums chart alongside the crossover single "Last Night," which held the top position on Billboard’s Hot 100 for 16 weeks. In July 2024 he returned to the Hot 100 and previewed a fourth album via the track "Lies, Lies, Lies."

Born May 13, 1993, in Sneedville, Tennessee, Wallen spent his formative years near Knoxville. His father, a preacher drawn to the volume of hard rock, and his mother, a teacher who favored contemporary Christian music, shaped an early household soundtrack. Wallen displayed a pronounced musical inclination from toddlerhood onward, performing in church by age three and beginning violin studies at five. He later acquired piano and guitar skills, yet baseball remained his primary focus through high school at Gibbs High School in Corryton, Tennessee, where he pitched for the varsity squad. College scholarship offers followed, but an elbow injury late in his senior year curtailed his pitching career and prompted a shift toward music as a vocation.

Wallen gained national visibility in February 2014 after blind-auditioning with Howie Day’s "Collide" on the televised contest The Voice. Usher selected him for his team; following the second Battle Round, Adam Levine acquired Wallen, though he was eliminated during the playoffs. The exposure also yielded a key partnership when Sergio Sánchez, a vocal coach on the program and member of Atom Smash, began co-writing material tailored to Wallen’s country-rooted yet rock-inflected delivery. Wallen relocated to Nashville, and the pair briefly operated as the band Morgan Wallen & Them Shadows.

Once established in Music City, Wallen secured management, agency representation, and a publishing agreement with Big Loud Shirt Music that placed his compositions with several emerging acts. Big Loud Music subsequently offered him a solo recording contract, after which he toured radio outlets to sharpen his live presentation. The 2016 single "The Way I Talk" drew early airplay attention, prompting a five-song EP anchored by that track. The following year he joined Florida Georgia Line for the Top Ten Country Singles hit "Up Down," which earned gold certification. Both songs appeared on the April 2018 debut album If I Know Me. Produced by Joey Moi, the set bowed at number 11 on the U.S. Top Country Albums chart and number 72 on the Billboard 200, while also charting in Canada and Australia. It ultimately climbed to number ten on the Billboard 200 and reached number one on the U.S. Top Country Albums chart after a record 114-week climb. In September 2020 the Recording Industry Association of America certified the album platinum, later upgrading it to double platinum in January 2022. Additional singles "Whiskey Glasses" and "Chasin’ You" both led the U.S. Country Airplay chart and reached the Top 20 of the U.S. Hot 100 Singles chart.

Following If I Know Me’s breakthrough, Wallen toured alongside Florida Georgia Line and prepared new material. He released the single "This Bar" in July 2019 and followed with "More Than My Hometown" in May 2020, which topped the U.S. Country Airplay chart. During the COVID-19 pandemic he accumulated enough songs for a double album. Dangerous: The Double Album arrived in January 2021, again produced in part by Moi and featuring additional contributions from Jacob Durrett, Charlie Handsome, Matt Dragstrem, and Dave Cohen, plus appearances by Chris Stapleton and Ben Burgess. Balancing romantic ballads with neo-country tracks that drew on R&B and pop influences, the project debuted atop the Billboard 200 and accumulated ten weeks at number one; after logging 104 weeks inside the Top Ten it became the longest-running Top Ten album by a solo artist in the chart’s history. It also opened at number one on the U.S. Country Albums chart and established a new longevity mark there. The album earned quadruple platinum status in both the United States and Canada and gold certification in Australia. Standout tracks included "Sand in My Boots," which led the U.S. Country Airplay chart, "7 Summers," which topped the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart, and "Wasted on You," which reached the summit of both tallies. Roughly one month after release, Wallen faced suspension from his label, removal of his music from country radio playlists, and disqualification of the album from Academy of Country Music consideration following the surfacing of a video containing racially insensitive language. He was restored to Big Loud Music’s roster that May.

In April 2021 Wallen issued the gospel waltz "Don't Think Jesus," which topped the Hot Country Songs chart and peaked at number seven on the U.S. Hot 100 Singles chart. Late that year the Lil Durk collaboration "Broadway Girls" reached the Top 20 on the Hot 100 and number one on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart. Early in 2022 Dangerous: The Double Album received Album of the Year honors at the Academy of Country Music Awards. At the American Music Awards Wallen claimed Favorite Male Country Artist, while "Wasted on You" took Favorite Country Song. February brought his first headlining tour and the release of Tyler Joe Miller’s single "Wild as Her," which Wallen co-wrote. In May he unveiled "Thought You Should Know" and "You Proof," both of which topped the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart, with "You Proof" also reaching the Top Five of the U.S. Hot 100 Singles chart. These tracks, together with "Don't Think Jesus," formed the core of the third album One Thing at a Time. Issued in March 2023, the 36-song collection featured appearances by Eric Church, Hardy, and ERNEST, merging country, alternative rock, and hip-hop elements within a more introspective songwriting approach. One Thing at a Time held the Billboard 200 summit for multiple months; every track simultaneously charted on the Billboard Hot 100, establishing a new record for the most concurrent entries by a single artist, while the single "Last Night" became Wallen’s first Hot 100 number one—the first such achievement for a male country singer since Eddie Rabbitt’s "I Love a Rainy Night" in 1981.

"Last Night" maintained the top spot for 16 weeks, equaling the mark set by Harry Styles’ "As It Was." One Thing at a Time yielded four further singles throughout 2023, led by "Thinkin’ Bout Me," which reached number one on Country Airplay, though all performed strongly and sustained the album’s chart presence through year’s end. In January 2024 Wallen released "Spin You Around (1/24)" in response to an unauthorized tenth-anniversary reissue of his 2015 EP Stand Alone that contained eight previously unreleased songs. The reissue prompted him to re-record "Spin You Around" with longtime producer Joey Moi. That July he previewed a fourth album with the single "Lies, Lies, Lies," which entered the Hot 100 Top Ten; a second single, "Love Somebody," followed in October.