{"id":6174,"date":"2025-08-03T14:50:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T19:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/?p=6174"},"modified":"2026-04-13T16:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T21:57:11","slug":"morgan-wallen-the-biggest-star-in-country-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/?p=6174","title":{"rendered":"Morgan Wallen \u2014 The Biggest Star In Country Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

He may be the biggest star in country music at a time when country music\u2019s bigger than it\u2019s been this century, but Morgan Wallen remembers when he was the underdog. \u201cOnce you get to know me, I\u2019m a coyote in a field of wolves,\u201d he sings in his raspy twang on \u201cI\u2019m a Little Crazy,\u201d a tale of moonshine runs and late-night paranoia that closes out his fourth album, I\u2019m the Problem. Speaking to Apple Music\u2019s Kelleigh Bannen, the 32-year-old Tennessee native singled out the line as his favorite. \u201cAt times in my life, I haven\u2019t felt like I was invited,\u201d he admits. \u201cTo me, that’s what that line says: \u2018Hey, I know I wasn\u2019t invited, but I\u2019m still eating, and I\u2019m still fed.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Since his sophomore album, 2021\u2019s 30-track Dangerous: The Double Album, Wallen\u2019s hyper-prolific bent has become a winning strategy. His 36-track follow-up, 2023\u2019s One Thing at a Time, spawned eight singles (including the inescapable \u201cLast Night\u201d) and broke Garth Brooks\u2019 Billboard record for most weeks at No. 1 by a country album. Not to be outdone, I\u2019m the Problem clocks in at 37 tracks and nearly two hours long. But those hours fly by like a summer evening on the porch with a cooler of cold ones: No one crafts hooky, aerodynamic country anthems like Wallen and his longtime crew of co-writers and producers (HARDY, Ernest Keith Smith, Charlie Handsome, Ashley Gorley, Joey Moi).<\/p>\n

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Stream Now On Streamapse2.0<\/a><\/strong><\/span> Image Courtesy Of Apple Services.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are the requisite odes to whiskey, women, bucks, and trucks, and Wallen\u2019s in his sweet spot when he\u2019s probing his own conscience, which he does with surprising nuance on songs like \u201cKick Myself,\u201d a roots-rock exploration of vice and accountability: \u201cNothing\u2019s changed\/In a way it\u2019s getting way, way worse,\u201d he concludes after kicking his bad habits and realizing his problems remain. Themes of addiction and temptation continue through \u201cGenesis,\u201d which Wallen wrote from the top down; rather than starting with the hook like usual, he relished the challenge of flipping the first book of the Bible into something catchy and cool: \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018How would you write a Genesis song? What would it mean? How do you do that without sounding cheesy?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019d expect the crossover country star of the 2020s to be running a victory lap, but the prevailing mood on I\u2019m the Problem is heartbreak\u2014served up with extra salt on the breakup banger \u201cI Got Better,\u201d but more often with whiskey-soaked regret on singles like \u201cLies Lies Lies\u201d and \u201cJust in Case.\u201d (\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of feelings on this album,\u201d he says. \u201cHappy is not the one I do best, normally.\u201d) But the emotional centerpiece is \u201cSuperman,\u201d the first song he\u2019s written for his young son, on which Wallen admits his imperfections to the little guy: \u201cI don\u2019t always save the day,\u201d he sings, \u201cbut you know for you, I\u2019ll always try.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of different things that I felt like I was trying to do,\u201d he says of the deeply personal track. \u201cNot only let him know where I fall short, but also give him advice, let him know I\u2019m protecting him.\u201d Generation-defining country juggernauts have feelings, too, y\u2019know.<\/p>\n

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He may be the biggest star in country music at a time when country music\u2019s bigger than it\u2019s been this century, but Morgan Wallen remembers when he was the underdog. \u201cOnce you get to know me, I\u2019m a coyote in a field of wolves,\u201d he sings in his raspy twang on \u201cI\u2019m a Little Crazy,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-streamapse-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6174"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6189,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6174\/revisions\/6189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}