Eric Church

Nashville's singer-songwriter Eric Church represented the poppy wing of Nashville's country music in the 2010s. His first album Sinners Like Me (2006) yielded three of his best songs: How 'Bout You, Two Pink Lines and Guys Like Me. Carolina (2009) added some more hits: Smoke a Little Smoke, the country-rock ballad Hell on the Heart, and especially Love Your Love the Most, one of his classics, besides the rocking Aint Killed Me Yet.

Chief (2011), his first best-selling album, produced by Jay Joyce, contains his first number-one country songs: Drink in My Hand and Springsteen; plus other hits like Homeboy, Creepin', and Like Jesus Does (possibly the standout, composed by Casey Beathard).

Caught in the Act (2012) is a live album.

The Outsiders (2014) contains two more number-one hits: Give Me Back My Hometown and Talladega. Another hit was his collaboration with Keith Urban: the single Raise 'Em Up (2015).

Those were albums full of generic country-pop and overflowing with filler, but Mr Misunderstood (2015) was a better assembled album, and nonetheless containing two more number-one songs, Record Year and Round Here Buzz, but better is perhaps Chattanooga Lucy.

61 Days in Church (2017) is another live album containing 124 songs.

Desperate Man (2018) is an inferior collection, with Desperate Man, Monsters and the stomping Hangin Around.

The 24-song triple album Heart & Soul (2021) was a major artistic achievement for a country-pop star and for producer's Jay Joyce. Technically, it consists of two albums titled Heart and Soul and one EP titled &. Far from being a monolithic country experience, the album delves into a number of different styles, from the quasi-danceable U2-esque Russian Roulette to the unique fusion of disco-beat, blues guitar and soul vocals in Break It Kind of Guy, from the funk-soul ballad Look Good And You Know It to the sudden distorted guitar explosions of Mad Man, from the mellow blues-rock shuffle Rock & Roll Found Me to the raunchy and deafening funk-rock of Do Side, somewhere between the Band and ZZ Top. However, the main format is the blue-collar rocker popularized by the likes of John Mellencamp (the catchy and anthemic Bad Mother Trucker, the driving singalong Bunch of Nothing) and Bruce Springsteen (the rocking, pulsating, anthemic Heart on Fire, and Love Shine Down that morphs into something very close to Springsteen's Cadillac Ranch). Several songs employ a Jim Steinman-esque stratagem of stately, grandiose crescendoes: Stick That in Your Country Song (perhaps the most emphatic one, borderline Bon Jovi-esque), the waltzing Heart of the Night, and Russian Roulette itself.