Nathan Kanuch of Shore2Shore Country and I have once again teamed up to deliver, what we feel are, the ten most influential albums within country music in the last decade. You can find that on Nathan’s site here.
Also, to copy and paste my caveat from that piece, just for reference:
As a caveat to this list, let me make it clear that this is all in good fun. While my picks are based more on influence rather than personal favorites, I do feel slightly uncomfortable trying to assign ranks of “cultural importance” to any of these albums. I based my picks around three qualities, and in no particular order: individual artistic impact, commercial impact, and general external impact — as long as the album met one of those qualities, I included it as a candidate. In actuality, if I were to truly crack down and be a true “critic” for this kind of list, I’m not sure I could come up with a top ten list of influential albums of all time, as it’s simply a metric that’s just too hard to judge. Again, though, this is all in good fun, but I am disappointed I couldn’t find room for albums like “In Time” by the Mavericks or “El Santo Grial: La Pistola Piadosa” by Slackeye Slim.
The Musical Divide 