Traveller (Chris Stapleton album)

Music and composition

The album is an old-school country record mixed with Southern rock. Tracks on the album features electric guitar, mandolin, and acoustic guitar. "The Devil Named Music" exclaims the hard life on the road, "Might As Well Get Stoned" features resignation lyrics, and "Sometimes I Cry" is a blues song. "Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore" shrouds reflections about his father in the language of religious backsliding. In an interview for Rolling Stone, Stapleton commented "If somebody tells me it sounds dated, I'd say that's great, as long as the date is 1978. My favorite things are from then."

Stapleton wrote or co-wrote all but two of the album's 14 tracks. The album features a blues-influenced cover of David Allan Coe's single "Tennessee Whiskey", and Charlie Daniels' "Was It 26," written by Don Sampson.

Commercial performance

The album debuted on the Top Country Albums chart at number two, and the Billboard 200 at number 14, selling 27,000 copies in the week ending May 10.

Following Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake's performance at the 2015 Country Music Association Awards, sales for the album increased 6,000% and it re-entered the Billboard 200 at number one after being absent from the chart since September, with 177,000 equivalent album units (153,000 in pure album sales). According to Billboard, the surge in sales is owed to how a mass audience discovered Stapleton on the November 4 CMA Awards broadcast. Traveller is also the first debut country album to reach number one on the Billboard 200 in over four years, with Clear as Day (2011) by Scotty McCreery being the last. It became the first album to reenter the chart at number one. It remained at number one for a second week with 124,000 album-equivalent units (down 30 percent), including 97,000 pure album sales.

The album sold 685,000 copies in the United States in 2015. In February 2016, Traveller was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and double platinum in September. It became the fourth best-selling album of 2016, and the top selling country album, with 1,042,000 copies sold that year. As of March 2017, the album has sold more than 1,859,000 copies domestically.

Critical reception

Traveller received critical acclaim upon its release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from music critics, the album has received an average score of 85, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 6 reviews. In a review for Billboard, editor Caitlin White gave the album four-out-of-five stars, describing Traveller as a "solemn album, the work of a man gripped by life's impermanence", noting "undercurrents of regret, loss and resignation" in songs like "Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore," "Nobody to Blame" and "Devil Named Music". About the record's sound direction, she commented "Stapleton's songs are both rhythmic and nuanced, perhaps a by-product of years spent writing for others. They feature a cast of characters that remain likable even as they rush headlong into pursuit of ruin, fortune or chance." White concluded "it's a triumphant debut, encapsulating the grit of life, turning it into a hell of a journey."

Accolades

Rolling Stone featured Traveller on its "50 Best Albums of 2015" year-end list, commenting "every track goes straight for the emotional jugular and give a glimpse inside a wildly introspective mind." It was ranked three on its "40 Best Country Albums of 2015" list.

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Personnel

Credits for Traveller adapted from AllMusic.