25 Country Albums You Need to Hear (Even If You Hate Country Music)

19. THESE DAYS
Vince Gill
Who says Nashville is perennially behind the curve? With this 2006 release, Gill became the first major-label artist from any genre, of any consequence, to release a four-CD set of all-new material. The conceit was that each of the four discs was in a slightly different country subgenre — one geared toward bluesy rock, another toward bluegrass, one leaning toward gospel, and one just in-the-pocket honky-tonk fare — resulting in a set that truly had something for everybody except possibly hard-core rap buffs. With great quantity comes the potential for great suckage, of course, but all four albums, or sub-albums, are superior fare.