Katana VentraIP

Traveller (Chris Stapleton album)

Traveller is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton. The album was produced by Dave Cobb and Stapleton, and was released on May 5, 2015, through Mercury Nashville.

Traveller

May 5, 2015 (2015-05-05)

RCA Studio A, Blackbird Studios in Nashville

63:04

Described by music publications as an old-school country, Southern rock record, Traveller received critical acclaim and earned Stapleton several awards. It was named Album of the Year at the 2015 Country Music Association Awards. Furthermore, it received a nomination at the 58th Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and a win for Best Country Album. The song "Traveller" also won Best Country Solo Performance. At the 2016 Academy of Country Music Awards it won Album of the Year, with the song "Nobody to Blame" also winning Song of the Year. It won the Billboard Music Award for Top Country Album in 2016 and 2017.


Traveller reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart after the 2015 Country Music Association Awards, during which Stapleton and Justin Timberlake performed a well-received duet. The album has been certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and has sold over 2.6 million copies in the United States by November 2019.[2] It was eventually ranked by Billboard as the bestselling country album of the 2010s.[3] It generated three singles: "Traveller", "Nobody to Blame", and "Parachute". "Nobody to Blame" reached the top 10 on the Country Airplay chart.[4] The album track "Fire Away" was accompanied by a music video.[5] Though not released as a radio single, album track "Tennessee Whiskey" garnered popularity following its performance at the aforementioned CMA awards, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and number 20 on the Hot 100.[6][7]

Commercial performance[edit]

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.[13]


Six months after the album was released, Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake performed "Tennessee Whiskey" at the 2015 Country Music Association Awards where Traveller won Album of the Year.[14] Following the performance, sales for the album increased 6,000%[15] 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.[16] 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, including 97,000 pure album sales.[17] The album track "Tennessee Whiskey" topped the Hot Country Songs chart,[18] and reached the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100.


The album sold 685,000 copies in the United States in 2015.[19] In February 2016, Traveller was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and double platinum in September.[20] It became the fourth best-selling album of 2016 in the nation, and the top selling country album, with 1.04 million copies sold that year.[19] The album surpassed the 2 million sales mark in the US in July 2017,[21] and it was the second best-selling country album of 2017 (after Stapleton's second album From A Room: Volume 1.[22] It hold the records for the most weeks atop the Americana/Folk Albums chart (81 in total as of August 2019).[23] It topped the Billboard Year-End Top Country Albums chart in 2016 and 2017.[24][25] It was certified quadruple platinum on July 24, 2019 for 4 million units in sales and streams.[20] As of March 2020, the album has accrued 4.3 million units in the country in total,[26] with 2.6 million copies in traditional album sales.[2]

at Discogs (list of releases)

Traveller

on YouTube

"Fire Away"