CHRIS STAPLETON TAKES STARTING OVER TO NO. 1OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASENEWS PROVIDED BY Universal Music Canada Chris Stapleton‘s Starting Over vaulted to the top of the Country Aircheck/Mediabase Country Chart. The title track from his acclaimed new album, “Starting Over” was written by Stapleton and Mike Henderson and is only his second chart-topping single as an artist following 2018’s “Broken Halos (also written by Stapleton and Henderson). This latest achievement comes ahead of this Sunday’s 56th ACM Awards (April 18th) where Stapleton leads nominees with six nominations in four categories: Entertainer of the Year, Male Artist of the Year, Album of the Year (Starting Over as both artist and producer) and Song of the Year (“Starting Over” as both artist and songwriter). Stapleton will also perform on the awards ceremony, which will broadcast from various venues in Nashville on CBS this Sunday, April 18th at 8:00pm ET/7:00pm CT. The nominations celebrate yet another monumental year for Stapleton following the release Starting Over, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart this past November. Out now on Mercury Records Nashville/Universal Music Canada, the country's leading music company (stream/purchase here), Starting Over is an album of startling prescience, featuring fourteen tracks that examine life’s simplest joys and most serious struggles. Once again produced by Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Cobb, the record continues to receive overwhelming critical praise and landed on several “Best of 2020” lists including NPR Music, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Esquire, Vulture, The Tennessean and The New York Times, who declares, “Chris Stapleton’s roar isn’t designed to scare you off. It’s regal, an announcement of an alpha figure asserting his primacy…on this, his fourth album, the thrill is back.” Recent critical acclaim for Starting Over: “Chris Stapleton may have the album of the year with Starting Over”—American Songwriter “a sure-footed masterpiece…one of the year’s finest albums”—Associated Press “Simply put, there are few recording artists in country operating at Stapleton’s level, and Starting Over keeps the bar very high.” —Billboard “a dynamite and dynamic new album from the mighty-voiced Kentucky native…the singer-songwriter is hitting new heights, nailing the crossroads of country, rock, gospel, and pop across 14 tracks.”—Entertainment Weekly “14 rich, intricately-wound odes to tiny admissions and big emotions”—Esquire “He has nothing left to prove, but somehow, he just gets incrementally better…This is as good as any of his albums and maybe just a tad better.”—Glide “mixes beautifully stark songwriting with blues, country, and rock melodies, allowing Stapleton’s sturdy, propulsive vocals to carry the show”—GQ “vividly exemplifies the complex emotional character of Stapleton’s best music. He’s burly but soft. Tough yet vulnerable. A protector of his loved ones and a man in perpetual search of shelter.”—Los Angeles Times “What makes Starting Over unique is its emotional center…Stapleton cuts through the tangled jungle of pre-COVID life like a machete, clearing a new path forward.”—Nashville Lifestyles “Chris is at the top of his game with this record. It sounds like a record from a great.” “Starting Over may be Stapleton’s best album yet…every song on the album comes as a perfectly wrapped gift to the listener”—No Depression “Regardless of where he’s going lyrically, Stapleton brings to each successive tune a rugged assuredness and a steely resolve: There’s never any doubt that he means what he says”—Relix “The chill Nashville trailblazer feels at home in songs that echo his pop songwriting and his “if Starting Over offers a statement of principles, it’s that Stapleton is going to make Stapleton music, equal parts country, Southern rock, raw sentimentality, and self-reflective singer-songwriter-ism.”—Slate “With Starting Over, Stapleton’s distinguished voice and artist’s soul shine.” “It is easily one of the best records I’ve heard this year. It’s easily one of the best country records I’ve heard in a long time. And I have no doubt it’s going to be one of the best country records I’ve heard this decade once everything is said and done.”—The Needle Drop “lands precisely where country meets Southern soul: with grit, details, clarity and ache.” “the results are stunning…his most personal work yet.”—The Ringer “expands a sonic identity and storytelling fervor that Stapleton established on his paramount debut, Traveller, and its two-part follow-up, From A Room Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.”—The Tennessean “He has [Willie] Nelson’s tender touch, but his bluesy side is much louder; his is a part-acoustic, part-stinging approach in which Nelson’s Trigger meets B.B. King’s Lucille.”—Variety “It’s every bit the tour de force his breakthrough album was…Elegant writing and delicate musicianship combine in an album ranking among the year’s best.”—Vulture CHRIS STAPLETON’S “ALL-AMERICAN ROAD SHOW” “ALL-AMERICAN ROAD SHOW” SPECIAL GUESTS with special guests Willie Nelson & Family and Yola%%with special guests Willie Nelson & Family, Jamey Johnson and Yola
Source Universal Music Canada
April 13, 2021 1:05am ET by Pressparty |