Latest Release
- SEP 27, 2024
- 1 Song
- Mud On the Tires · 2003
- Time Well Wasted · 2005
- F-1 Trillion (Long Bed) · 2024
- Mud On the Tires · 2003
- American Saturday Night · 2009
- Part II · 2001
- Greatest Hits: Decade #1 · 2011
- Time Well Wasted · 2005
- 5th Gear (Bonus Track Version) · 2007
- 5th Gear (Bonus Track Version) · 2007
Essential Albums
- The first single from Brad Paisley's acclaimed 5th Gear is a playfully romantic ditty with a catchy chorus about grooming a loved one for blood sucking parasites. "Ticks" climbed to #1 on the country music single charts before the album was even released, but it was the side splitting "Online" that shifted 5th Gear into overdrive with help from Seinfeld's Jason Alexander working behind (and in front of) the camera for the song's hilarious video.
- From the beginning, Brad Paisley was typecast as a great hope of traditional country—the kind of guy who could carry the torch for George Strait, Garth Brooks, Randy Travis, and George Jones. His songs were funny, warm, and fresh, but also indifferent to trend. In a landscape about to be filled with baseball hats, Paisley hung on to his Stetson. On his first few albums, you could hear the gears turning. By 2005’s Time Well Wasted, it became second nature. Like Strait and Brooks, Paisley’s songs had an offhand brilliance, familiar enough to make you feel like you’d heard them before, but novel enough to remind you that you hadn’t. Traditional, yes, but never nostalgic. Instead, Paisley treated evergreen subjects—romance (“Waitin’ on a Woman”), youth (“Out In the Parkin’ Lot,” with Alan Jackson), spiritual salvation (“Where I Get Where I’m Going,” featuring Dolly Parton), and terrestrial pleasure (“Alcohol”)—like the same human preoccupations they’d been in country music for a hundred years. An interviewer later asked Paisley what he thought the most important ingredient in his success was. The songs, he said. Almost everything here could’ve been recorded 50 years earlier, some in more or less the same form. The distinction was subtle, but real: Nostalgia ties to you to the past. But tradition? You can take tradition wherever you go.
- It's refreshing to hear Brad Paisley keeping things fun and playful while recording the kinds of traditionally rooted country songs that helped make Mud On The Tires go double platinum. The opening title track sets the tone with a breezy serenade written for either his girl or his truck, and Paisley's charm and lighthearted wit boosted this one to the top of the Billboard Hot Country charts. The sidesplitting "Celebrity" hit at #3 with a Bakersfield based twang and lyrics that make light of spoiled stars in a way similar to what Joe Walsh did with his 1978 smash "Life's Been Good." If you're looking for a cute love song, check out "Little Moments" that Paisley wrote for his wife Kimberly Williams. He also covers Bill Anderson and John Randall's "Whiskey Lullaby" (with a little help from Allison Krauss on the vocals) — a melancholy love song with powerfully moving lyrics that unravels an intense narrative about a heartbroken man who loved whiskey to death. "Spaghetti Western Swing" lightens things up with Redd Volkaert's Telecaster picking prowess and bits by Little Jimmy Dickens, George Jones and Bill Anderson.
- Brad Paisley has never been one to hide his tender side, and on his rootsy, playful debut album, he finds plenty of room for big, heartwarming country ballads. "We Danced" condenses an entire rom-com into three sweeping minutes, while "He Didn't Have to Be" expresses gratitude toward a stepfather who embraced the narrator with open arms. Paisley’s humorous side is on full display as well, with "Me Neither" rattling off a series of failed pickup lines over racing guitar and dueling pianos.
- 2017
- 2013
Artist Playlists
- A country mastermind with a sense of humor to match.
- The country star who's always true to himself on camera.
- A motley bunch of neo-trad crooners and Bakersfield shredders.
- More than just a gifted songwriter, he's a six-string demon.
Compilations
- 2010
Appears On
More To Hear
- The artists share how they give back and pay it forward.
- Brad Paisley shares stories from Nashville's 4th of July bash.
- Brad Paisley joins Kelleigh live to chat about new music and LP.
- Brad Paisley talks about his new project, City of Music.
- Brad Paisley discusses the explosion of country music overseas.
About Brad Paisley
Clad in an ever-present white cowboy hat and often armed with his 1968 pink paisley Telecaster, Brad Paisley stands apart as a consummate performer even in a genre rich with them—the flashy guitar is just the beginning. Paisley’s virtuosic chicken pickin’, sense of humor, and myriad non-musical talents have also helped make him a household name. Among those talents are acting and writing, and he even put together Brad Paisley’s Comedy Rodeo in 2017, but his songs remain his true legacy. While many country singers pick a lane, Paisley, born in 1972 in West Virginia, has explored subjects like everlasting love (“Then”), good times (“No I in Beer”), backwoods romps (“Ticks”), and even depression and suicide (“Whiskey Lullaby”). His ability to wear many figurative hats has built him for both prolificacy and longevity, netting 32 Top 10 singles in the two decades after his 1999 debut, Who Needs Pictures. And his knack for cleverly capturing the drama and comedy of the human experiment ensures that even a song like 2019’s “Alive Right Now,” planted firmly in our tech-riddled present, has an element of timelessness. As long as Paisley’s wielding his signature Tele, the laughs—and the tears—will continue.
- HOMETOWN
- Glen Dale, WV, United States
- BORN
- October 28, 1972
- GENRE
- Country